There are better ways to handle one's customers than displayed by the CS employee here, but be that as it may: think long and hard before you get into the business of taking $3 a month from people who are demographically similar to Redditors.

The problem with Gruber is that he'll write a fair analysis only as long as the fair analysis favors Apple. This means we won't get a fair analysis from him on things like the patent war and app store high-handedness. Sometimes he'll do a great piece. Sometimes you have to sift carefully for the bias. Then there are articles like this - insults, lies and condescension:

- Lyons has always been an ass, but when did he get so bitter?

- you just look childish when, only after losing the auction, you then claim you didn’t really want the thing anyway (google never cried sour grapes on nortel)

- Motorola knew they had Google by the balls. ... and they made Google pay and pay handsomely

The trick is not to get fooled by the reasonable-sounding phrases like: Another way to look at this story... and That’s not to say it wasn’t a bold, brash move, or even... the right move.

To those of you discussing Gruber's position on patents: it is the patents that change position relative to Gruber. :)

edit: typos, formatting

On a related note, Portland recently blew $36,000 draining a reservoir after a guy peed in it.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011...

The reservoir is completely open. Untold numbers of animals pee, poop, and die in it every year.

It isn't a smartphone, it's a computer. This is the real "one laptop per child".

It is truly disruptive: in 1.5 years (Feb 2013), that $80 will buy twice the RAM, processing power, flash etc (or sooner, as they may well beat Moore's law via economies of scale).

Wow, I got shivers up and down my spine at the Medkenya: as usual, disruptive platforms carry disruptive applications atop. This can really change the world. All the great things that computers can do, these "smartphones" can do - not just angry birds.

Apple can't compete here, because they are only interested in cutting-edge technology that will not work unless it is put together with great ingenuity. It's essential that someone lights the way as Apple does; but it does mean that they have to keep inventing the next new thing to remain viable.

EDIT oddly, they are priced $176-249 here in Australia (our AUD is currently worth 5% more than the USD). Guess it's priced by market. And of course, you still need to pay for connectivity (I wonder how much that costs in Kenya?). A review and specs: http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/mobile_phones/huawei/id...

I work in Rwanda (http://www.nyaruka.com/) and we're currently doing a project for an NGO that is using the Ideos for a variety of different things, the pricepoint really is amazing.

For one, we're using them to act as SMS gateways to generate activation codes. Essentially they receive confirmation messages for mobile payments to a particular number and we wrote an Android app that generates a unique activation code and sends it back to the payer. Better than a PC because it's cheap, has redundant power, redundant network and better connectivity with the GSM world.

The other task we're using them for is to act as network attached barcode scanners for inventory control. Essentially using the camera to read QR codes and allowing people to move / receive / send inventory using a rich app interfacing to the cloud based backend we are building. They are amazing for that.

I guess my point is that this isn't just a milestone for the consumer, it is a milestone to have an easily programmable, portable, GSM connected device with a camera and a touchscreen that only costs $80. Nothing else compares.