Absolutely painful. Dear god.

oh dear.

You're using the default obsoleted user interface model on a device intended for developers. Use one of the more modern OpenMoko software images for goodness sake.

The Qtopia based UI looks really nice. It still has some usability issues (it is still in development after all) - but is much better than the obsolete one you're using.

Could be worse, it's similar to pre-HTC Touch windows mobile devices bezel and keyboard-wise. The latter can be fixed through a firmware update I hope, same for scrolling.

The menu's awkward indeed(ui, behaviour and button), about the dpi statement, you don't need it to have a functional keyboard, really, you need it for other things, but not typing(neither you need multi-touch for it). They could've used a simple, standard, T9 keyboard instead of trying to copy winmo down to the invoke keyboard button.

scrolling: iphone gone very wrong
keyboard: winmo default keyboard gone wrong(not that the original much better)
app menu: uiq/palm(looked like you had to switch app category)

btw: check it out how long it took him to type gizmodo.com with the iPhone keyboard : vimeo.com/1318520 , same happened to me, HTC's T9 is still easier to use( you may not be familiar with it and it's hard to find on the web these days, just think of a 9-key mobile phone keyboard with predictive [more recent versions - post htc touch - are also context-based, but everything else is worse] text input, keys bigger than the ones from iphone's keyboard and multi-language support, equally easy to type with 1 or both hands ).

Someone has gotten money (and continues to get it?) to develop this? Terrible and a sad waste.

wow. that's just horrible.

Luis Abreu: "Check it out how long it took him to type gizmodo.com with the iPhone keyboard : vimeo.com/1318520 , same happened to me, HTC's T9 is still easier to use"

I clocked the video at about 41 seconds to type gizmodo.com, I whipped out my iPhone and tried it, I completed it in about 11 seconds, so I could probly type it 3 or 4x in the same time it took him to do it once.

My guess is he'd never used an iPhone before and hadn't had any practice with the keyboard. It's hard to make a comparison of how good or bad a keyboard is from some video without any context: does the person have experience with the device/keyboard? How much?

I can't compare the iPhone with the HTC T9, I have never used one.

I did the test a 2nd time, it took me 6 seconds. If you type something a lot, you'll get very fast on the iPhone.

Trust me.

Luis Abreu:

Please, don't start the HTC Touch stuff: they may not be train wrecks, but NOTHING like the iPhone and not ANYWHERE near it's usability.

You post a video of a guy, in a Store, trying out an iPhone for the first time, obviously and hasn't learned to double-thumb-type like every routined iPhone user does.

I can asure you, even if it is undecided if BlackBerry or the iPhone let's you type faster: the trade of you would have if the iPhone was actually a little slower is NOTHING compared to the overall benefits you get from the decision to exclude a static keyboard and not to include a stylus.

------

I don't understand why people always turn it kind of personal: it is not about Apple or HTC:

IT IS about FINALLY getting rid of I.T. NERDS "designing" the interfaces, which NORMAL HUMANS have to use in the majority.
IT IS TIME to get rid of the Stone Age mechanics, the Stone Age mentallity and the notion of having to include everything you can into a phone and the feeling to somehow make it like a Desktop OS.

Somehow there seems to be the notion that the DEVICE is the CONTENT, if you understand what I mean: fiddling around with cusomizing your Nerd OS, fiddling around with a ton of options is considered entertainment, is considered valuable.

Apple finally - and I don't care relgiously about Apple, but obviously the FSF is a bunch of religious Zealots if they are recommending this kind of BS over the iPhone and they are sp f****** up their own a**** with the reasons they have against the iPhone - had the GUTS to make the NECESSARY COMPROMISES and define what a mobile device can and should be today and for the next decade - or until the next tech. advancements makes another paradigm change possible.

There is nothing to discuss anymore:
Apple did it.
The best device - overall I have to say - the best mobile applications - and the Store is only a few days old - and the best infrastructure you could have for a mobile communicator.
I mean, fu**: I just plug it in, it syncs all my music, photos, contacts, bookmarks REALIABLE and without much configuration, IT MAKES A BACKUP!!! and Time Machine backups everything for double safety. How good is that for the user: and you don't even have to understand what's going on! FINALLY!

