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Ubuntu Edge

indiegogo.com

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Re: Ubuntu Edge

#301

Post by mongol »

Is it realistic to deliver the phone at this time frame, given the vagueness of the specs? My only crowdfunding experience (Pebble) was not pleasant in it's long delays, and they gave the impression of being closer to production than Ubuntu Edge. Also, what previous experience does Ubuntu have of hardware design and manufacturing. I also realize that they can source this, like from Taiwan as they mention, but they still need to be significantly involved.

My prediction is that backing will slow considerably now when the lower backing price point has closed.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#302

Post by e12e »

danudey wrote: post #202
threedaymonk wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any basis for thinking that? I ask because my perception is that the cost of OS is effectively zero for almost all computer users: Windows or Mac OS comes free* with the computer. * Free and bundled together at a sharply discounted cost (or the cost of R&D in Apple's case) to the manufacturer aren't exactly the same, but that's not apparent to the purchaser.

The cost of OS is zero when acquiring a new computer through a retail outlet, and zero only for Linux users when acquiring computers through donations, salvage, etc.

In my experience donated/salvaged/second hand PCs usually come with an OEM licence (also true for second hand macs).

Perhaps that's different in the US?

And while you theoretically pay for the Windows licence that come with a new machine a) most people aren't aware of that, and b) aren't aware that you can get that money back if don't use it.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#303

Post by zanny »

lukifer wrote: post #268
zanny wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qt just released 5.1, which has prelimiary ios and Android support. By the end of the year, you will be able to write a Qt application, and use a QML ui. You can even use one single UI across all devices, where the UI dynamically adds or substracts elements depending on screen size. IE, responsive design for applications. It is pretty close to write once, run anywhere. The only downside is if your app is the first qt…

> The only downside is if your app is the first qt app installed on an ios / android device, it forces a download of the shared libraries which are quite large. How does this get around sandboxing on iOS? My fuzzy understanding is that components would need to be downloaded for each app independently. And is there a reason those shared libraries can't be bundled?

No idea, never tried it. A cursory browsing of qt documentation suggests it can't, and it also can't use qtquick2, which is where qml becomes really useful (which is also when it starts using v8).

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#304

Post by skriticos2 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #113
mtgx wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your speculation is quite wrong. Linux users are typically the highest payers for games, on average.

On every[0] Humble Bundle so far, the highest average donations come from Linux users. On some, they've even donated the same amount or more in total dollars compared to OS X users - ie, Linux users have been more profitable even though they have a much smaller market share. In short, Linux users are very profitable (per-user). [0] I can't confirm that it's 100%, but it's been every Humble Bundle I've participated in…

I think this is partly caused by the lack of offering. For instance: I'm throwing a lot of money at Steam and Valve for the games that are available there because it is one of the very few vendors that has native games for my platform.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#305

Post by yesplorer »

dubcanada wrote: post #114
mobbom wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is possible with IndieGoGo, they selected to only receive funds if the project is fully funded. This is detailed under the "Contribute now" button.

Hrm... you're right. I'm wondering why they would do that? Does it really take $32M to create a new phone for mass market?

The phone is not produced for mass market. I think he said that right at the beginning of the presentation and repeated it along the line

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#306

Post by x0054 »

I love the idea, but I simply do not see how they can make it work at this scale. Based on the numbers they will be ordering around 40,000 units. Can you really buy custom made components in small quantities and expect to get acceptable prices?

The only way I can see this working is if they partnered with a company who will be making this phone anyway, basically a phone that looks almost exactly like Ubuntu Edge. So basically they would start with maybe a $200 (to make) top of the line smartphone from one of the big manufacturers, and then spend $600 upgrading it with sapphire lens, fastest ARM CPU, 4GB ram and all the SSD memory. Here is the thing, I can see this working, because they can sell these phones at cost, or below cost, as an investment into the ecosystem. So, this might actually be a $800 phone that costs $800-900 to make.

However, I am worried about some of the unproven components like the sapphire lens and silicon-anode batteries. Can they find suppliers, and can they make it work in the phone. And will they have to recall all 40k of those phone when the battery expends to 4x the size or blows?

The problem to liking it with Formula 1 is, in F1, the engines, the cars, and all the other components are blown all the time, and then get rebuilt, tested, refined, and tested some more, by people who know what they are doing, not consumers.

I like the ambitious project, I just feel like they really need about 4x the budget or more to pull this of.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#307

Post by lmm »

ersii wrote: post #216
zanny wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is a very reasonable average joe OS. It is actually really crappy for gaming - when I was using Ubuntu at the Unity switch around 10.04, there were tons of absurd full screen and tearing bugs in games. Even now that most of that is fixed, Unity/compiz is still vastly outperformed by everything else when running full screen opengl apps. On Gnome / KDE I never encountered those.

I'd encourage you to try it again. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 on my Dell XPS 13 (Sputnik Edition of course) - and I have no problems with playing Steam games. I havn't really had any problems playing any game that works on *NIX so far - not that there's all that many.. but still.

If prior form is anything to go by they're about to break it all again with the Mir switch.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#308

Post by rat87 »

synchronise wrote: post #262
seabrookmx wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The S4 has a 1080p screen (better than the edge) a Quad (comparable to the edge) and with SD cards, can be expanded to 128gb of storage on the cheap. Not to mention the app selection for Android is unbeatable. Sure it didn't have many apps in the early days, but because it was one of the first to market, it will retain this lead. Look at HP's touchpad, BB10, and Windows Phone - they've had years to catch up and have…

The Nexua 4 is a no brainer? The lack of MicroSD expansion says otherwise.

it has 16 GB of memory max and no sd card (in comparison I'm not too upset with my 64gb phone not having an sd slot)

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#309

Post by asdfs »

slgeorge wrote: post #211
cs702 wrote: post #43

The $32 million fundraising goal might seem overly ambitious, but it's actually more realistic than it appears at first glance, because at $600+ per unit the campaign needs only around 50,000 buyers worldwide to be successful -- or a bit over 2% of Ubuntu's enthusiastic user base, which was estimated to be greater than 20 million in 2011.[1] PS. I just ordered one, as I LOVE the idea of an unlocked phone designed and…

One of the things that's interesting about the phone industry is that in general there's no equivalent of the special tech-focused PC platforms. So Ubuntu Edge is a way to unlock both a new software platform (Ubuntu phone) but also to bring forward a set of hardware technologies that won't be in the mainstream for a while. It's a really high target caused by how expensive these platforms are to manufacture. But if we…

>but also to bring forward a set of hardware technologies that won't be in the mainstream for a while.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not seeing anything on the Indiegogo page that isn't more or less on track to be available in phones next year, except for perhaps the sapphire.

Re: Ubuntu Edge

#310

Post by inthewind »

lewtds wrote: post #72
grey-area wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ordered one too, because I really like the sound of a Phone OS based on Ubuntu, not controlled by the likes of Google and Apple, and with a UI based on HTML. The proposed UI and demo apps look nice, I like the idea of losing the chrome as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO7QbCqFY7Y It's going up quite fast, from 167k to 198k as I finish writing this, but I'm not sure if they'll make their target, just beca…

The UI is not based on HTML, it's QML. It's a GUI declaration language similar to XAML from MS. The whole QML described UI is an accelerated OpenGL scene backed by Qt technology so the performance should be much higher than that of HTML5.

( >similar to XAML from MS...< Cough; XUL!)
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