Need an open mobile platform (SW+HW) for extensive experimentation

Question

Hey guys, I'm building a middleware that sits between a mobile phone and other remote systems to provide a generic service thru a thin software layer on the device/remote systems. Prior to choosing a particular mobile platform (OS + hardware) to use, I wanted to see my options as I don't want to be tied to any particular system like Android, Symbian, iPhone OS, Windows Phone, et cetera. This also includes dependence on a device vendor like HTC, Nokia and Apple.

The question:

What do you suggest?

Recommendation for both a specific device model as well as a software stack (all the way from OS to application interface) is appreciated.

Answer 1

For your software stack you could try PhoneGap ( http://www.phonegap.com/ ). It's basically packages a web application into an embedded browser fullscreen window (technique similar to Adobe Air). You then write the application with HTML/Javscript/CSS etc, with an option to bridge to native code. Hence spans many mobile platforms.

Appcelerator/Titanium ( http://www.appcelerator.com/ ) provides something similar, and you can get commercial support.

Edit: Both these software stacks pushes a quite MacOS -centric development model, but that might be just as well given the iPhone's dominance on the market. And for iPhone dev, you will have to have at leas access to a Mac, PhoneGap or no PhoneGap.

Subjectively, I find Google's Nexus One to be a very nice developer (and all-around) phone. Easy to root too ( http://androidandme.com/2010/01/hacks/video-how-to-unlock-and-root-a-nexus-one/ )