Guys, come on. The bit about being a replacement for the iPhone was a joke. It's a toy. It's meant for nerding around with. It's not a production device. You probably shouldn't be depending on it to actually work more than 10% of the time.
It's a model airplane. It flies, it's kindof neat, but it's pretty much totally pointless beyond being tons of fun.
"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."
Ah, mindless, out-of-context quotes. What next, the Ghandi line about laughing/winning/etc.?
This is a kit for microcontroller enthusiasts. It is not meant as some sort of alternative to anything Apple or Android or Palm or Nokia, except jokingly and in the minds of people not actually reading that page closely.
This isn't some basic version of a cutting-edge technology, it's just an 8-bit microcontroller with some geegaws. If someone wants to make yet another low-end handheld game and make some money selling it in discount stores, more power to them...but you aren't going to compete with many far more advanced platforms in the same arena.
If you want to pretend otherwise, by all means drop some pithy, defiant quotes and condemn my lack of vision...and we'll still both know nobody's going to build an iPhone-killer out of this.
Come on. $69 for a handheld touchscreen computer that you can program however you want? You'd have to be incredibly jaded to not reflect about how amazing this is. You'd have to be deliberately ignorant to not be able to imagine things you could do with this. iPhone killer no; but that's not the point.
No, you come on. You're the guy who was calling someone a troll for pointing out exactly what you just admitted - that it's a really neat hobbyist kit, not an iPhone competitor.
I'm sorry this miscommunication has caused you so much consternation; I will readily agree it's no iPhone competitor at this time. It may even be a toy. But don't dismiss it. That's all.
People aren't saying they're going to build an iPhone-killer out of this.
They're saying it's a good platform for messing around and prototyping wacky ideas, ideas which might end up with potentially for being turned into real products (with 'real' production values, technology, supply chains, etc.)
Of course people aren't going to write a couple of programs and then sell an 8-bit microcontroller off the shelf, but as a platform for experimentation - that's what it's good for.
I'm reminded of this silly little microcomputer from the 70's, where all you could do was flip switches and watch lights blink. There was a company that wrote a BASIC for it. Then, five years later, IBM came out with a much more capable microcomputer and that company made their real fortune by selling the OS for it.
The punchline being, of course, that sometimes a toy is just a toy, no matter what you end up doing with it.
Also, it's particularly distasteful for you to throw around a quote about "forum trolls" in response to what multiple people here have correctly pointed out - people here are misreading what this item is.
It's a model airplane. It flies, it's kindof neat, but it's pretty much totally pointless beyond being tons of fun.