Home IPhone Coming Next Year

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It may look like an iPhone, but it's actually a home phone/information center that's meant to sit on your coffee table, phone table or kitchen counter.

IP telephony company OpenPeak’s iPhone clone for homes is production ready, says Amy Mikolasy, OpenPeak's director of partner marketing, and could be in the market by the first quarter of 2009.

Florida-based OpenPeak has been working on the slick IP media phone, called OpenFrame, for about a year and a half now. “We have done the end-to-end product design, from hardware to software and the device management system,” says Mikolasy.


The phone has been designed as an interactive information and communication center for the family. “It is meant to replace the home phone, which has been left behind by technology,” she says.

OpenFrame owes much to Apple's iPhone -- not just its design, but the whole ecosystem of services surrounding it.

The phone will be manufactured by Open Peak but is likely to be distributed by telecom service providers. Meanwhile, third party software developers can create applications for it, much as they can with the iPhone.


The device will come with some core applications, such as calendar, news, weather and the like.

“One of the beauties of the product is that it is dynamic,” says Mikolasy. “It is really a blank screen of opportunity.”

The phone can also be used as a digital picture frame, or a device to listen to internet radio, she says.

OpenPeak is partnering with telecom service providers in the U.S. and internationally to bring the phone to market.

The phones will mostly be available to users through telecom carriers such as Verizon and AT&T, but retail distribution is also a possibility, says Mikolasy.

OpenPeak hasn’t firmed up pricing but says it is looking to hit the $200 to $300 price range that its research suggests as a sweet spot.

The Apple connection even goes beyond how the phone looks and works: Former Apple CEO John Sculley is an investor in the company. In November 2007, Open Peak said it had raised $30 million in its Series C round of funding.

Open Peak’s phone had its moment in the spotlight at a keynote in the Intel developer conference Tuesday because it uses Intel’s Atom processor.

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OpenPeak designs end-to-end systems that allow telephony, messaging, photos, video, and internet services to be combined on compelling consumer devices for the home. We accomplish this by developing hardware, software and services that work together.

With the introduction of the OpenFrame, OpenPeak has created a new product category: the third screen for the home. In the same way that smart phones redefined what people expect from mobile phones, the OpenFrame will redefine what people expect from a home phone.

the company has been showing off production-ready units built on Atom chips at IDF. OpenPeak says that the ease of building for IA32 sped up development completely, and that only a fraction of the CPU is being used, giving the product room to grow -- probably a good thing, seeing as it supports open application development, rich services, and syncs with your PC and cell phone contacts and calendars. Of course, that still doesn't change the fact that it's a landline phone, and we're just not certain consumers are really clamoring for a $200 to $300 landline phone

Slotting an Atom into a home phone just sounds plain ridiculous, but the Home Media Phone is more than just a VoIP handset and base station. The base station (which doubles as a speaker phone) has its own software platform, developed in flash and furnished with a full API, and serves many purposes of a PC in a picture frame-sized package. The current set of apps is adequate, but after using it for a few minutes it became very clear that the Home Media Phone could actually be a fantastic net appliance.

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Like half the products at IDF, this the Media Phone has a touch interface, which at the moment looks an awful lot like the iPhone's. Using it is easy, and it's at a size and orientation that makes for comfortable casual use. The screen was responsive enough for sustained use without frustration, and navigating the interfaces was--and this is really the only thing that matters on these small devices--painless. The handset was attractive and felt solid, though it's currently not touch-enabled (I was assured that this would be rectified by launch).

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In its current state it's difficult to see what exactly the Media Phone is meant to do. It's got no browser, but an RSS reader. It can connect with home automation software and control household electronics, but it's stuck to the wall with a power cord. In response to these concerns, the guys at the booth were keen to tell me about the API, which would allow developers to enable a vastly larger set of apps and features. Those customizations will be the deciding factor in whether or not this phone is at all successful. Well, that and its price. OpenPeak says that their first units could ship to customers as soon as January of next year, and they will all be sold with subsidies as part of VoIP service contracts. Negotiations are under way, but the OpenPeak guys say it's conceivable that the units could be free

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