YES, it's true: NOBODY HAS TO UNDERSTAND how a device works. NOBODY!
The device must "know" HOW YOU WORK.

Windows Mobile, Symbian and Google OS seem all to be from exactly that Stone Age mentality I mentioned before.

Don't you really get what's wrong with a Mobile OS which features a friggin' TASK MANAGER? They all do!
But the Nerds moan that Apple doesn't let Apps run in the background. For %$§$ sake. Thank you Apple! Thank you for the elegant way of making Messengers still possible.

Finally:
My 93 Grandpa CAN USE my iPhone. He really does: he knows how to call, how to take and browse photos, how to pinch and zoom.
My Mum can, too.
My Girlfriend could do everything the iPhone can INSTANTLY.
No other device can do that. Not even regular cell phones.
And the iPhone does all this in a brillantly beautiful and entertaining way. Everything is logical and easy.

The Time for BS must be over at last!
It is about Humans, not about devices.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm so, so frustrated about the Stoneheads raging around and talking so much pointless stuff about the iPhone and even promote their stupidity and ignorance.

FINALLY USABILITY is in the focus, and finally somebody had the guts do to that and know Apple rightly earns the fruits and customers benefit from this so much as well.
It's like the walls are finally comming down.

Holy shit that is disastrous.

That was GREAT! More of the same, please.

OMG look at the size of those keyboard keys. Are they insane?!

The problem with the OpenMoko is their highest priority goal is to make a political statement, not a great smart phone. If you look for a great smart phone there you will be disappointed again and again. They will choose PC-hobbyist audio video formats over the ISO MPEG media that has been in use by professionals for decades and surprise their phone won't play any music even though it is advertised as a music player. This is similar to the con that refers to a WAP/WML browser as a "full Internet browser" and then pastes a screenshot of a real Web browser on the phone's advertising (Samsung Instinct is currently doing this). It all equals MASSIVE TECHNICAL DISAPPOINTMENT.

The reason the iPhone is a real computer in addition to a phone is not just that it has a shrunken-down PC hardware in there, with miniature OpenGL hardware and miniature RAM and storage ... it's a real computer because it's because the user interface elements work together to create a true replacement for the standard mouse+keyboard+display input-output device of the modern personal computer. Apple created a way for an iPhone user to interact fully with the Web even though the display they are using is smaller and has fewer pixels than the NeXT computer upon which the Web was written in 1990, which also had a mouse+keyboard. When you consider how much the Web has grown in technical requirements over the past 18 years, that is truly remarkable.

Nicely presented up to the point where you start opening your mouth. The OpenMoko Freerunner phone is NOT a competitor to the iPhone. Sure, when both products are sold to the end market users they enable the user to place phone calls. That's also where the similarities ends. I don't want to go too much into details here, just want to state two things for any viewers not knowing what to expect really:

1. OpenMoko and the FreeRunner is a project that aimed to create a free and open phone - this means that you can use it for any purpose and in any way you want to. It's goal was to produce a working product and they've reached phase two (out of three, the third being finalizing the software - read up on this on their wiki).
2. The iPhone is an appliance (a dump machine preprogrammed to do one or two specific tasks and nothing more) backed up by a company that want market share. You can't use if for whatever purpose you like (you'll be breaking the law and have some or all guarantees voided).

Therefore this comparison is really flawed (yet interesting):
1) one of the products is still in production
2) one of the products is generative and general-purpose aimed, the other is a locked-down appliance.

@ Fredrik

You can't be serious. By the looks of things the UI is so bad on the Freerunner that you can't do *anything* with it.

great, the Apple "nut cuppers " have penetrated Vimeo. Yes I'm a Mac user but why don't you all gather in a coffee shop in Cupertino and massage warm olive oil into one another and stay off the web?

As for great UI's? Ask Jobs why the interface on FCP, DVDSP, Compressor, Soundtrack, Motion et al sucks like Gruber on Ive's manhood?

It's a god damn phone who gives a toss and how stupid do you have to be to be unable to work out how to use any cell phone ffs!

shush!

Sorry for that first sentence - I truly meant to give that proper frasing. I honestly think that it's a good demonstration of the flaws. I was just too buzy playing PlayStation with my kid at the same time ...

