FR and iPhone - how can they be compared?

Flemming Richter Mikkelsen quatrox at gmail.com
Fri Jul 25 01:36:52 CEST 2008


Today, I read [1]. I also read [2], and it is basically the reasons
there that made me buy the Freerunner some weeks ago (look
at the question part). That, and that it is a cool device to hack
on! (Anyway, the iPhone is big, ugly and with a low res. screen:p)

The Freerunner is doing very well, being recommended by FSF,
OSM, etc, and got a lot of publicity slashdot, linuxdevices.net
and many other places.

Also it is very nice to use as a phone. I use it as my primary
phone, with OM2007.2. As soon as I get some time, I will try
to write some code for it too. There are a few issues, but if
there where nothing to fix, the phone would not be of any
interest to me. In stead of seeing limitations, one should see
potential:) That is the beauty of free software :D

One simple way to make custom hardware, is to add
something to the USB port, since the USB_ID pin is
connected to an ADC. I bought a lot of 5 pin mini USB
plugs, and inside one, you can actually fit a complete
mini circuit.

I have one that works as a flash light, and one for measuring
humidity. I plan to put the sensor inside, once I have written
some code that actually works.

I also ordered a small camera, so I will try to see if it works
"out of the box" or if some code needs to be rewritten.

The camera I bought does not have the correct electrical
interface, so I need to make an adapter (USB or BT). It is a
wireless cam,  which I will mount on my radio car:) I will add
some hardware and make a simple GTK app, so I can control
the car from my phone (and see the output from the cam). I
hope I ever get the time to do this.

[1]
http://digg.com/linux_unix/5_Questions_Give_Apple_the_iPhone_Challenge_2
[2]
http://static.fsf.org/dbd/iphone-action-handout.pdf




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