BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple iPhone warning proves true

[Jay Vaughan]

> Never before has a phone needed updated software...
> Sorry, but, mobile phones are considered a disposable item in  
> todays world,
> with a 6 - 12 month life span at best. There's just no point in  
> releasing
> 'OS" updates for a product that has a life of 6 months.
>


The point is: phones are the new PC's.  Newly designed hardware such  
as in the iPhone and the neo1973 really is geared to provide the same  
sort of mechanics as we have seen with PC's.  The iPhone resonates  
because it is a manifestation of something we've all been feeling all  
along: pocketable computers should one day catch up and do the work  
of computers we've been lugging around or leaving on our desks for  
decades.  The time for the pocket-computer is here and now, and the  
iPhone is an instance of this ideology which, either way you look at  
it, just plain works.

Definitely, there is enough power in the iPhone or the neo to keep  
moderate computing users happy.  The question is: where are the tools  
to allow the open development market, a primary force in the  
expansion of computing power into any realm for which the job can be  
compiled?  That we are even having this discussion is evidence that  
even still, either some do get it and want to have a more embracive  
grip on what gets done with those tools, or some don't get it and  
can't see just how effective an open developer market can be in  
extending the purpose of the pocket-computing initiative.

I know where I stand: developing a sample playback app for the open  
source phone.  It rocks.   I can't wait to get the GTA02..

;
--
Jay Vaughan