The other open-source platform that sprung up around the same time as Android isn’t doing so well. Vodafone’s two handsets, built by Samsung, failed on the market according to reports (and the fact that no one seems to know a soul who actually bought one), but now it’s thought that even the handset partners are reneging their interest in the platform. More »
If anyone ever brings out a phone that looks like this, I’ll have 10 of them, thangyewverymuch. A proposal of Californian design studio RKS, the Mimique is all about skins and downloads—a customizable phone with bells on, basically—using, as it does, open source software. I just love that old-school antenna bump and the analogue clock. See another picture of it after the jump.
It looks like Verizon Wireless is super duper committed to open development, because they’ve just joined the LiMo Foundation board of directors. LiMo is “an industry consortium dedicated to creating the first truly open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.” Verizon isn’t dropping support for Android (or any other OS) as a result of the move, but LiMo will become their “preferred OS,” with the first handsets dropping in 2009, starting out as simpler devices and moving into more complicated ones as they “get smarter.” Unfortunately, it looks like the clunky red UI you’ve grown to loathe will remain intact, however. This gives Verizon a fair bit of say in how mobile Linux develops as well—and provides yet more competition for Android. Full press release below.
