Portable Processor Display and much much more

[Albertson Chris]

>>
> Frank, et al:
>
> I looked at building an iPhone app last year, after getting a first- 
> generation iPhone.  While downloading (and registering for) the  
> Apple development tools is indeed free, which I have done, I  
> understand it costs money to distribute an app via the iTunes  
> library system.  Also, iTunes is the only way to distribute iPhones  
> apps.  I believe that I was told that it costs $200 to be able to  
> distribute via iTunes.
>
> If that's the case, I don't think I'm willing to spend the time to  
> develop a free SDR app, but have Apple making money off my hard work  
> merely to distribute it.  Maybe others feel differently.

My idea was really simply "why not find some mass produced device?  It  
would be
cheape and better built then anything you could make at home.  The  
iPhone was an example.
There are likely other devices.  Maybe Nokia or RIM makes somethiing  
as good?

Back to the iPhone, yes you have to buy in to get the app distributed  
via Apple's app store but you can avoid paying two ways
(1) The fee is "per organization" not per person.  So you join an open  
source "club" that has already paid or
(2) you distribute it informally any way you see fit.
#1 is best because few iPhone users would know what to do with a .tar  
file

Also there is an effort to port a version of Linux to the iPhone.   
That would over-write Apple's firmware and run on bare hardware but  
this is still not ready for prime time.  I read it just booted and as  
yet does not do much more than boot.

Competing with iPhone is Google's "Android". Android is more open but  
there is as yet not a lot of good hardware