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OpenMoko FreeRunner Linux phone to launch on July 4 |
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Written by Daniel
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Thursday, 03 July 2008 |
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OpenMoko has announced plans to launch the Linux-based FreeRunner mobile phone on July 4. By Ryan Paul | Published: July 03, 2008 - 08:57AM CT
The highly-anticipated open source handset will be distributed through OpenMoko's web-based store and will begin shipping on July 7. The FreeRunner will also be available from several vendors in Europe and India. The FreeRunner, which is designed from the ground up as a hackable and open device, was first unveiled in January at CES. It is the successor of the Neo1973, OpenMoko's first handset. Unlike the Neo, which was primarily intended for an audience of developers and hardcore enthusiasts, the FreeRunner is aimed at the broader consumer market. Although the software is still a work in progress, OpenMoko will provide software updates following the launch that are expected to incrementally improve the product and increase its viability for a nontechnical audience.
OpenMoko's software platform has undergone some significant changes during the FreeRunner development cycle. In order to ensure that it would be able to provide basic phone functionality at launch, the developers backpedaled on their GTK+ strategy and adopted some Enlightenment E17 technologies and parts of Trolltech's Qtopia platform. The result is a more complete and responsive environment that mostly works in its current state. In the future, they will likely be leveraging the lightweight E17 components more pervasively throughout the environment. In addition to enabling users to build applications with an impressive variety of toolkits and programming languages, the underlying platform itself can be modified, improved, or even replaced with something completely different. [ARS Technica...] [Comments...] |
