SMS is required + fix for battery drained isse (was: 2007.11 snapshot available)

Bernhard Kaindl bkaindl at ffii.org
Wed Dec 5 01:45:11 CET 2007


On Tue, 4 Dec 2007, Jon Phillips wrote:

> Priorities for mass usage:
>
> 1. phone working
> 2. acceptable battery life (1 full day without charge)
>
> Am I wrong?

It depends how you define as "mass" and "usage".

Maybe it is enough for the US, but if you define the average European 
mobile phone user a part of "mass", then you are wrong and yes, text
text messaging (SMS) is an absolute requirement for European mobile
phone users.

While some die-hard developers (even European ones) may consider SMS
an obsolete concept which was there before email over GPRS was possible,
SMS is still an essential communication medium in Europe which is even
an requirement for feasible mobile phone (GSM) use in middle-Europe,
at least.

While it could be just considered convinient to be able to exchange
information with people which are in meetings, lectures or a libraries
for study where they cannot talk (one friend, I __can__ only contact
by SMS) and even if you would put aside that it is part of culture to
exchange private SMS messages in Europe (and I assume also Asia), there
is one additional reason why it's not a practical solution to live
without SMS in middle-europe:

There are several reasons why one is not reachable all the time even
with the Neo: One might be out of network coverage, out of battery,
in meetings, lectures, libraries or (e.g. movie) theater, or sleeping
and for that people in Europe use a mobile phone box which every german
network provider provides as part of their standard offerings. These
mobile phone boxes inform the called person of received calls and
voice messages over SMS. If you do not get these SMS, you'd have to
constantly poll the voice mail box, you'd never get to know about
people trying to call you but not leaving a message and the polling
would get pretty expensive when you are abroad due to roaming costs.

So can we __please__ put the thought of text messaging (SMS) being
optional for mass __usage__ (not resting, as it's now) to rest now?

Of course it's not neccesary if you do not plan to ready the Neo for
mass-sales in the next 5 years. By then maybe everying is done thru
mails, but for now, it's all still done thru SMS in middle Europe at least.

BTW, SMS works with Qtopia: http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Qtopia_on_Neo1973

Thanks.

Besides, the SD card is not very practical to use if you do not have
a way to exchange from the outide without hasse (means: whithout having
to remove the back cover, battery, sim card and have both SIM and SD
mounted in this fragile way). So I agree: Mass Storage mode for the
SD card would be something expected by the average user here as well.

Of course, standby (suspend time) of more than a day would also be
required, and it's also not tolerable that the Neo sits dead on the
USB cord for lots of hours when the battery is drained:

Either the 500mA charging has to be available at all times (also
when the battery is is completely empty), or a charger which is
able to instatanously power-on the Neo so that there is no
interruption in phone use when the battery is completely drained
must be provided.

Alternatively, an additional battery for replacing the drained
battery, to power the device would be needed.

Otherwise, OpenMoko == "mobile" Phone is a big joke for me.

Bernhard - A GTA01v4 owner who will not be able to use a GTA02 as
 	   phone if the charging issue is not fixed, the suspend
 	   time issue is not fixed in the GTA02 and SMS is not
 	   provided.




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