Mobile Linux software vendor Trolltech has launched what it is calling the first fully reprogrammable mobile phone, called Qtopia. “A major divide that separates PCs from mobile telephones is that while designers can freely reprogram a computer’s software, most of a phone’s functions are fixed at the factory.”
The $690 phone with attendant software and source code is not aimed at consumers but designers, with the intention that they will find it easier to create new features for future mobile phones (assumedly running the Linux mobile OS), and there’s a suggestion that a company might find it economical to design a phone specifically for its employees and then get 1,000 of them made.
In other mobile Linux news: “Access and its subsidiary PalmSource used the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo going on this week in San Francisco as a backdrop to announce their new Access Developer Network. The online resource is designed to speed the development, distribution and usage of mobile Linux applications, according to the companies.”