Open-Source Mobile Options
This month’s focus is on mobile phones – it now appears that Apple is overwhelmed by the interest in their iPhone as a platform and at the same time the official Apple iPhone SDK seems to bring some serious limitations for both users and developers – for the sake of a safe and stable platform as Apple argues.
As always there is no platform without the users and as always it is up to the users to decide how they want to use their phone – here alternatives to Apple’s iPhone ecosystem:
Free Your iPhone
If you don’t know why millions of iPhone users have a personal interest in what is know as “jailbraiking” start reading here:
While the iPhone Project is aiming at offering “the most valuable resources for iPhone users, available. From a repository, to open source software, a forum, and a wiki (…)” the iPhone Hacks site welcomes its readers “to the source for all iPhone Hacks.”
Players in the Free-Your-iPhone-Arena:
The iphone elite dev-team site is about “Replacing what Apple left out.” See also the project’s page on code.google.com.
Ziphone is “From Zibri with love” and “ZiPhone 2.6b had 3.000.000 downloads!”
iPlusPnws “was created to provide information about iPlus and related iPhone applications.” The download page offers iLiberty, iPlus and Ziphone among other iPhone related software.
iPhone Linux features iBooter an “interactive Apple Bootloader (iBoot) Console for the iPhone and iTouch. Support for WinXP/Linux/MacOSX 10.5.2”.
The iPhone Dev Team Portal lets us know that the “information, statements, articles, and releases here are official” and while they “have the approval of the combined Dev/Elite teams” the “site and its contents are in no way affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Apple Inc.” The Dev Team’s current coding effort is the Pwnage Tool, a full release for both Mac and Windows is expected for “sometime next week”. (* Note the date when visiting this site on the 1st April… *)
For more information about what can be done with other Apple products in case you are not fully satisfied with the officially supported functionality see the popular Hackint0sh forums.
Android, OpenMoko and Movino
Outside the somewhat not too well enclosed walled apple garden there are the Google backed Open Handset Alliance offering an “early look at the Android Software Development Kit (SDK)” as well as the other main open-source mobile phone contender OpenMoko, for more about this project see the OpenMoko Wiki.
The mobile web is thought to be one of the “next big things” and in that context it becomes clear that all the efforts mentioned above are asking one question: who should be in control of the software that runs your mobile phone…?
At the same time mobile phones are (next to making phone calls of course) not just for surfing the web but more and more turn into broadcasting devices. A promising project in that context seems to be Movino: “Broadcast LIVE video from your mobile phone over 3G or WiFi onto your website. Or use your phone as a bluetooth webcam in Mac OS X. Free and Open Source.”
Find all of this month’s new links on our P2P Audiovisual Guide’s main page. Link suggestions and ideas for improving the guide welcome as usual.