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Will Linux phones stay around this time?

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401–410 of 491 posts

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I think developers and most users simply don't even notice the problems. When I say "I can't use program X because the UI/UX sucks, is there any alternative?" people come out and say "I see no problem with program X, I use it everyday and it rocks"

Vim rocks, yet a lot of people can't use it. Once you state "X sucks", someone would object.

You've got strange conclusion out of it.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#402
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, why is this a controversial stand? Is it really that bad to not wanting a random torch app to not use all your monthly data on God knows what?

Because you're throwing jabs at Android while literally every other OS in existence behaves the same way regarding network access.

This thread is in response to why we need a Linux OS, which is because they are all bad.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#403
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popups, weird confirmation dialogs nobody reads, configurations hidden in X different uis without console interface, the amount of screen space wasted for whatever reasons and the possibility that the wasted space contains text and icons that suddenly start to blink and move (attention seeking apps), .... I feel distracted working on Windows or Mac. As if someone is putting stones everywhere and i have to mangle inbe…

Funny, absolutely everything you said applied to Ubuntu last time I tried it.

Ubuntu is a horrible example for well one UX or even a stable linux system. Times change, and i totally agree thats its hard to see trough as average user.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#404
post #300
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.

thank-you, I didn’t know of this feature. And I am using iPhone for over a year now. It was such a pain to get cursor to correct spot up until now. Please share if know of any catalog of such tricks.

One hidden feature I quite like is the scroll up. Move a page a bit so that the scroll bar is visible and tap the clock.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#405
post #393
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…

> browser checks of yore The same shit is happening today, except it's Chrome instead of IE6. We have an entire generation of webdevs who learned fuck-all from the previous round of the browser wars.

TBF 1/2 of them weren't even born...

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#406
post #311
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?

[deleted]

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#407
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have GNOME 40 now which is beautiful. I can imagine it would be beautiful on mobile pretty soon as well.

I sometimes find it hard to understand the GNOME's design rationale. When GNOME 40 moved the dock from the left side to the bottom of the screen, it created an ergonomic problem for mouse users, who now need two large mouse gestures to switch apps -- first to the upper left corner to reveal the dock, then all the way to the bottom. And in the issue thread[1], Gnome's designers seem to be carefully avoiding the obviou…

Of course it depends on the person, but I have never really used the dock for anything. I usually use the overview, or start typing the name of the app I want, or even more often just apt tab to it.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#408
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Motorola [...] bloatware What do you mean? I've had a couple Motorola phones from the G series (G1 and G4 and currently an AndroidOne) and AFAICT it's been pretty much stock Android apart from: - an app for support enquiries (with diagnostic functionality for the screen, sensors etc.) which I've actually used before, - one app you could opt-in to to get something like product newsletters from Motorola (I don't care…

It’s bloat because those don’t need to be there.

Those apps stay out of your way if you don't wanna use them and they barely use 0.1% of the internal storage.

I'd hardly call that bloat given the "Samsung Experience" I once had on one of those GalaxyNote 10.1 tablets. It was slow (basically everything in any app lagged), the OS was a non-upgradable Android 4.3 or 4.4 with heaps of Samsung BS constantly running and replacing standard apps (e.g. the browser). Also that tablet one day just would not charge anymore after ~1.5-2 years of fairly light use (reading, some video streaming, things like that).

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#409
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

That's the whole idea behind Librem 5 and PureOS and it already works well. All the phone apps there are just regular desktop apps made convergent to fit and work well on the phone.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onxBw5Pd45w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qB_5g2ZJYk

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#410
post #404
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank-you, I didn’t know of this feature. And I am using iPhone for over a year now. It was such a pain to get cursor to correct spot up until now. Please share if know of any catalog of such tricks.

One hidden feature I quite like is the scroll up. Move a page a bit so that the scroll bar is visible and tap the clock.

I do this one on accident frequently (e.g. when trying to pull the top bar down to respond to a notification). I’m glad I know exactly what triggers it now so that maybe I can learn to quit triggering it all the time.
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