Linux for iPhone May Open the Door to Android iPhone

Here you have it. Linux running on the iPhone. Yes, it’s only the first port, but it’s the iPhone running the Linux OS, controlled with a USB keyboard running off the iPhone multi-purpose port thanks to the reverser engineering of Apple’s hardware drivers by iPhone Dev Team member planetbeing. And while it is still limited and doen’t have support for many things, this work opens the door to a much more interesting thing than just a character-based terminal: Google‘s Android running on the iPhone hardware.

Just imagine that. Google taking the smartphone war directly into Apple territory. Sure, most people would not care about this, but if Google does this—and most probably not even Google directly, but someone else using Android’s codebase—it would really make things interesting. I, for one, would love to see this happening, even while I personally think that Android is half-baked and most people will ignore it. For now.

At this time, the Linux port has the framebuffer driver (for video), the serial driver, serial over USB driver, and drivers for the interrupts, the clock, and miscellaneous hardware components. They don’t have most of the other things, like write support for the NAND memory, wireless networking, touchscreen drivers, sound, accelerometer, and, one big and, the baseband chip, which is what makes the iPhone communicate with the cellular networks.

But the fact is that it’s getting there and, knowing this, I’m sure several Google employees are scrambling to get the codebase for this port, and maybe help in the effort.

ZzzPhone Is Second Google Android Cellphone Ever

According to CrunchGear’s John Biggs, the second-ever Android cellphone doesn’t come from Motorola, Nokia or Sony Ericsson. The Zzzphone is a full-QWERTY keyboard Chinese slider which apparently runs the Android operating system, and has a web site designed in 1994.

It not only runs Android, but it also seems to have mutant powers. This thing can do absolutely everything:

Welcome to zzzPhone; the world’s first unlocked quad-band mobile featuring the Google Android Operating System. It not only works everywhere in the world, but also can be built and personalized per your custom requirements with GPS, Wi-Fi, your choice of seven colors for cases, and 15 other optional buy-ons. This powerful smart phone, with up to 32GB of memory, also happens to be the world’s first phone with snap on modular accessories such as full QWERTY keyboard, mini boom box, projector, ect.; making it the most versatile and adaptable phone on the planet.

Enhanced features include: The world’s first phone with snap-on projector, the option to add a full QWERTY keyboard, upgrades to 4 stereo speakers, an extended battery that lasts up to 2 weeks, and MORE!!!

“MORE!!!”? More than all that? John says that he has bought one himself, which they said is coming in 10 business days. For how mucho dinero, you ask? With all those things and possibilities, it sure must be $400? $500? No. It’s just $119. And for a few dollars more, you can even buy it in a different color. Cheaper than the G1 and the iPhone. You can even buy a gold and diamonds version for $225,000. Or just wait for John to get his base model and wait to see it it’s just made of cardboard or blows on his ear.

Google Android G1 phone selling better than expected

Chicago (IL) – HTC has increased its shipment expectations of the G1 phone, which is a sure sign that the device is selling at a much faster pace than anticipated.

According to a report published by Digitimes, HTC now believes that it will be able to ship one million G1s in the fourth quarter, which is a 40% increase over the initial 600,000 estimate. The company revised its unit forecast for the Touch Diamond as well – and now believes that it will ship 3.0 million devices instead of only 2.0 million.

Digitimes reported that HTC’s business has not been impacted by the global economic recession and the company is “planning to acquire a handset design company in the U.S.”

The G1 is tied to T-Mobile, but can also be purchased through Wal-Mart stores. According to the retailer’s website, the price of the G1 varies by store. However, the device is selling for $148.88 at some locations – which is $31.11 below T-Mobile’s price of $179.99.

Flash Coming to WinMobile & Android Phones, not iPhones yet

Adobe’s Flash Player is on 98 percent of all desktop computers, but it is still struggling to make the jump to mobile phones. If you want Flash on a mobile device, right now you have to settle for a compromised version: Flash Lite. Monday Adobe will demonstrate the full Flash Player 10 running on a Windows Mobile phone, and will ship in 2009.

Why tethering is stupid and unnecessary

Everybody’s talking about tethering, which is the use of a cell phone to connect a laptop to the Internet. Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Palm phones have done it for years. Soon, iPhone and Android-based G1 phones will, too. But tethering is slow, awkward and lame. We have to do it for one reason only: AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and other carriers are greedy, and have no vision.

