Father of Linux Linus Torvalds Buys a Nexus One

We’re not usually concerned when someone buys a Nexus One, but when it’s the father of Linux Linus Torvalds the guy who self admittedly hates cell phones – “they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever – and a cellphone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you are. Which is not a good thing,” – well that’s news worthy.

Torvalds has owned a number of phones, including Google’s G1 device and ”one of the early China-only Motorola Linux phones,” before he finally broke down and bought one from the company’s web store. It took Google’s addition of multi-touch capabilities to the Nexus One to make that happen. He admits that his G1 was mostly used to play games while on long flights.

Torvalds’ loving it:

But I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn’t enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I’ve wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful.

And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I’m dragging a phone with me “just in case” I would need to get in touch with somebody – now I’m having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead. The fact that you can use it as a phone too is kind of secondary.

Google couldn’t buy better advertising than having the father of Linux espouse the virtues of the Nexus One.

[via: linus' blog]

Share on digg