181–190 of 299 posts
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I think they released a new one with Linux pre-installed. I might look into that if I can sell my current one.
Oooh very cool. I wish Apple still had Target Display Mode as a feature on their devices, it'd be great to toss this in a bag as an "I might need a real computer" concession and be able to use my iPad as an external display for it.
My primary concern with this is that different applications are inherently optimized for the platform on which they were originally designed. There are some applications that have a very dense UI because there's simply alot of functionality that the program handles (think of a video editor, an IDE, etc). Trying to slim down those applications to make them reactive so that they will scale onto a phone or tablet just s…
I have the GPD Win that I bought a couple years ago, which is more or a less a Nintendo-DS-Sized computer running "real" Windows, and I love it. I can do programming on the train, even while standing up, as well as use all the tooling that I like, including Vim actually. The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy. Something that has always bothered me is that smartphones are…
There was a small community of users who were building applications (mostly built with GTK+) that were often of higher quality than what I got used to on Android now. They could be installed via the App store equivalent or just using apt-get from the terminal.
There were some great "Whoa, this works?" moments, like running the full-blown Arduino IDE and flashing something via USB-OTG or writing a Python script that makes the phone act as a sonar. And everything almost with the ease of a Desktop-PC, just a bit slower :)
I went through four used N900s (they unfortunately aren't very durable) before I gave up and got myself an Android because the web became too bloated and slow. I still miss it every time I'm using my phone for anything different than calling someone or taking a photo. I just had to get that off my chest.
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I have the GPD Win that I bought a couple years ago, which is more or a less a Nintendo-DS-Sized computer running "real" Windows, and I love it. I can do programming on the train, even while standing up, as well as use all the tooling that I like, including Vim actually. The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy. Something that has always bothered me is that smartphones are…
"but I feel incredibly limited in what I can actually do with my iPhone" That's because they're intended to work as media consumption devices rather than productivity ones. If someone feels productive on a phone, he or she has very likely adapted herself to the device than the other way around. I had to struggle yesterday with my GF new phone because her lawyer sent her a paper in .doc format using Whatsapp (no kiddi…
I've been very happy with my OpenMoko FreeRunner for about 10 years now. It's running Debian (QtMoko), can send and receive calls and SMS, has WiFi, a Web browser, games, text editor, etc. I can also do anything from the terminal (locally via a terminal program, or remotely via SSH), including "apt-get" from the standard (although outdated) Debian repos.
My only annoyance is that the old QtMoko on-screen keyboard had really good predictive text, but it got removed in an update (apparently it only worked well in English and German; but that didn't bother me as I only know English)
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"but I feel incredibly limited in what I can actually do with my iPhone" That's because they're intended to work as media consumption devices rather than productivity ones. If someone feels productive on a phone, he or she has very likely adapted herself to the device than the other way around. I had to struggle yesterday with my GF new phone because her lawyer sent her a paper in .doc format using Whatsapp (no kiddi…
>> "but I feel incredibly limited in what I can actually do with my iPhone" > That's because they're intended to work as media consumption devices rather than productivity ones. If someone feels productive on a phone, he or she has very likely adapted herself to the device than the other way around. What are you talking about? Literally millions of people use their phones to create every day. They take pictures and p…
All that being said, I don't do any of that stuff; I write software and write the occasional blog post. For me, I need a compiler, text editor, git, a good terminal etc. In this regard, my old Packard Bell is honestly more powerful, and despite my iPhone having objectively awesome hardware in comparison, I accomplish much less.
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I have the GPD Win that I bought a couple years ago, which is more or a less a Nintendo-DS-Sized computer running "real" Windows, and I love it. I can do programming on the train, even while standing up, as well as use all the tooling that I like, including Vim actually. The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy. Something that has always bothered me is that smartphones are…
The Nokia N900 used to fill this spot between phone and PC for me. It has a slider keyboard and came with a Debian based Linux distro (Maemo) installed on it. Typing was much more comfortable than with a touchscreen and with a few changes to the Xorg keyboard config it was even suitable for programming. The padding madness wasn't there yet and even though the screen was very small by today's standards, it was used ve…
This reminds me of the idea of "wouldn't it be great if we could use the same programming language for frontend, backend, and database queries". Well, maybe, but in practice not really. They are doing different kinds of things, you will have to use them differently, it doesn't really help all that much to have the same language. It SOUNDS like this would be really helpful, until you get it, and then discover that it…
You can live that dream in clojure land! Clojurescript on the front end, Clojure on the backend, and datalog/honeysql for the database if you'd like. And it is awesome! After using a stack like this I'm spoiled for the slog that is developing in separate languages for each of those things. I think that dream is possible with OS usecases as well, it's just that nobody has made it work yet. And I can't think of a bette…
Clojure for the frontend? What about native APIs that you need to use on, say, iOS or Android? What about graphics libraries and APIs? What about browser APIs? I'm sure you can write your own wrapper or bindings for whatever you need, but it's an ongoing effort/pain that isn't worth it for most people.
Every platform, backend or frontend, supports specific languages that are suitable for the platform's problem space and are subsequently preferred by the platform's community. Software rarely stands alone. You can always go against the grain with your own efforts, but it's no longer a dream, just another compromise.
My primary concern with this is that different applications are inherently optimized for the platform on which they were originally designed. There are some applications that have a very dense UI because there's simply alot of functionality that the program handles (think of a video editor, an IDE, etc). Trying to slim down those applications to make them reactive so that they will scale onto a phone or tablet just s…
I have the GPD Win that I bought a couple years ago, which is more or a less a Nintendo-DS-Sized computer running "real" Windows, and I love it. I can do programming on the train, even while standing up, as well as use all the tooling that I like, including Vim actually. The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy. Something that has always bothered me is that smartphones are…
These days I have an iPad Pro as well, and it's sort of depressing. It could be such a better productivity tool if it wasn't crippled by a "mobile" OS.
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To me the biggest hinderance is no the small screen, but the touch UI. Think of something simple like text editing. Because the UI has to differentiate simple taps and everything else, there is an inbuilt delay between the simple tap, and the more functional tap-and-hold. But since there is only one tap and hold, then it becomes tap-and-hold-and-select-action-from-menu-then-complete-action. Thats how I think of the s…
Have you considered getting a bluetooth keyboard/mouse? It makes text editing on tablets/phones much more tolerable for me.