I’ve been tethering for years and I hate it. It takes too long to set up. If you use a USB cable, it’s awkward to manage at the airport while waiting for a flight (should I balance my phone on my carry-on bag or just put it on the floor?), and it adds one more thing you have to remember to pack. But most of all, it’s just hideously slow. The data translation and transmission through USB or Bluetooth just wrecks the online experience.

Don’t get me wrong. Tethering is great for people who want quick-and-dirty, rock-bottom cheap connectivity only occasionally, and without a small additional charge for mobile broadband electronics built in. But for most users, who would like to connect from anywhere using their existing cell phone data plan, tethering is a ridiculous, burdensome kludge created artificially by carrier greed.

Connecting via cell phone mobile broadband is much, much better when you do it directly from the laptop itself. But that requires a second, expensive data plan.

Have you ever wondered why?

The reason is that — in case you hadn’t noticed — the carriers want to rip you off. These are the people who charge $2.49 for a ringtone based on a song you’ve already purchased on iTunes for 99 cents.

Some people actually pay $2.49 for ringtones because they really, really want to avoid the horrible ringtones that are provided free. But that’s the business model: Make your customers suffer some indignity in order to coerce them to pay absurdly high rates for what they really want. That’s what tethering is: It’s the indignity carriers make you suffer in order to coerce you to pay astronomically high rates for a second data plan.

You should be able to pay a tiny extra fee for each device you add to your cell phone data plan — say, an extra $5 per month, plus the higher number of minutes or bandwidth you end up using because your laptop is now connected at higher speed. Adding a second device to your existing plan is a simple administrative change that could easily be made by the carriers.

But the carriers are addicted to coercive pricing like crack. They want to force you to sign up for a separate, second plan — or, as an alternative, you they can punish you by making you suffer through the inconvenience and bad performance of tethering.

How much extra do they want to charge you? The answer is complicated because carriers love confusing, arbitrary and unpredictable pricing plans. But typical mobile broadband data will set you back between $30 and $60. If you own the laptop for three years, that means you’re going to typically pay between $1,000 and $2,000 just for the data — probably more than the laptop itself.

That’s why most users don’t do it, and are grateful — at least at first — for mobile broadband.

But think about how awful that is. The carriers force you to choose between an acceptable experience, and pay more than you paid for your laptop, or a totally unacceptable experience, and pay only extra data charges for it.

The result, which is apparently acceptable to the carriers, is that you’ve got a tiny number of suckers (or business users with expense accounts) paying 10 times the price of what mobile broadband is worth, and the majority paying nothing extra and hating the experience.

The current carrier business model for laptop mobile broadband guarantees that everybody is miserable.

There once was a time when home Internet providers would charge you a second or third plan for each home PC you connected. It’s hard to believe now, but they really did that.

It should be equally hard to believe that essentially the wireless carriers are doing the same thing. But worse. Carriers like AT&T are aggressively pushing for not just laptops, but digital cameras, GPS devices and other gadgets to also use mobile broadband. Do they believe we’re going to pay between $30 and $60 per month for each device?

It’s time the carriers stop this punish-or-gouge model, and re-write their own arbitrary rules for data contracts. Accelerate, rather than smother, this potentially lucrative business by making the additional cost of adding another device to a data plan reasonable, rather than absurd.

Google Seals Up Android ‘Jailbreak’ in Automatic Update

It only took Google about three days to recognize, examine and fix the vulnerability that allowed Android phones to be ‘jailbroken’, and users should see the fix (update RC30) pushed to their phones over the air during the next few days. From the mouth of the Google:

We’ve been notified of this issue (Jailbreaking of Android) and have developed a fix. We’re currently working with our partners to push the fix out and updating the open source code base to reflect these changes.

So what do Android users stand to lose from this Apple-like vigilance?

At present, very little. The so-called ‘jailbreak’ was of a completely different nature than the app-enabling hack that iPhone users are now so accustomed to. The technique was a telnet trick that allowed for easy root access to the operating system, so the reality of the situation is less like a ‘jailbreak’ in the iPhone sense, and more like finding the administrative password on a desktop Linux system.

The exploit did provide more access to the the Android’s core functions, some of which could be useful for app development and porting to other phones, but it also exposed a gaping vulnerability that would be immediately shut on any other Linux distribution. Google’s patch is most accurately characterized as a security fix, not a party poop.