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Will Linux phones stay around this time?

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Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#381

Post by zepto »

herbst wrote: post #290
_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.

Not sure if apple really can be considered modern in a space developing as fast as that. From my pov apples ui is still the dated sister everyone is trying to copy from

What is more modern?

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#382

Post by zxzax »

matkoniecz wrote: post #374
zxzax wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 procurin…

> Once you decide you need to do user testing and hardware testing, the cost shoots up. It is not so bad. Take three people who never used given software, ask them to do the most basic tasks. And fix the most common problems. Your (and mine) software is much harder to use than you expect. You do not need UI/UX people, massive scale testing to fix low hanging fruit.

Just my experience, three people is not a big enough sample size for most projects. You will get very biased opinions if you go with that. That may be ok if you have a very niche project and you only ask some people in that niche.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#383

Post by m4rtink »

pabs3 wrote: post #311
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…

Is the UBPorts community continuing the Ubuntu Phone convergence vision, or did the code get thrown away?

AFAIK PostMarketOS seems to be working on something similar - my PostMarketOS edition PinePhone even shipped with a convergence hub:

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/buy-pinephone-postmarket...

BTW, I think the convergence concept is totally valid and actually available now (although in a proprietary form) as Dex on Samsung Galaxy series devices.

Just plug the thing into a USB-C HDMI dongle and it shows a desktop interface on the display & has decent mouse and keyboard support.

Really nice for simple stuff like looking at photos you just took outside but on a big screen. And also a killer combo with the Wacom One pen display as you have your Clip Studio or Krita files all available on the big Wacom One screen yet can work on them on the regular device screen while on the go. :)

So now we just need that, but open source. :)

It could be a separate wayland session outputting to the external display with app GUI getting data from a backend via DBus. That way you could run the same up on both device and external screen at the same time while keeping the data model consistent. :)

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#384

Post by zepto »

sergeykish wrote: post #337
EvilEy3 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is full of distractions Define distraction in terms of computing first.

Everything that's not related to my current task. For example Windows UI constantly reminds me of * application name * ability to max, min, move * list of running applications * ability to run other applications * content length and my progress * actions on content I don't need any of these. Like Amazon Echo users probably don't require ever present poster of available actions. Instead I have places — several of work…

I’m not sure why this got downvoted - it’s a very clear expression of a real issue, and it’s definitely easier to solve it on Linux.

I choose to use Mac OS, and I celebrate each time they take a step in solving these problems - e.g. making the menu bar hidable, but I am fully aware that if I want something better in these ways I will need to use Linux and customize it to my tastes.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#385

Post by slver »

megous wrote: post #343
slver wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've defined your market, it seems, as enthusiast developers who want Linux. But stock Android (without the Google services) is that already. It's FOSS, it uses the Linux kernel, and it comes with the infrastructure to run mobile apps. Even better, it's compatible with many Android apps (as long as they don't need Google Services). So what problem would another Linux mobile OS solve?

To me GNU/Linux is the simpler more familiar ecosystem. Android is big and complicated, with different tooling, different APIs, different everything. On GNU/Linux phone I can write apps in regular electron if I like (not some cordova mess), I can access any Linux API and don't need to split my knowledge between mobile and desktop. I can write my phone apps with LAMP or node stack if I want and it would not be some li…

So you don’t just want Linux on the phone. You want basically the desktop Linux ecosystem on the phone. That’s a no go from the start. Even Apple didn’t do that when they made iOS.

And the problem we solve with this is so you don’t have to learn something new. That’s honestly a poor problem to have.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#386

Post by nondeveloper »

wjertyj wrote: post #375
chrisseaton wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Yes, and wealthy people are in the position to plunk down that money up front. People who are less privileged frequently have to take advantage of that form of "financing" offered by the carrier. Remember, by being wealthy, we frequently have to pay a lot less than people who get by month to month. There should be no shock here.

Yes, to your point I was at T Mobile a month or so ago waiting to buy a SIM card in line behind someone who was evaluating their “free” (i.e., carrier-financed) options. They had a choice of a number of Android handsets I’d never heard of.

On the other end of the scale, though, are the subsidies carriers pay to anyone who switches and trades in a quality device. When my partner joined my plan T Mobile paid a $700+ subsidy for his iPhone 11 in exchange for an iPhone 8.

So customers across the entire income scale finance. It’s just a matter of how lucrative that financing is for the customer. At the higher end of the scale where the customer has more choice it’s usually a much better deal.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#387

Post by nondeveloper »

dudul wrote: post #378
chrisseaton wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

It absolutely has to do with being wealthy. Where a wealthy person can afford to spend $500 on a phone, someone not as financially comfortable has no other options than to go the "financing" route. Yes, the price ends up being similar, but it is much more possible for modest people to spend $20/mo for 2 years than $500 on the first day. This is a well studied phenomenon that wealthy people who can afford to pay every…

$500? Top of the line devices in the last few years have crept above $1,000 USD. Not trying to nitpick but the difference there is a sizable chunk of the average person’s annual income.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#388

Post by matkoniecz »

zxzax wrote: post #382
matkoniecz wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once you decide you need to do user testing and hardware testing, the cost shoots up. It is not so bad. Take three people who never used given software, ask them to do the most basic tasks. And fix the most common problems. Your (and mine) software is much harder to use than you expect. You do not need UI/UX people, massive scale testing to fix low hanging fruit.

Just my experience, three people is not a big enough sample size for most projects. You will get very biased opinions if you go with that. That may be ok if you have a very niche project and you only ask some people in that niche.

Or when you have obvious problems!

Take it with pile of salt, I am not some big expert. I just did it with some projects. But it seems to me that in nearly all cases there are glaring issues that would be detected with any amount of testing at all.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#389

Post by leesalminen »

nondeveloper wrote: post #387
dudul wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely has to do with being wealthy. Where a wealthy person can afford to spend $500 on a phone, someone not as financially comfortable has no other options than to go the "financing" route. Yes, the price ends up being similar, but it is much more possible for modest people to spend $20/mo for 2 years than $500 on the first day. This is a well studied phenomenon that wealthy people who can afford to pay every…

$500? Top of the line devices in the last few years have crept above $1,000 USD. Not trying to nitpick but the difference there is a sizable chunk of the average person’s annual income.

Nobody over the age of ~20 I know in low income brackets even think about buying a flagship phone. It’s barely on their radar.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#390

Post by sajithdilshan »

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…

I think Apple is already on its way for a convergent device with the Apple silicone. They've already unveiled an iPad with an M1 chip and in the near future we would get iPhones with powerful chips which is able to act as a fully functional MacBook once the phone is connected to an external monitor/TV, of course with a bluetooth keyboard and a mouse.
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