@Project
You're soo right - it's not usable. And it's not supposed to be yet. There are three phases of which two are completed:
1. proove that it's possible at all (created what was called version1, GTAv1
2. finalize that hardware to support basic operations (theres no camera, no FM radio, no RFID, ...).
3. (and this is incomplete and where the project is standing right now) - make a suite of software finished so that it's usable to the average joe.

You know, Apple apologists are hard to take. But Fredrik's attempts to rationalize this piece of junk are just plain funny.

@Scott
I'm glad your amused. May you live a long, healthy life.

@Dave
Yes, the keyboard is rediculous at it's current precompiled state delivered with the hardware. Have you tried any of the other input methods? Since your evaluating the product I gather your a programmer of some sorts (as said before, it's not supposed be ready for the average joe/user yet) and you should really try the alternatives and post new videos of them.

I'm curious though, what disservice does the rather political "warning" issued by the FSF do to the iPhone? There's no lying, no complaint about the (rediculous) price, missing features (can't even send a contact to a buddy's phone) etc.

@ Frederik:

Wow, there's a lot of inaccuracy in your post. Let's start:

"Freerunner phone is NOT a competitor to the iPhone. "

Then why does the FSF advertise it as a competitor to the iPhone?

"this means that you can use it for any purpose and in any way you want to."

In theory, maybe. But in practice, the iPhone does a lot more than the Freerunner, and has more software available for it.

"The iPhone is an appliance (a dump machine preprogrammed to do one or two specific tasks and nothing more)"

Not sure what you mean by "dump machine" - but this statement is completely incorrect. Have you not seen that there are hundreds of applications already available for the iPhone? It does a lot more than "one or two" specific things. It's a handheld computer capable of running all sorts of code.

"backed up by a company that want market share."

Right... so who makes the Freerunner? I'm pretty sure it is assembled in factories by companies wishing to gain marketshare and profit. The processors in it are also designed and made by corporations looking to gain marketshare.

Do you believe that this phone is assembled by Open Software developers or something? Or perhaps magic FOSS pixies materialize it out of thin air? It's made for free as a charity case?

I'm really interested in kmnowing how you think the Frerunner is manufactured, if not by for-profit companies.

"one of the products is generative and general-purpose aimed, the other is a locked-down appliance."

Again, this conflicts with reality. The iPhone currently has a lot more general-purpose uses than the Freerunner, whose only function appears to be as an experiment for programmers.

"I'm curious though, what disservice does the rather political "warning" issued by the FSF do to the iPhone? There's no lying,"

What? The FSF's statement is full of lies. To name just two - they say that it allows people to track your location with GPS without your permission.

Secondly, it states that it is impossible to install Free Software on it. Once again, not true.

Then there's crap like "Apple puts you in a prison" and other unhinged, over-the-top rhetoric.

Their statement actually makes the FSF look very bad. Why do they need to resort to lies and propaganda to state their case?

o god, the keyboard is made for gulliver friends..

These are all valid points to make, but it's not smart to make a video and leave the most important bit of information out:

It's a developers phone!!

In the discussions on reddit, neowin or even here people are saying it's the worst thing ever and they should stop wasting their time trying to make it.
These people don't even seem to be aware that this is a work in progress, something still not meant for the consumer!

By making this video with such a negative tone you're doing a lot of damage to the openmoko name.

Once Openmoko finally becomes usable people will still be linking to these video's, probably.

It's all very well comparing it to the iPhone, but how does it compare to all the other handheld computers and smart phones?

It seems to me that every time Apple brings out a new product, it's praised and becomes a sort of holy step in consumer gadgets.

Everything after that product is compared to it. Windows was compared with MacOS, Windows XP was compared with MacOSX, again with Vista. Linux has been compared over and over with Apple OS's.

The iPod series practically dominates the market, even though there are hundreds of other players out there, and despite the fact that these other players are making their own advances in the field, and sometimes superceding the Apple counterpart, it's still not good enough for some reason.

Now it's time for the iPhone, a concept which wasn't invented by Apple, but due to the hype and success it developed we tend to forget that.

The problem with the comparisons - and they don't need to be comparisons, just review it - is that they start with the underlying statement, sometimes full out declaration, that the Apple product is wonderful and perfect, and yet another success produced by true genius. Obviously the competitor is going to look bad. It's like being in a room full of patriots and comparing their country to another.

