OpenMoko has announced plans to launch the Linux-based FreeRunner mobile phone on July 4. The highly-anticipated open source handset will be distributed through OpenMoko's web-based store and will begin shipping on July 7. The FreeRunner will also be available from several vendors in Europe and India.

The FreeRunner, which is designed from the ground up as a hackable and open device, was first unveiled in January at CES. It is the successor of the Neo1973, OpenMoko's first handset. Unlike the Neo, which was primarily intended for an audience of developers and hardcore enthusiasts, the FreeRunner is aimed at the broader consumer market. Although the software is still a work in progress, OpenMoko will provide software updates following the launch that are expected to incrementally improve the product and increase its viability for a nontechnical audience.

OpenMoko's software platform has undergone some significant changes during the FreeRunner development cycle. The developers backpedaled on their GTK+ strategy and adopted some Enlightenment E17 technologies and parts of Trolltech's Qtopia platform. This will eventually provide a more complete and responsive environment. The FreeRunner currently ships with a GTK-based stack, but users can choose to update to the Qtopia-based ASU. In the future, they will likely be leveraging the lightweight E17 components more pervasively throughout the environment. In addition to enabling users to build applications with an impressive variety of toolkits and programming languages, the underlying platform itself can be modified, improved, or even replaced with something completely different.

The FreeRunner, which is priced at $399, will be available with either 850MHz or 900MHz tri-band GSM support. The device offers a 400Mhz processor, 2.8 inch VGA touchscreen with a resolution of 640x480. It also includes WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, two accelerometers, 128MB of SDRAM, and 256MB of storage.

Although the versatility of the device makes the FreeRunner an exciting product for programmers, the lack of 3G support will most likely be a deal-breaker for many mobile phone users. I suspect that, instead of being adopted as a personal smartphone, the FreeRunner will primarily be used as a development tool for prototyping Linux-based mobile phone software platforms.

The FreeRunner will offer application developers some really intriguing possibilities. I'm personally looking forward to porting some of the tools and utilities I've made for my Linux desktop computer with Python and GTK+. There is also a lot of room for innovative platform development. For instance, KDE developers are already working on making porting KDE 4 run on the device.