171–180 of 208 posts
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N900, the only phone you can own that you will really own yourself.
Which, coincidentally, can also run Android (if you really want to hack it that much).
Here was the original announcement: http://flors.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/software-freedom-lover...
In case anyone is curious about the full story behind Mike Williams and the "burning platform", watch the following video. You won't be disappointed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83EwglrnvlU edit: part 1 for those interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgkZtklS6xE
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Locked Phones are the norm in Germany too. If this holds true for France too, the vast majority of mobile phones in Europe is being sold locked. I don't know the details about the "illegal" claim, but normally those things are governed by EU laws, making it somewhat hard to believe that contracts common in the UK and Germany would be considered illegal in the Netherlands or Portugal.
Locked Phones are the norm in Germany too. You forgot to add that this is only the case for subsidized phones. Nobody stops you from going to Media Markt to purchase an unlocked, uncrippled phone for full price. In addition: SIM locked (i.e. only able to use a designated network) is not quite the same as a crippled phone (like in intentionally crippling the Bluetooth stack to force users to use a crappy service to up…
This memo is spot on, except for the optimism at the end. I think Nokia is toast. At the end of the day, you can't create a best-of-breed product out of nowhere. You need the core competencies to be already present in your company's DNA. Palm came back out of nowhere and created in the Pre a phone with great usability fundamentals, and an incredibly innovative contact/data management layer. But that didn't come from…
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Phones are usually "bought" for 1€ with a 24 month contract attached. At the end of the contract, the lock is lifted and you can use your phone on all networks.
I'm aware of the 1EUR contracts (I live in Germany). I was just surprised that most phones in such contracts were supposed to be netlocked. I've bought most of my mobile phones of the past on eBay to use with my prepaid card. I've seen Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile brandings on them, but I never had to contact the seller because of a netlock problem. I've also found footnotes like "this telephone can only be used on XXX…
eBay isn't a reliable place to get a sense of the realities of the retail mobile phone market.
If they don't want to alienate existing developers, a logical choice would be official Qt support for Android. Meego could also be tweaked to run Android, as it is already being done by others, see for example http://www.aavamobile.com/
This memo is spot on, except for the optimism at the end. I think Nokia is toast. At the end of the day, you can't create a best-of-breed product out of nowhere. You need the core competencies to be already present in your company's DNA. Palm came back out of nowhere and created in the Pre a phone with great usability fundamentals, and an incredibly innovative contact/data management layer. But that didn't come from…
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I don't follow your logic. Windows 7 isn't much of a competitor. It had a smaller debut than Android and iPhone, by a large amount, and is being outsold by both so the gap is widening. If I were Nokia, I wouldn't be worrying about fellow also-rans in the industry, like Microsoft. I'd be worried about the products that were eating my lunch, and I'd let Microsoft figure out how to protect their own lunch. If Nokia choo…
Remember that Microsoft has a trick up its sleeve: Midori. It quietly incubated the Singularity research OS, a pure .NET operating system, a couple of years ago and is turning it into a commercial product. The advantages of the OS are increased security and massive parallelism, both due to the fact that .NET code is inherently memory safe. My hypothesis is that Windows Phone 7 is a stop-gap measure introduced to buil…
So, what? Everything in userspace on an Android phone is Java and runs in the JVM. That's not really a feature users care about, but even if it were, the leading OS already has it.
You then go on to say:
"Remember that although us geeks are picky about the OS our phone runs, a the large majority of phone buyers really don't give a crap"
Which I agree with. Which is why there's no reason for someone to switch to a Windows phone, even if, on some technical level a .Net phone were lovelier than the competition.
Just because the next magical version of Windows is based on a smarter core, doesn't mean any normal user will have a reason to switch.
"On the contrary, they're just getting started, and this deal with Nokia is going to be very valuable for both companies."
You still haven't answered why Nokia would sign on with another sinking ship rather than simply choosing to make great devices for the leading (free) OS.
Of course, because the new CEO is coming from Microsoft, he may very well have loyalties that simply don't make sense for his new company...and if that's the case, he'll merrily drive the company into further insignificance while drawing a nice fat paycheck, and making his friends at Microsoft happy.
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"Before you ask, not all of them work at Microsoft." This leads me to believe that 50% of the people you know who like their Windows phone do work at Microsoft.
50% of the people I know that I know like their Windows phones do work at Microsoft. Even if it was 100%, this still invalidates your original claim.
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Remember that Microsoft has a trick up its sleeve: Midori. It quietly incubated the Singularity research OS, a pure .NET operating system, a couple of years ago and is turning it into a commercial product. The advantages of the OS are increased security and massive parallelism, both due to the fact that .NET code is inherently memory safe. My hypothesis is that Windows Phone 7 is a stop-gap measure introduced to buil…
"The advantages of the OS are increased security and massive parallelism, both due to the fact that .NET code is inherently memory safe." So, what? Everything in userspace on an Android phone is Java and runs in the JVM. That's not really a feature users care about, but even if it were, the leading OS already has it. You then go on to say: "Remember that although us geeks are picky about the OS our phone runs, a the…
I agree, but chip makers, handset makers, and ultimately carriers do care. Apple, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo sure care a great deal about people jailbreaking their devices.
My point was not that a new kernel would directly persuade potential buyers, but I do think it is needed to support the features that users have come to expect from modern phones (i.e. multitasking). In my opinion WP7 is just not up to the task, so if they want to compete, they need to step up their game in the OS department.
"You still haven't answered why Nokia would sign on with another sinking ship rather than simply choosing to make great devices for the leading (free) OS."
I don't know, maybe MS is giving them a truckload of money? Nokia has a large software development group, so maybe the deal is that Nokia will develop apps for WP7? Maybe they just want to differentiate from the Android horde? I really don't know why they would go with MS, if indeed they choose to do so, but all I'm saying is that I don't think Windows Phone is a 'sinking ship'.