I don't have a problem with the iPhone hardware, it's a wonderful piece of gadgetry, and seems to do what we want it to do, and with style, and the operating system it uses is good too. I have a few problems with the policies for being able to modify and personalize it, but as far as the general consumer is concerned, it's fine, a nice piece of electronic jewelry.

Just as the iPhone was Apple's entrance into the smart phone market, so it OpenMoko the entrance of the open source effort. While Apple is a huge company making products that people want to own, sometimes just for the sake of it - it's still just a phone after all - with quasi-limitless resources and backing, OpenMoko is a small but open company from Singapore trying to make a smart phone for which every aspect has documentation and is open and free to use.

The OpenMoko isn't the iPhone. It's not the black oblong that makes people's mouths water. It's equally not the a closed device, with closed hardware and limited development capacities, developed by hundreds of engineers, styled by experts and put in place by market experts, with a several million dollar funding. The OpenMoko is the effort of a small company trying to give people the opportunity to make their own smart phone and develop a gadget that's suited to them, and not a copy of the neighbours pride and joy. It shares values with the GNU philosophy and could have a slogan like Ubuntu, such as "the human smart phone".

In conclusion, and again, it's just not the iPhone, and just like the Bug Base, you should be warned that development skills, as well as an open mind, are needed to appreciate this project. Try looking past the flaws at what it really is.

Damn, I've been hearing about the phone and wanted to check it out, you saved me time with video; thanks Dave!

The iPhone is 10x the price of the FreeRunner in New Zealand and in some other countries. You are locked into 2 year contracts which cost up to NZD$6,200 dollars (USD$ 4,716).

So is the iPhone sexy, yes. Is the iPhone $6,000 sexy? hell no.

FreeRunner gets my vote.

Thanks for this tour, I have been looking for a good video showing the phone. I still think it could be worth purchasing if they fix the keyboard issue down the road.

@Buckyie
On your competitor note:
FSF has nothing to do with the FreeRunner or the OpenMoko project (though I'm quite sure GNU software will run on the FreeRunner). They felt that they should warn users from giving up their freedom and told them to wait for an alternative - the FreeRunner (which isn't finished yet - hence the word "wait" was used).

Yes, the iPhone is loaded with software that can perform a variety of tasks. The FreeRunner allows you to the exact same tasks and more (unless there are proprietary issues, patents etc).

But, you've got one thing wrong: You cannot run whatever software you want to run on the iPhone. If you believe I'm wrong - please point me to the documentation telling me how to turn on the GPS, get its coordinates, turn it off, turn the GSM module on, send the coordinates in an SMS, turn the GSM module, turn the phone off. (Hint: You aren't allowed to run whatever software you want to. There's no way you can make sure that some legislation authority isn't using your phone as a microphone. Don't get me wrong - it's not because of the "big brother threat" I'm bringing this up, but to prove that you aren't allowed to control the expensive piece of hardware in nearly the same way you are allowed (and encouraged) to with the FreeRunner.)

FIC is the company that has the capability of producing the hardware. They've already taken the same hardware and produced a "normal" commercial product out of it, the Dasher GPS.

The iPhone is an appliance, a dumb, slick nice looking machine (not dump :). You are not supposed to run whatever code you like on the machine, only code sanctioned by Apple. The SDK will probably not give you access to the complete hardware etc.

The FSF didn't lie - your location data (based on GSM network data, not GPS) is for sale in most countries unless there are laws prohibiting this. A flaw in the software used by the web application for Yellow pages in Sweden recently was disclosed which allowed anyone to lookup where any cellphone currently was at (within sweden).

Haha reading the description before the video, and then seeing the keyboard I actually did crack a laugh.

That's not out of the box. The out of the box keyboard was missing critical keys (no \, /, ;, or |) and much worse to use. Why on earth would you spend so much time bitching about a keyboard you made the decision to install?

Also, the application setup was different out of the box. You've added a bunch of apps to the phone you were doing the demo on. Once again, why bitch about trying to find the terminal application it was easy to find out of the box?

It looks to me like you read the "getting started" wiki page and did everything it suggested. That's a long way from out of the box.