the future is here!

http://www.openmoko.com/freerunner.html

i saw this link today, it got me most excited.

phones like the neo runner, why do we not have commercial versions of them? the hardware seems perfectly friendly for a non developer to use it. why not sell it to the masses and make more profitable for developers to make apps, and hacks to it. sort of fill the gap between say the smartphones (blackberry), and the iphone.
with the amount of emphasis on portable devices now, wouldnt it make sense to have a model on the market where its easier, customize it to our needs, in the true sense of the word, but on a larger level. something like a closed chat group. more secure phones, that can handle more data flow. applications that connect various daily activities. phones that can be used as tourist maps. things like that.

i am no developer, so i dont really understand the limits of something like this. but potentially, the free runner with the right kind of push, could beat the iphone out of use.

but this is what makes the iphone successful.

1. blig value. the big shots have it. the shows we see, have the cool ones on the iphone. people show it off as if its a needed device and an object of desire at the same time. becomes easy to justify to your conscience.

2. the appstore. nothing seels like the free stuff. once you get your world hooked to the free, slipping them to the paid ones is just a little leap away. like they said, free is the new currency. the app store has millions of free things, app versions of big applications.

3. ease of use. even the non techies flock to it. the oomph is just too much to ignore.

4. the gamers and the users. everyones device.

5. the os. oh god dont get me started on that. the first os that is made for us fat fingered slobs. touch screen devices can bow become touch screen devices. with an os so simple that designers from yesteryears should kill themselves for not having thought of it earlier, and sticking us with things like mouse, pointers and other things that dont do touch screen things.

i am an apple fan, so most of this must sound like fanboy stuff.
so what i was coming to was that its no longer necessary for devices to be just good technologically, but also need the added free stuff.

which the freerunner already has by the ton load. so why does no one else pick it up! WHY?!!!

{the first part is the letter i wrote to someone. the second part i left out. for reasons of decency}