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Will Linux phones stay around this time?

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Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#361

Post by fsflover »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #356
fsflover wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love a smartphone-size universal computing device, to use on the go or plug into desktop/laptop docking devices when needed. Are you aware that it's a thing already? https://puri.sm/products/librem-5

I know, however it also costs $800 for middling performance at best and is backordered probably until early 2022. It's close and getting closer, though.

> for middling performance at best

I am curious, what do you need in terms of performance? It can play 3D games and show videos on a big screen.

> backordered probably until early 2022

This is indeed a problem. Pinephone (with a worse performance) also has convergence and should be more available.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#362

Post by zxzax »

codeflo wrote: post #189
1_player wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about that, I just think that "design" has a lower barrier to entry. A pure designer cannot one day find themselves writing code for a major piece of opensource software. A pure programmer can find themselves arranging some UI and designing a logo on Inkscape, that won't look and feel great. Put the two together and something magical can happen, though not always, as design is so easy the programmer can be o…

It’s even worse, I think. Good UX design looks deceptively easy, but is actually incredibly hard. So hard that a lot of programmers don’t even recognize how terrible they are at it, or how high the skill ceiling actually is. They think UI design is pretty colors and rounded buttons. In a functioning software company, the managers recognize this skill difference and simply order the developers to implement what the de…

>In a typical OSS project, no one can give orders. The programmers ignore any good design suggestions because they don’t recognize those, and implement their own crappy ideas instead. Sometimes while arrogantly dunking on the designer who tried to make a contribution. Consequently, UX quality is abysmal, and anyone who could fix that is driven away. I don’t see a solution to this.

Generally, going into an open source project as a stranger and suggesting to make architectural changes without expectation of pushback is not a good idea. Any change there is going to trample on someone else's workflow. You have to build up trust first before people see you as an authority, that is the solution and it's often the only one. It's worked for some projects such as the recent post about Audacity, even though it's a bit of an extreme example because the person was already established as a well-known designer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26995610

I don't blame the programmer for dismissing suggestions they don't understand but it's also not cool if you were "dunked on" so I'm sorry if that was your experience. Keep in mind that's still better than some, a lot of projects will just ignore suggestions completely if they figure you're just not part of their target audience, and they don't have the budget to expand that audience.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#363

Post by chrisseaton »

bregma wrote: post #292

I spent years working on the Ubuntu phone. It was a fully convergent device: by default it would present a phone UI, but plugin an a keyboard and screen and it presents a full desktop UI. The UI was designed by a team of brilliant professional designers and it was a technical success. Why isn't it around any more? (1) The carriers. Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier, who makes money…

> Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier

Is this really the case anymore? Why would you buy a phone from a third party like that?

Most people I know buy their phone direct from Apple or an Android device from Amazon retail.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#364

Post by frosted-flakes »

rkagerer wrote: post #317
_0w8t wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern UI on the phones makes discovering features really hard. One often ends up with searching obscure forums just to know very useful feature like IPhone trick with holding the space bar to move cursor. I can understand that on 4” inch phones there were no space for extra buttons, but with 6” screens this became ridiculous. So much for “good” design.

I really miss Palm's zen. Great sweet spot of discoverability with a clutter-free design that didn't sacrifice functionality. I could even make the buttons do useful things instead of just opening a Bixby TOS I've declined a dozen times.

I have the Bixby button set to play/pause, and a long-press to turn on the flashlight. It works great.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#365

Post by wjertyj »

chrisseaton wrote: post #363
bregma wrote: post #292

I spent years working on the Ubuntu phone. It was a fully convergent device: by default it would present a phone UI, but plugin an a keyboard and screen and it presents a full desktop UI. The UI was designed by a team of brilliant professional designers and it was a technical success. Why isn't it around any more? (1) The carriers. Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier, who makes money…

> Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier Is this really the case anymore? Why would you buy a phone from a third party like that? Most people I know buy their phone direct from Apple or an Android device from Amazon retail.

Most people you know are wealthy then.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#366

Post by fsflover »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

Did you actually see the design of Phosh? It was developed by actual paid designers, not by programmers.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#367

Post by fsflover »

jokoon wrote: post #192
realusername wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Android is Google's own property, it's not like a standard Linux distribution by any stretch of imagination. I'm not even against proprietary apps (just against proprietary drivers of course), it's just that transforming Android to make it behave normally is just more and more work every year. Some people (including myself) would prefer to have the same system they have on their desktop on their phone, with t…

You mean Google always has dominant expertise when it comes to android, but it's still open source. I would still rather prefer using learn that reinventing a whole mobile OS. Hard to say if Google tries to complexify android to avoid rivals. I often say google has the same situation of microsoft when it comes to drivers.

> but it's still open source

Tell that to Termux: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25644964.

> reinventing a whole mobile OS

There is no reason to reinvent an OS. You can use desktop GNU/Linux on modern phones. You only need to tweak the UI (see Phosh). You will also have full computer in your pocket and ability to connect it to a screen and use all Linux apps.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#368

Post by chrisseaton »

wjertyj wrote: post #365
chrisseaton wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people get a free or heavily subsidized phone from their carrier Is this really the case anymore? Why would you buy a phone from a third party like that? Most people I know buy their phone direct from Apple or an Android device from Amazon retail.

Most people you know are wealthy then.

The phones are the same price, you know. The carriers don’t literally ‘subsidise’ or give you a ‘free’ phone - it’s built into the contract price. It’s nothing to do with how wealthy you are because it’s the same price!

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#369

Post by BeFlatXIII »

hasmanean wrote: post #327
Beldin wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's even simpler than that. Who wants to work on changing a UI that they themselves are comfortable with? It's work with - best case - no benefit in the eyes of the developer. Worse, you likely will break workflows - including your own. Sexyness doesn't need to factor in at all. And do note the nice uncanny valley of no change: in order to improve the UI, you need to understand the program well. In order for that to…

One more thing: some people have no eye for aesthetics. I’ve seen (smart) people defend a piece of code, and when I show them a refactored version, they say “that’s literally the exact same thing I wrote.” No it’s not, and yes it is, in the sense that’s a^2 + 2ab + c^2 is not the same thing as (a+b)^2, but they (should and ideally must) evaluate to the same thing. I say ideally because only in the case of using infin…

Was the use of c^2 intentional?

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#370

Post by zxzax »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #182
matkoniecz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the root cause is that OSS is often developed by people already using it. They are used to weird interface and not benefiting from it being usable by newbies. So there is much smaller motivation to improve it. And even if someone new joins project they will be often also used to weird interface once they contribute.

I think it's simpler than that. Unpaid developers overwhelmingly prefer to work on the intellectually "sexy" problems such as encryption or compilers, to the detriment of the boring-yet-important stuff like UI improvements and hardware compatibility (let alone proper QA).

If you're suggesting that this is done out of selfishness or intellectual fervor then I don't think that's true. I wouldn't say they "prefer" it but it's certainly easier and more economical for a skilled person to contribute to those tools because the developers and the users are the same group of people.

Once you decide you need to do user testing and hardware testing, the cost shoots up. You need to start procuring hardware and finding a place for it to live so automated tests can run on it all the time. That costs money. You need to bring in a lot more testers which requires project management and/or volunteer coordinators. Usually that costs money too. Everything you do needs to go through more stages of design review which also requires extra coordination and project management. These are real things you can have but someone's got to foot the bill.

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