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Ubuntu Edge

indiegogo.com

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Re: Ubuntu Edge

#61

Post by achiang »

RockyMcNuts wrote: post #19
aroman wrote: post #15

I really really hope I'm wrong (because I really believe in Ubuntu's vision), but what I'm gathering from this is that Canonical really has no idea how to make money.

I'm gathering that the handset makers and carriers and VCs laughed them out of the office, so they had to go this route. I would have expected to read something like, the phone is an enhanced version of x/y/z with these features, we got a great deal from (manufacturer), but we need 50,000 pre-orders to proceed.

Ubuntu Edge is orthogonal to existing commercial discussions with OEMs and operators.

It's a premier, demonstration platform, not a mass market device.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#62

Post by fpgeek »

sciurus wrote: post #18
drcode wrote: post #11

Does anyone really still want a phone you can plug into a monitor? This would have been a dream product back before broadband and wifi became ubiquitous, and before extra PCs became so cheap. Nowadays, it seems like a much better design is to have multiple devices with different form factors that can access shared data via a cloud. (unless this product is meant as an NSA-proof system, but I don't see that it makes a…

Oh, absolutely. I'd love to have a phone that I can use as a phone, insert into a "laptop dock" (like what the motorola atrix had) and use as a laptop, and insert into a more traditional docking station (to which I've attached a large monitor, ethernet, etc) so I can use it as a desktop. I'd much prefer to have a single trusted device than spread my digital life across "a cloud".

Exactly. Even with most of my stuff in the Google cloud, the cognitive overhead of going from my Note 2 to my Nexus 7 to my "real" laptop and (recently) to my Chromebook is annoying. I'd much rather have one device set up with all my stuff that automagically turns into the form factor I want, when I want it.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#63

Post by oblique63 »

ealexhudson wrote: post #37
dkokelley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if the ambitious goal of $32M is part of their strategy. Given that a higher goal is less likely to be met, I (and others who might consider backing) may be willing to adjust our risk function for the $600-800 such that we are more likely to back the project. Assuming that after 30 days only $20M is raised, then the outcome is as follows: 1: Nobody is actually charged for supporting the project 2: Other…

Yeah, it's quite possible they realise how unlikely the target is, and it could just be a way of attempting to demonstrate the market (given $830 is likely at one end of the bell-curve, it's a potentially interesting data point). I find it a bit baffling. I refuse to believe Canonical want to enter the hardware market, but maybe there is a Nexus-like role for this hardware in terms of getting the ODMs to up their gam…

> I refuse to believe Canonical want to enter the hardware market

I don't know, from all the design hints Canonical's been dropping in the last few years, it seems like they really are trying to place themselves as direct competitors to apple, however naive/overambitious that may sound. So a play for hardware wouldn't surprise me that much. I think this stunt would make much less sense if it were purely to advance an android/firefox-style mobile os strategy.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#64

Post by pavs »

I think this is excellent marketing, if they get funded, they will prove that there is a market for this and it will make news for being the biggest crowd funded campaign ever. It will be all over the news and even people who have never heard of ubuntu will take a notice.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#65

Post by sspiff »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #51
dkokelley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if the ambitious goal of $32M is part of their strategy. Given that a higher goal is less likely to be met, I (and others who might consider backing) may be willing to adjust our risk function for the $600-800 such that we are more likely to back the project. Assuming that after 30 days only $20M is raised, then the outcome is as follows: 1: Nobody is actually charged for supporting the project 2: Other…

I would have backed based on this theory if it was a Kickstarter project. Kickstarter uses Amazon and doesn't charge until the end of the drive. Indiegogo uses Paypal, and charges immediately, giving a refund if the drive fails. While both of these differences aren't quite showstoppers, they're enough that I didn't pull the trigger on something that seems highly unlikely to succeed. I wouldn't mind paying $600 for th…

In my experience, refunds on PayPal go back to your credit card. Am I wrong about this?

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#66

Post by dangoor »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #51
dkokelley wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if the ambitious goal of $32M is part of their strategy. Given that a higher goal is less likely to be met, I (and others who might consider backing) may be willing to adjust our risk function for the $600-800 such that we are more likely to back the project. Assuming that after 30 days only $20M is raised, then the outcome is as follows: 1: Nobody is actually charged for supporting the project 2: Other…

I would have backed based on this theory if it was a Kickstarter project. Kickstarter uses Amazon and doesn't charge until the end of the drive. Indiegogo uses Paypal, and charges immediately, giving a refund if the drive fails. While both of these differences aren't quite showstoppers, they're enough that I didn't pull the trigger on something that seems highly unlikely to succeed. I wouldn't mind paying $600 for th…

You could withdraw the $600...

I do appreciate you pointing this difference out though, because it does mean that folks will have $600 (or $830) tied up in this from day 1 and not from day 31.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#67

Post by buro9 »

This is the opposite of what I want.

What I want is a hub device along the lines of a Huawei Mifi device that will share a 4g connection with numerous other devices using a low power hardware and software stack, perhaps the latest Bluetooth.

Then I want my phone to be less powerful, to run most apps on the cloud and generally do little more than render things prettily.

I want camera lenses, display surfaces, input devices (keyboard, pen/stylus, augmented reality glasses, headsets, etc) to all mesh together, sharing bandwidth for intra-device communication... and ultimately all using the hub for communication.

I no longer want large and ever more powerful and feature rich phones or computers, I want to smash things up and have a choice of small bits that each do one thing very well.

Basically Star Trek communication device and then a lot of peripherals.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#68

Post by mromanuk »

"For a phone to run a full desktop OS, it must have the raw power of a PC. We’ll choose the fastest available multi-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM and a massive 128GB of storage"

I would love to be wrong but I'm not buying the promise of a (real world functioning) PC on a phone. ARM based chips are 1 order of magnitude slower than a desktop x86 counterpart, currently there is no such processor to perform as desktop. Maybe they are going the intel road, anyway the indiegogo pitch sounds more like wishful thinking than a real plan.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#69

Post by achiang »

mromanuk wrote: post #68

"For a phone to run a full desktop OS, it must have the raw power of a PC. We’ll choose the fastest available multi-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM and a massive 128GB of storage" I would love to be wrong but I'm not buying the promise of a (real world functioning) PC on a phone. ARM based chips are 1 order of magnitude slower than a desktop x86 counterpart, currently there is no such processor to perform as desk…

My team dogfoods Ubuntu for Android every single day on the Nexus 4, and I'll say that it's performant enough to be a daily driver as a desktop replacement.

Edge has 4GB of RAM planned, and will run even better than the N4.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#70

Post by mcintyre1994 »

oscilloscope wrote: post #7

I want this. I already pay an Ubuntu premium for System76 computers. Anyone who has the Dell dev edition does the same. But, Canonical, can you please extend the $600 price point for at least a month? This sudden 24 hour sale is too much of an impulse buy.

Note that the entire campaign is about a month - 31 days to go. The $600 price has got to be an impulse one and get media attention right now.
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