Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary

[David Schlesinger]

On 1/17/07 5:17 PM, "Renaissance Man" <renaissanceman at macmail.com> 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.

You can go out and buy a Nokia 800 or a Sony Mylo today for the price of a
NEO and do VoIP right this instant. If it's changed the world, I guess I
must not have been paying attention.

> Killer app: "a computer program that is so useful or desirable that
> it proves the value of some underlying technology"

See above. Nobody's killed, or died, over a Nokia web tablet (something
which can't evidently be said about Nintendo game consoles...)

> 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.

Ditto.

> 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).

Okay. As much as I hate to inject any sort of air of reality into these
proceedings...

The revolution evidently has a bunch of people who don't see that the value
of half (or ninety-five one-hundredths) of a loaf exceeds that of no loaf at
all.

As has been noted, it's a lot easier to post an email message saying, "Just
add Wifi!" as though it were some sort of syrupy substance you could pour
into a tank on the device, but there's actually more to it than that.

"Just adding WiFi" affects power management at a hardware level
significantly, for starts--that WiFi additive stuff doesn't help your
mileage a bit--not to mention complexifying your entire board layout, which
is doubtless cramped to begin with. Do you understand that rerouting and
retesting a board, retooling an assembly line, updating unit-level testing
(you want this to _work_, right...?), etc., etc. all takes time...?

It does. A bunch of time. Not to mention going back to square one on any
regulatory certifications you have in the works, etc., etc., etc...

So, I doubt "just adding some WiFi" would have the effect on the schedule of
"just adding a month". I'd put my money on it adding four to six of 'em.

Is it worth waiting for? I dunno. If you want VoIP that badly, buy the 800.

I'd like to have this line of discussion officially declared "silly",
please.