161–170 of 208 posts
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I'd rather Nokia actually be the only truly open mobile platform out there. No, Android isn't sufficiently open. It's my phone, at a minimum I should be able to pull all my own data off it in any form I choose.
N900, the only phone you can own that you will really own yourself.
Ignoring the problems with WP7, if Nokia were to produce phones with other 'external' OSes why would they stick with just one? No one criticizes Samsung and they are pretty much a mobile-OS whore: SHP, Bada, WP7, Symbian (albeit a year or so ago), Android, Limo, etc. N.B. Regarding SHP: I can't remember the name properly but this was the old/existing Samsung feature phone platform, it probably has got rolled into Bad…
Except me, maybe. I don't know anyone who's been satisfied with a Samsung device. I certainly wasn't with mine.
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IMO a GNU/free fork of Android would still be a better platform than MeeGo or Symbian, and would be cheaper to develop.
There is no such thing as a free Android, except if you tear the whole Java user space away. And I'm REALLY curious about why you and 14 other people think that Android is such a good mobile OS. The VM is both a legal and speed liability, the Android UI is not GPU-accelerated and the entire OS is still immature (see the embarrassing bugs with the SMS or the browser security holes).
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There is no such thing as a free Android, except if you tear the whole Java user space away. And I'm REALLY curious about why you and 14 other people think that Android is such a good mobile OS. The VM is both a legal and speed liability, the Android UI is not GPU-accelerated and the entire OS is still immature (see the embarrassing bugs with the SMS or the browser security holes).
> There is no such thing as a free Android, except if you tear the whole Java user space away. Isn't that part BSD-licensed? > the Android UI is not GPU-accelerated It's a bit hard when you have to support more than one device, but I believe it's a matter of time. As more and more hardware gains hardware acceleration, I assume it will come (if not already in the latest 2.x and 3.x series) > the entire OS is still imm…
SMS and web browser are core mobile OS services, they're not simple programs since connectivity is very important for a mobile phone.
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Frankly, I don't think most people care, either. They just want a phone that works, where they can find the features they use, and maybe some useful other things, like syncing contacts with gmail. Most people I know with Android devices have never downloaded apps, some have downloaded a few in the first few days they had their phone, and only my most hard-core tech friends download any regularly. Most studies seem to…
I'd be interested in seeing these studies, as all I have to go on is personal experience and experience with the GAOSP, MustyMod and the popular custom builds on Android forums. So, you buy a new Android phone, try to download the Twitter app, and realise that your 2 month old phone will never be able to run it. Does the phone work? A lot of custom OS projects wouldn't exist today if consumers believed it did.
Anyway, my main point is that 'twitter' is something most users have only heard from on TV and don't even know what it is. For a regular user, a phone works when you can make phone calls with it, send text messages and set reminders/use it as an (alarm) clock. Then there are fancy features like using it for navigation (which is something they're already familiar with from standalone devices), contact/full agenda sync, and password management; and reading news sites; and post on facebook when they're so bored out of their mind that they really don't know what else to do.
And then there's the uber-advanced, only-nerds-do-this, full phone-centered lifestyle, where as much as possible is automated through phone apps. This is where twitter-client downloading people fall into - web nerds, turtle-neck wearing marketing people and art students. Of course in absolute numbers this is still a sizeable market, but it's only a fraction of the overall 'mobile phone' customer base. It will become more main stream in time, but not now...
How many OS projects are really used? A couple of hundred users, a couple of thousands for popular custom android roms? That's still marginal.
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> Nobody likes Windows phones That's a bit categorical, no? I know at least two people who quite like their Windows Phones. Before you ask, not all of them work at Microsoft.
"Before you ask, not all of them work at Microsoft." This leads me to believe that 50% of the people you know who like their Windows phone do work at Microsoft.
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> There is no such thing as a free Android, except if you tear the whole Java user space away. Isn't that part BSD-licensed? > the Android UI is not GPU-accelerated It's a bit hard when you have to support more than one device, but I believe it's a matter of time. As more and more hardware gains hardware acceleration, I assume it will come (if not already in the latest 2.x and 3.x series) > the entire OS is still imm…
The license doesn't matter that much, it's the principles - one of them being that you don't get sued by such and such corporation if you use the code. Or Google doesn't change the terms if they lose on trial. No one has patents on C or C++ AFAIK... SMS and web browser are core mobile OS services, they're not simple programs since connectivity is very important for a mobile phone.
Oracle is not complaining Google is implementing Java in Dalvik. Oracle is complaining they are implementing things too similar to stuff Oracle has acquired patents about.
http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/oraclegoogle-the-patents-and-...
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Locked Phones are the norm in Germany too. If this holds true for France too, the vast majority of mobile phones in Europe is being sold locked. I don't know the details about the "illegal" claim, but normally those things are governed by EU laws, making it somewhat hard to believe that contracts common in the UK and Germany would be considered illegal in the Netherlands or Portugal.
> but normally those things are governed by EU laws There are EU laws, but each member is free to add its own rules. In Belgium, tied sales are illegal (or were mostly illegal until very recently), and subsidized phones linked to contracts are considered tied. Which makes them illegal in Belgium. And nobody is going to buy a locked phone for the same price as an unlocked one.
Tied sales ('koppelverkoop') have been declared legal by minister Q since about end of 2009 (1), due to Belgian law conflicting with European law. I'm not sure if the revised Belgian law has gone through parliament already, but Euro law takes precedence anyway.
(1) http://www.quickonomie.be/nl/persberichten/29oktober2009-kop...
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Where else have you heard it? What makes it a tired image beyond the fact that you heard it once in Paris?
I didn't hear it "once"; it was a central theme of the transformation story; there were posters everywhere, email campaigns, leaflets, etc. all based on the "burning platform" standard playbook. The reality is that the "burning platform" metaphor is a classic story repeated ad nauseam in business schools and business books; see this for example (from 2005): The term “burning platform” is a mainstay in business lexico…
“Piper Alpha was a North Sea oil production platform operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Ltd. The platform began production in 1976, first as an oil platform and then later converted to gas production. An explosion and resulting fire destroyed it on July 6, 1988, killing 167 men, with only 59 survivors. The death toll includes two crewmen of a rescue vessel. Total insured loss was about £1.7 billion (US$ 3.4 billion). At the time of the disaster the platform accounted for approximately ten percent of North Sea oil and gas production, and was the worst offshore oil disaster in terms of lives lost and industry impact.”
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Apple has been making similar margins on all of its products for the past 10 years. How can you say it isn't sustainable?
10 years ago Apple had 5 billion in revenue. Now they're pushing 100 billion in revenue. They butting in on competitors who operate in the 5% margin range, and who are all desperately starting to claw back at Apple's gains. No, it isn't sustainable. History will prove me out, and in 3 years I would bet that Apple has seen a significant margin haircut. Quote me on a 50% decline. As a comparison, by the way, look at So…
Dell laptops start at about $400. The MacBook starts at about $1000. If you only want to spend $400 on a laptop, Apple doesn’t want your money. If you want to spend $400 on an MP3 player, on the other hand, you can get a very nice iPod.