Wake up, folks, the Neo/Freerunner/whatever is *NEVER* going to be available as a "consumer" device. It's *always* going to be a developer's plaything, and it will never settle on a reasonably static design. The Neo1973 version was supposed to be available to *consumers* at the end of last summer (but never was or will be), then the GTA02 by Christmas (and that still isn't even available to developers and probably never will be to consumers), and since then they've simply refused to give any more information about release dates at all. We'll be lucky if even a GTA03 reaches reaches consumers; until they have a device that has acceptable battery life, selling to consumers is a no-go. Contrary to the propaganda that's been spread, GTA01 sold out before last fall, and nothing has been available since then other than transfers of ownership (unless maybe you happen to have had the right connections). A major part of the problem is that it is not as "open" as they want everyone to believe. The reason it's taking forever for the device to be released is because there is a very small group of individuals who are allowed to work on the really important stuff - because it's *NOT OPEN!* All the community is allowed to do is work on user-installable apps and otherwise non-Neo-specific OM projects. They're keeping the important hardware and driver details and development from the community. They also seem to be more concerned with the OS than with the hardware. The bottom line is that they've bitten off more than they can chew. It's a great idea, but it's a much bigger and more difficult process than they imagined. The complexity of the legal issues certainly isn't helping, and they're learning all of this the *hard* way, and for the first time, because none of them have any previous experience with the big picture of what it takes to bring a consumer product from scratch to market. If you want a device that's been out for a long time, has a bigger and higher-resolution screen, and *just works* right out of the box, get yourself a Nokia N800 (or if you have money to burn, an N810, although to me the addition of the keyboard and built-in GPSr are more than offset by the doubled price, removal of the second SD slot and reducing the remaining SD slot to a mini-SD). It costs a whole lot less than the Neo ever will, has a very active open-source community, and has 90% of the hardware functionality. And the best part is that it's *not* a phone, so it will be useful for years, and will not get outdated and tossed aside nearly so quickly. If you need the features a phone will get you, just get a cheap "dumb" (*real* quad-band GSM, or even CDMA or TDMA if that's what your network uses...) phone that has bluetooth to connect to the Nokia (if you don't already have one), and *still* be out a lot less cash. I obtained a tiny BT GPS for under $50 that works perfectly, and I can use it with my laptop and car PC as well. And with all that *still* paid significantly less than a GTA01 would have cost. Adding a compact BT keyboard (at $100 - what a rip-off!) will bring it up to a bit more than a GTA01 (which doesn't have a hardware keyboard either...), but still a lot less than a GTA02 will be, and again the keyboard will be usable with other devices just as with the GPSr.
I'm *not* saying you shouldn't support them, because nobody is hoping more than me that they'll succeed. I'm just saying that you shouldn't be holding your breath to get your hands on a usable device. By all means help however you can. I wish I were able to develop applications; I'm learning, but the curve is steep. :-( If they ever do actually come out with a "consumer" level device, with true quad-band GSM, either stereo speakers or at least a stereo speaker amp (even if it keeps only one physical speaker) so I can hack it myself to be true stereo (which the Nokia has out of the box, by the way...), a power/charging jack that is separate from the USB port (which would make host-mode a no-brainer, although having a separate host USB jack would be even better), and without that bizarre hole in the case that compromises outgoing audio quality and makes hardware packaging difficult (they could have kept the second speaker if it weren't for that), I'll be first in line. Each of those items is a deal-killer for me. It would also be nice, although it's not a deal-killer, if they would either add a new memory slot or move the existing one so that it's accessible without removing the battery. Until then, I'm extremely happy with my N800. (I bought my N800 in January, after it became abundantly clear that GTA02 wasn't going to be available for a very long time.) _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community