
One specific idea, pre-approved for Y Combinator funding - rms
http://paulgraham.com/fixrazr.html
======
menloparkbum
The Danger team already accomplished what you want with the sidekick. Word on
the street is that Danger 2.0 (android) was acquired by google a few years
ago. Everyone I know who works at google (except the lame people) hate it.
Maybe you can figure out how to poach all those people.

Getting anything interesting onto an existing carrier's phones is a nightmare.
Not only will you need to make a better phone OS, you will have to start your
own MVNO. Helio has made an attempt - their "ocean" device might be worth
looking at.

~~~
gweb
I used to work on Razor software. I knew it was junk, but where to start
fixing it? There is a deep problem with the companies that create mobile
phones- carriers are their customers, but not their end users. The only
company that seems to be innovating at all is Apple, which has enough clout to
ignore what the carriers tell them and just bring something to market that
users might want. What can a startup do in this space? Sell their software
platform to a phone company? Motorola is taking ten years to switch to
Linux/Java platform. The only hope for mobile phones is that Wi-Fi or some
other technology will become capable of competing with the carriers. Until
then, most of the innovators will be holding their breath.

------
budu3
Check out OpenMoko <http://openmoko.com/press/index.html.> I think most phone
companies have a vested interest in keeping their phones closed but OpenMoko
might be a good alternative. It might be the 'firefox' of mobile phones.

~~~
lindsayrgwatt
It'll be interesting to see if OpenMoko can make a start of it. I used to work
in the wireless business and nobody is going to put their operating systems on
their phone.

What will be interesting is whether they can be the operating system that a
bunch of the Taiwanese ODMs use to become serious players in branded handsets
(rather than just making them for other people).

~~~
budu3
You're right. The big players might be hesitant to open up their OSs but from
what I hear even they know how bad their platforms are. I think some crazy
team will take OpenMoko and run with it which will cause the big guys to sit
up and take notice.

------
danw
Check out TAT[0], they make incredible looking mobile UIs. Also check out the
concepts from the Nokia design team[1].

[0] <http://www.tat.se/conceptlab/>

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=NokiaDesign>

(Just realised I'm posting far too much in this story. Mobile UI is a great
passion of mine. I think it's been downhill ever since the Nokia 3310. If any
one else is passionate about improving the mobile user experience then please
contact me at mobilaunch@danshub.com, I wish to pursue a startup in this area
soon)

------
edawerd
I was at CTIA a couple months back and got a demo of Openwave's "Adaptive
Mobility" suite. The site doesn't show very much, but I remember it being a
pretty slick, personalized UI for cell phones. I think they've opened it up to
allow people to develop widgets for it too. The problem is that it's just a
java program that runs on the cell phone OS, when really it should be the OS
itself.

<http://www.openwave.com/us/products/adaptive_mobility_suite/>

------
febeling
I think everything should be better than a RAZR. We use it as a worst-case
target device at our company. But, more generally, the power of carriers is
definitely a problem, and as I hear it's way worse in the US. Their biggest
nightmare is voip in the mobile, obviously, so I guess they simply try to lock
down any innovation in the usable mobile platform area.

------
zkinion
The main way to do this involves hacking/cracking firmware. Go onto p2p and
you'll find ready made images for a variety of phones. However, it is a
painful process for each phone, and phone model type. You're basically working
on many to get one, instead of working on one for many.

------
gyro_robo
This article sure makes the OpenMoko look good:
<http://research.operationaldynamics.com/blogs/andrew/software/openmoko/doing-
open-the-right-way.html>

------
lindsayrgwatt
I love my Blackberry interace-and it does multi app support no problem (I
frequently flip between GMail, my browser, Google Maps and my email inbox).

Anyone else here love their Blackberry interace or hate it? Anyone here have
an interface they like (and why)?

------
gyro_robo
Next funding round? So you plan on waiting until 2008 for someone to even
start on it?

~~~
danw
This page has been up since the application form for the first wfp was
announced if my memory is correct. Very little progress has been done in
mobile user experience in 5-7 years so a few more months wont harm anyone.

~~~
gyro_robo
Imagine if someone had jumped in 5-7 years ago...

~~~
danw
I would imagine they would still be trying to get operators to adopt the OS.
Mobile is tricky and slow, it's only now starting to open up.

------
far33d
Wouldn't this (supposedly) be the iPhone?

~~~
rms
The iPhone interface is certainly revolutionary but there's room for another
player in the mobile GUI marketplace. I'm not sure how you could make money
with this, but it's something useful that users want, so YC would say you can
figure out how to make money with it later. Probably by licensing the
interface to the major cell phone companies, they're going to want to catch up
to the iPhone.

~~~
aston
I think the challenge here is not to match the iPhone's interface, since that
would require matching the iPhone's hardware.

What would be better is a plug-in-able OS that would make the RAZR's menus
tolerable (and maybe could be used on phones with even worse hardware).

~~~
danw
The RAZR is quite locked down. I tried to create a better UI for it [this was
several years ago when I had a RAZR. worst mobile UI ever] but the problem is
that the only way in is to create a java app that has to be launched by the
user. This java app is hidden deep inside the menu system your trying to fix.

Nokia S60's on the other hand are a dream to customise. I'm working on a new
application launcher for my E61 right now and the difference is stagering.
Being able to run python on your phone rather than java or C++ makes
development tolerable. Hopefully nokias widgets coming this year will allow
access to phone APIs from JS/CSS/HTML, then mobile will be as easy as web
apps.

------
dawie
Just buy an iPhone

