Future of the handheld industry
Changing operating systems like the PC time?
Do you remember the time, when you bought a PC and you or a friend installed Windows on it? Or was it Linux? Hardware without operating systems and the choice to install the one on them, you think is the best.
This is where smartphones and tablets are heading. There is no difference between the PC world and the handheld world. It is all the same.
Changing operating systems on the phones and tablets is getting easy. With unlocked bootloaders, installers for Ubuntu Touch and Firefox OS a new era is about to begin.
On my Nexus 10 tablet, I am using Ubuntu Touch now. The installation was just 3 commands and two file copies. If I’d used Ubuntu on my laptop, it would have been even more easy. The steps are at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Install for all available Nexus devices.
Mozilla goes one step further. There is a page at the MDN how to port Firefox OS for any device: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/Porting And there are already builds for the Nexus 4 for example.
And of course it goes the other way around, too. Last month I installed Android on my Geeksphone Peak.
Changing Android ROMs on devices was for many Android geeks a daily habit. Now they can bring it to the next level. Not just changing ROMs, but changing the whole operating system.
The software is there, the choice is there. The only thing missing is the adaptable hardware. Phoneblocks or something like it could dramatically change the whole handheld industry.
What do you think? Is this going to be the future of the handheld industry?
