←back to thread

Ask HN: Why is it so hard to design an open-source smartphone?

6 points hamburgererror | 1 comments | 16 Oct 25 07:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source

Following the discussion around Librephone [1], it seems that every project regarding open source smartphones OS are centered around the software only.

Lineage and GrapheneOS have proven that reverse engineering is hard. So I'm wondering why can't we have a project that starts from scratch and build the electronics and the OS? In the same spirit of what Apple did with iPhone+iOS. I'm sorry if I sound naive, I just don't realize how hard it is to design a smartphone.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45586339

1. toast0 ◴[16 Oct 25 17:28 UTC] No.45608180[source]▶
> So I'm wondering why can't we have a project that starts from scratch and build the electronics and the OS?

That was kind of what OpenMoko was ... the end result was pretty lackluster IMHO. Starting from a finished, proven hardware design is probably worthwhile to avoid shipping a phone that can't actually connect to real networks, and can't actually make phone calls if it does connect.