Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary

Mike fromlists at talkingspider.com
Thu Jan 18 02:41:26 CET 2007


Renaissance Man wrote:
> On 18 Jan 2007, at 12:57 am, Richard Franks wrote:
> 
>> I disagree - VoIP via WiFi is an obvious evolution rather than 
>> revolutionary.
> 
> But you're looking at it from a geek's point of view instead of a 
> typical end-user's point of view.
> 
> Anything that allows me to go from spending £45 plus a month on mobile 
> communications to effectively zero, including talking to my parents who 
> live on the other side of the planet, is revolutionary.
> 
>> I don't think it's a 'killer app' either - in the terms of the phone 
>> manufacturer who is more likely to benefit from getting 6-12months 
>> lead and market share in an unexploited but growing market (Open 
>> Source Mobile Phones).
> 
> Killer app: "a computer program that is so useful or desirable that it 
> proves the value of some underlying technology"
> 
> I couldn't think of a better example of a killer app than sticking a 
> piece of software on a device that lets people speak to each other 
> around the world effectively for free.
> 
> The revolution won't have people saying, oh man, I want one of those, 
> because it's open source. They'll be saying, oh man, I want one of those 
> because I can communicate with a mobile device for a pittance (open 
> source will simply be one way of doing it).
> 
> Renaissance Man

I mostly agree with this guy...

But I have to say that the OSS nature of the openmoko may breed entirely 
new killer apps that you, nor anyone on this list, has imagined.  And 
that's the beauty of opening something up, and that's revolutionary.

At first, the geek perspective is "oh man I want one of those because 
it's open source", true. But tomorrow the general public's perspective 
may be "Oh man I want one of those because I can run CommunitasticoMoko 
1.0."  You may ask, what's CommunitasticoMoko going to do?  Beats the 
hell out of me, and that's the point.

Remember, everything big starts with the geeks being way so into it, 
loving it.  Like for example, oh I don't know, how about computers, the 
internet, phones, electricity.

So, wifi voip would be a killer app. But I'll bet there's other killer 
apps in the pool of possiblities.







More information about the community mailing list