OpenMoko Open Source Beat Apple iPhone

There seems to be a lot of hype surrounding the newly released Apple iPhone. Boasted by Apple as a “Revolutionary Mobile Telephone” the iPhone packs new technologies never seen before in a cell phone. well, this isn’t entirely true. Sure the iPhone has Wifi capability and uses Safari explorer to access the web as if using your home PC or Mac but it certainly has its limitations, with the phone only available on contract for 1 year from AT&T and add-ons and widgets only available from registered suppliers and manufacturers, hackers are desperately trying to crack the iPhone to open up its capabilities.

Enter the OpenMoko Neo 1973(pictured:above left, against the iPhone:above right), first seen last November the Neo 1973 shares a lot of similarities with the iPhone except one very important specification, the Neo 1973 is the only cell phone based on open hardware specifications, this means that all the hardware and software code is open to developers, engineers and designers to build on and potentially create things even far more exciting than the current Apple iPhone. Upgrading your phone applications becomes as simple as downloading a new ring tone or installing new software on your PC or Mac.

The Neo 1973 is GPS equipped enabling worldwide web surfing direct from the phone. When linked via USB to your computer the Neo 1973 will connect to the web much like an Air Card or GSM modem PCMCIA card becoming an easy portable way to connect to the web. The phone is quad-band and open to any network allowing the user to choose from pre paid credit or a contract Sim Card. The Neo sports a 2.8inch VGA touch screen and a 64MB internal memory with a micro SD card allowing for up to 1GB of extra storage space.

The first Neo 1973 available directly from Openmoko.com was pushed out early to allow developers to begin writing device drivers, custom GUIs and some cool apps for the phone, the first model (GTA01) lacked certain functions such as Wifi or Bluetooth and may be the reason why its press release didn’t cause much of a stir but a new model (GTA02) due for release to the mass public in October, promises to incorporate such functions.

Because OpenMoko consists exclusively of open-source software, the Neo1973 comes with limited applications including a dialer, email/text messaging client, phonebook and media player, however many additional open source applications will be available through feeds and downloads.

The Neo1973 will also ship with an “apt-get-like” software manager that makes it trivial to add, remove, and update applications packaged in the OpenEmbedded package format, including thousands of existing open source applications from the OpenZaurus, Familiar Linux, and Angstrom projects.

There are many similarities between the two phones but with the un-restricted access to upgrades and new software, when the new Neo 1973 is released towards the end of the year, Apple may have to step up their game and incorporate the same technologies.