Neo handset developments

I thought this article would make a nice follow up to my earlier posts about the Neo1973.
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/080207-portrait-of-a-linux-iphone-killer.html?page=1

If you haven't read my earlier posts (search for them in the top left search box) basically the Neo1973 is a new all linux, open source, gsm mobile phone. Everything with the exception of the gsm chipset is totally accessible to the user.

What does this mean?

Well among other things it means you can write your own code to pretty much control everything on the phone - if you want to write an application that ignores phone calls when you are travelling at more than 20kph (eg driving) then you can write this software.

If you want to write an application that tracks calls and on a real time basis send them to an external database you can.

And there is the kicker - this device is really just a mobile extension of anything you want to interact with. Because this phone runs desktop Linux any application that works on the desktop will pretty much compile onto this tiny mobile handset.

From the article it discusses how enterprise customers are looking at this handset as a possible tool to create "custom" versions of their own software eg. If you work as a sales rep for coca-cola it will have all your sales tools built directly into the handsets (also keep in mind the neo1973 is the first model - they are already working on a multi-device unit, think something similar to the Palm Folio or the HTC Shift product) and because it's Linux you wont need any special developers to create the code (eg no learning Symbian or Windows Mobile code).

If you think the i-Phone web apps were cool you haven't seen anything yet.

The only downside however is I've never know developers to understand UI so for this reason the apps will probably all look as ugly as sin - not necessarily but probably. lol.

I've posted earlier how it 'hit' me when consulting to Savaje (an earlier all java mobile phone OS-search for past posts) that an untethered device with access to the external world was so important (lol then spent 24 hours writing up a really cool matrix of various applications along with the complexity issues - if you are a developer and want to partner get in touch for some thoughts).

It also made me realise how restrictive our current mobile phone 'offerings' actually are. Obviously a 1000 other people thought so as well because the initial beta trial run of 1000 Neo1973 handsets has already sold out.

Either way will be interesting to see what issues or successes comes out of this.


Cheers,
Dean