Your Cellphone is going Open Source! so what?
For those of us tired of carrying around 4 or 5 gadgets in your pocket right now or tired of their $200.00 brick of a phone, this article may be encouraging.
Over the past year, new advances have been emerging in the area of the mobile phone industry that’s have cellphone makers raising their eyebrows. Among the major pieces of news was the fact that Google is introducing a new standard to develop mobile applications using their Android SDK. The toolkit has everything from the Linux 2.6 kernel, Webkit, SQLite, OpenGL and other libraries built with C/C++ so that you may be able to build your application from the ground up and as you see fit.
The Apple iPhone, seen as the trailblazer for next-gen mobile systems are also reluctantly opening it’s phone to third party developers. So much can be done with it’s UI system ( the term “blank slate” is fitting here ) that it just makes sense to allow developers a shot at creating applications for it. Initially Apple had a very closed attitude about letting developers at the heart of their sleek machine but realizing the competition, they finally had to concede. Regardless of what they say, my gut feeling is that Apple’s definition of “open” might only be as deep as the core libraries and NOT the OS itself.
And now it seems like Verizon is joining the Open Source Movement by announcing today that it will be opening up their network to outside devices and applications by the end of the first fiscal quarter next year. It will work something like this: You will be able to sign up for a Verizon plan with any network authorized phone that you purchase. Applications can also be built for the phones but the safety of these applications will not be monitored by Verizon.
There is no doubt about it: the mobile platform is going open source. So what does this mean to you?
More choice - No longer do you have to settle for your choice of [ crappy phone A ] OR [ crappy phone B ]. In fact, if the hardware becomes secondary to the software, the more homogeneous the hardware will appear. Thus, similar to the PC, it will be the software taking center stage on your cell phone. C’mon… I mean, let’s not kid ourselves - the only reason why cellphones have such stylish exteriors is because they’re so shallow on the inside. [ hmm... need to stay away from tangents ]
More innovation - You better believe that once the development community can focus on the task at hand without restrictions such as licensing, they will be able to produce truly breakthrough features that nobody would imagine today.
More savings - Since most costs associated with developing are mostly development costs, [ versus licensing costs ] you can bet that you will see a severe drop in cellphone prices.
Less security - With technology this open, there’s always a chance an opportunistic individual might take it upon themselves to run away with your precious data. [ Think pictures of your wife and kids OR your bank account information ]. As we try to better grasp the consequences of an open mobile model ourselves, most of the gaping security holes will be recognized and fixed. Others might need a couple of quick patches. Eventually, there will be a new market to treat mobile infection.
As these open source mobile models improve, it is not a great leap to think that this is feeding yet another emerging field - the post PC device. One step at a time…
Tags: Gadgets, harvesting the web, Software