Before we left for Hong Kong and Taiwan last month, I was taking suggestions from my friends about what we should bring back from Asia. Being that most of the cool tech gadgets and apps are being used and sometimes even considered “over” by the time they reach the US, e.g. phone’s that can pick up the tab. We half jokingly said that we should come back with the Chinese version of the iPhone.
To some degree, we did take this challenge seriously by slipping into the the phone malls in Kowloon to see what was available but found nothing interesting. Just as I was giving up the search, thinking that maybe had I purchased the All Asia Pass from Cathay Pacific then maybe we could double check the technology be stopping in Tokyo or Seoul.
On one of the last *rainy* days of our trip I found something that might be what I had been imagining. I had been searching online to see if there was any optimistic discussions going on about whether or not it would be possible to snyc Mozilla products with the new iPhone, (having just switched to Mozilla’s T-bird last summer I was not looking forward to moving to Apple’s Mail program), when I discovered the OpenMoko. OpenMoko is an open source platform for mobile phones. I quickly looked for who would be providing the phone that would run OpenMoko. Lo and behold, Neo 1973, the phone that is being used to test OpenMoko, is being manufactured by FIC, a small Taiwanese technology company! I thought that was great, an option, and optimistic option that there will be diversity in the cell phone industry via open-source, coming from Asia as we half jokingly predicted!
According to this letter from Sean at OpenMoko.com, the phone is still being tested and manufactured in limited quantities (~1000) for world wide distribution to application developers (Neo Base $300) and device hackers (Neo Advance $450)…So for everyone else, we’ll just have to wait. Which I don’t mind since I have to wait around for a better version of iPhone anyhow, might as well wait to see what becomes to this open-source option in the meantime.
As for the next version of the iPhone, I hope that AT&T is able to roll out G3 in as many cities in the US as they can, cause Apple doesn’t wait for anyone who can’t keep up with their vision. Remember what happened to Motorola’s PPC chip contract? …Or is Apple already aware of AT&T’s short comings and have already begun new negotiations with other carriers? I honestly don’t think that they will be satisfied by just revolutionizing the phone, I’m pretty sure they have their sights on the entire industry.
*A “rainy day” is an understatement for the amount of water that poured onto Taipei when we were there. Annual rainfall in Taiwan is about 8ft (98in/2500mm) double of what New York City averages, ~4ft (46in/1124mm). The coastal town of Huoshaoliao in Taiwan get as much as 21 ft a year (269in/6700mm), can you believe that!?!?
