Comments on: Shipments of Open-Source Smartphones May Hit 223M By 2014 http://theappleblog.com/2009/07/02/shipments-of-open-source-smartphones-may-hit-223-million-by-2014/ TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:46:23 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: dave http://theappleblog.com/2009/07/02/shipments-of-open-source-smartphones-may-hit-223-million-by-2014/#comment-48842 dave Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:10:16 +0000 http://theappleblog.com/?p=27476#comment-48842 This entirely depends on your definition of 'open-source'. Just because you can view some part of the OS source doesn't necessarily mean you can load it onto the phone you buy. Most Smartphones today are built on at least part open-source, including Apple's (as I believe iPhoneOS is built on top of Darwin, just like MacOS X). Symbian is or soon will be available under some open-source license. And Android is only 'mostly' open-source, as parts of it aren't readily available. So, this is really a pointless article. End-users don't care and it makes no direct difference to them if the OS is open-source. Developers don't care, because all they can do is look at the source, not actually install it on their phones. If anything, it could make it worse for them, because instead of getting good documentation for their development tools, they get a 'just look at the code' response. Developers only care about the SDK available for an OS, and how to deal with capabilities of different phones. Open-source only makes a difference to manufacturers, as they need to pick one that they can get up and running on their phone, and developers will create applications for. This entirely depends on your definition of ‘open-source’. Just because you can view some part of the OS source doesn’t necessarily mean you can load it onto the phone you buy.

Most Smartphones today are built on at least part open-source, including Apple’s (as I believe iPhoneOS is built on top of Darwin, just like MacOS X). Symbian is or soon will be available under some open-source license. And Android is only ‘mostly’ open-source, as parts of it aren’t readily available.

So, this is really a pointless article.
End-users don’t care and it makes no direct difference to them if the OS is open-source.
Developers don’t care, because all they can do is look at the source, not actually install it on their phones. If anything, it could make it worse for them, because instead of getting good documentation for their development tools, they get a ‘just look at the code’ response. Developers only care about the SDK available for an OS, and how to deal with capabilities of different phones.

Open-source only makes a difference to manufacturers, as they need to pick one that they can get up and running on their phone, and developers will create applications for.

]]> By: Champs http://theappleblog.com/2009/07/02/shipments-of-open-source-smartphones-may-hit-223-million-by-2014/#comment-48802 Champs Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:07:27 +0000 http://theappleblog.com/?p=27476#comment-48802 There are plenty of people on the planet using "whatever works" on their phone, and they are happy with it. There are still going to be billions of folks using the 2014 analogue of inexpensive candybar/flip phones on cheap/prepaid plans, and a few iterations of Android/WebOS are going to run those devices. MobileMe isn't much of a selling point as a $99/yr addon, either -- the other OSes do enough of what it provides for free. There are plenty of people on the planet using “whatever works” on their phone, and they are happy with it. There are still going to be billions of folks using the 2014 analogue of inexpensive candybar/flip phones on cheap/prepaid plans, and a few iterations of Android/WebOS are going to run those devices. MobileMe isn’t much of a selling point as a $99/yr addon, either — the other OSes do enough of what it provides for free.

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