jphone.org is a project by David Herron
to look for news and discussion related to the new cell phones entering
the market. These cell phones have capabilities far beyond what
we are accustomed to, and are hopefullymore open allowing for much greater flexibility.
We
are asked by technology leaders to stop thinking of cell phones as
telephones, and to think of them as portable computing devices which
happen to have an embedded telephone applet.
The site name is
clearly a twist on 'iPhone', the device recently released by Apple.
I've been reading the news and discussion leading up to Apples
phone, and afterward, and my take is that many people had high hopes
the iPhone would be an open device allowing for great freedom.
The device fell short of that desire while at the same time has sold
very well indicating it is attractive to many people.
Some
people have gone to great lengths to unlock the iPhone making it a more
open device into which they can install any software. Others have
turned their attention to cell phone developments by Google and Sun
hoping for a more open design.
This site is focusing more on the
development of the JavaFX Mobile and what role it will play in cell
phones. Java is available in zillions of cell phones but the
ability to install Java apps has not resulted in an 'open' cell phone.
Perhaps as the plan for JavaFX Mobile is to create a full cell
phone software stack, the resulting phones will be more open.
I've used the word 'open' several times in this description, and what is meant by that word?
In
the computer industry the word 'open' is loosely defined and open to
many interpretations. 'Open' can mean that the widget implements
open protocols or other specifications, such as the Open Software
Foundations efforts with Motif and CDE and other technologies in the
1990's. The software in question was closed source but it
implemented open specifications which theoretically could have been
implemented by anybody. 'Open' obviously can also mean 'Open
Source', a method of sharing source code in a way that preserves
freedoms associated with sharing the code.
In this case I'm
using a more modest meaning. While there are efforts to have an
open source cell phone, such as the OpenMoko platform, open sourcing
hardware designs is fraught with difficulty. I think many would
be satisfied with a cell phone into which we can install "any"
application. That is the meaning I'm using for 'open' in this
discussion, a portable computing device into which I can install a wide
range of applications and for which I can write my own applications.
The Feed sources and resources
page lists the places from which material is drawn for this site.
It is an aggregation of a mix of links I am recording in
del.icio.us, and certain blog resources.
Disclaimer:
I, David Herron, am an employee of Sun Microsystems. This project
is hosted on my own web server and done in my spare time. However
because of my employment I am limiting what I personally write here.
The content being hosted here is primarily links to articles and
blog postings from around the Internet.