Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary

[Marcel de Jong]

Hi renaissance man

On 1/18/07, Renaissance Man <renaissanceman at macmail.com> wrote:
> Well, thanks for the interesting discussion. Sorry for riling a few
> people (happens when you challenge people's preconceptions). Look
> forward with eager anticipation to the Neo v2. Hopefully I wouldn't
> have been sucked into the iPhone ecosystem before then.
>
> And, to those who think I'm wrong about the combination of GSM and
> WiFi/VoIP in a mobile device, you're just wrong and I'll be emailing
> this list in 2-3 years time (with a link to this discussion) to
> gloat, because so many of us will be using such devices and saving
> millions on our phone bills. :)
>
> Renaissance Man

Gloat all you want, but I ask you, who will pay the bandwidth bills?
(take a guess... Yes, that's right... the user of the network, ie YOU)
Sure you might save millions on phone bills, but you spend almost as
much money on bandwidth bills (do you really think that municipal WiFi
also means free VOIP? There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Everything comes at a cost)

I don't think that 'saving some money on phone bills' is a killer app.

Yes, Wifi on the Neo is cool, though it would slurp battery life.
Given the choice, I'd rather have a long battery life (at least 24
hours) and no Wifi, then have Wifi and only be able to use my phone
for 5 hours (the estimated battery life of the iphone).

Second thing. For a revolution you need people who stand behind that
revolution. If Neo rev.1 would come out with Wifi, but has no or a
small audience, I'd hardly call that a revolution.
Let's first be sure that this isn't vaporware, get people developing
for the platform, creating real killer apps, and then look into this
wifi-thing. Get more users attracted to the phone, because it has this
awesome program that everyone really needs, and oh yeah, it also has
VOIP possibilities because of the built-in wifi... then you can claim
'revolution', but not solely on the Wifi.
Currently there already are wifi enabled phones. For instance Skype
phones etc. And those aren't really selling like hotcakes. Okay,
indeed most aren't GSM phones, but still they have Wifi, they will
also save you phone bills...

Those are just my two cents,
Marcel