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PureOS is convergent

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Re: PureOS is convergent

#261

Post by fulafel »

dharma1 wrote: post #104

I worked on this stuff for Ubuntu. I think this can work pretty well for some classes of apps - browsers, chat/messaging apps, voice/video calling, terminal, contacts, gallery, music player etc - relatively light weight (at least in terms of interactions) apps. Android/ChromeOS and iOS/MacOS are already moving to this direction for these classes of apps. It doesn't work so well (or is more difficult to execute well,…

Interestingly web- or electron-based 3D, CAD and IDE apps are gaining mindshare at quite a clip.

Re: PureOS is convergent

#262

Post by GordonS »

wanderfowl wrote: post #77

The exciting part of this to me is not the ability to run the same software on two devices, but the potential to run two 'kinds' of software on one single device. This unlocks what is for me the most appealing computing fantasy: I have exactly one device to compute with. At home or work, I plug it into my dock, where it pairs to an eGPU/monitor, external storage, keyboard, and mouse, and is my desktop computer. There…

Microsoft tried this on Windows 8, and it was a failure - as a desktop user, it was horrible to use. Even Windows Server 2012 got on this bandwagon, with a well-placed touch in the top right corner opening the full screen start menu - of course, totally unintuitive for desktop users.

Windows 10 still contains a lot of 'tablet friendly' features, but they've been dialled down and most don't get in the way of desktop users. I think they've struck a decent balance here between the needs of desktop, netbook and tablet users, but there is nothing here for smartphone users - converging those size-constrained needs with the rest is surely the trickiest thing to get right.

When looking at creating a convergent OS, I think it's really important we look at earlier attempts, so we don't repeat past mistakes.

Re: PureOS is convergent

#263

Post by AsyncAwait »

gcbw2 wrote: post #238
AsyncAwait wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CPU choice is restricted by their ability to disable Intel ME. If you don't care about that, you probably don't care about what Purism is trying to achieve, so it's not for you.

If that was true, they would be using AMD or ARM. Seems to be a matter or price/stock only.

AMD also has this feature, (AMD Platform Security Processor), but unlike Intel ME, there's no way to disable it at all, currently.

As for ARM, they have it too, (TrustZone), the performance is nowhere near what x86 gives you and arguably even less free/open than x86 and developers aren't really focused on it.

Re: PureOS is convergent

#264

Post by simonh »

tombert wrote: post #185
notonmywatch wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "but I feel incredibly limited in what I can actually do with my iPhone" > That's because they're intended to work as media consumption devices rather than productivity ones. If someone feels productive on a phone, he or she has very likely adapted herself to the device than the other way around. What are you talking about? Literally millions of people use their phones to create every day. They take pictures and p…

There's no doubt you can create lots of stuff, and I would not say otherwise; the iPhone has a nice camera and the tools for media production on the iPhone are actually pretty ok. All that being said, I don't do any of that stuff; I write software and write the occasional blog post. For me, I need a compiler, text editor, git, a good terminal etc. In this regard, my old Packard Bell is honestly more powerful, and des…

I think Steve Jobs old Car vs Truck analogy is still very relevant. There are some things you really need a keyboard, and possible a mouse for. That's not the fault of the phone though, or a failing of it, or the people making it. Sometimes trying to make something do what it's not naturally adapted for can make the overall experience worse rather than better.

Re: PureOS is convergent

#265

Post by encypruon »

skykooler wrote: post #220
encypruon wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nokia N900 used to fill this spot between phone and PC for me. It has a slider keyboard and came with a Debian based Linux distro (Maemo) installed on it. Typing was much more comfortable than with a touchscreen and with a few changes to the Xorg keyboard config it was even suitable for programming. The padding madness wasn't there yet and even though the screen was very small by today's standards, it was used ve…

Wait, you wrote that Python script? I remember playing around with that!

Yes, nice to see that there are (former) Meamo users around :)

Re: PureOS is convergent

#267

Post by dharma1 »

fulafel wrote: post #261
dharma1 wrote: post #104

I worked on this stuff for Ubuntu. I think this can work pretty well for some classes of apps - browsers, chat/messaging apps, voice/video calling, terminal, contacts, gallery, music player etc - relatively light weight (at least in terms of interactions) apps. Android/ChromeOS and iOS/MacOS are already moving to this direction for these classes of apps. It doesn't work so well (or is more difficult to execute well,…

Interestingly web- or electron-based 3D, CAD and IDE apps are gaining mindshare at quite a clip.

definitely, I think a lot of dense UI pro software works well on the web. Just not necessarily on mobile

Re: PureOS is convergent

#268

Post by dharma1 »

gcbw2 wrote: post #234
dharma1 wrote: post #104

I worked on this stuff for Ubuntu. I think this can work pretty well for some classes of apps - browsers, chat/messaging apps, voice/video calling, terminal, contacts, gallery, music player etc - relatively light weight (at least in terms of interactions) apps. Android/ChromeOS and iOS/MacOS are already moving to this direction for these classes of apps. It doesn't work so well (or is more difficult to execute well,…

> An aside - I'm not sure I'd use GTK+ for this. Why not Qt, or something like Flutter? This is why ubuntu phone tanked. Trying to be too smart and centralizing. Librem5 phone will probably succeed on this but not for the reasons their marketing people think (convergent apps with magic! ha!). PureOS will be as irrelevant tomorrow as it is now. But their phone, being a proper linux phone like android never was, will h…

here's to hoping we have a usable (non-android) linux phone in the future!

Re: PureOS is convergent

#269

Post by moon4u »

tombert wrote: post #38
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #20

My primary concern with this is that different applications are inherently optimized for the platform on which they were originally designed. There are some applications that have a very dense UI because there's simply alot of functionality that the program handles (think of a video editor, an IDE, etc). Trying to slim down those applications to make them reactive so that they will scale onto a phone or tablet just s…

I have the GPD Win that I bought a couple years ago, which is more or a less a Nintendo-DS-Sized computer running "real" Windows, and I love it. I can do programming on the train, even while standing up, as well as use all the tooling that I like, including Vim actually. The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy. Something that has always bothered me is that smartphones are…

> The only limitation for me has honestly been Windows, since I'm more of a Unixey guy.

You can put Linux on GPD Win. I have on mine.

Re: PureOS is convergent

#270

Post by bashwizard »

tombert wrote: post #185
notonmywatch wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "but I feel incredibly limited in what I can actually do with my iPhone" > That's because they're intended to work as media consumption devices rather than productivity ones. If someone feels productive on a phone, he or she has very likely adapted herself to the device than the other way around. What are you talking about? Literally millions of people use their phones to create every day. They take pictures and p…

There's no doubt you can create lots of stuff, and I would not say otherwise; the iPhone has a nice camera and the tools for media production on the iPhone are actually pretty ok. All that being said, I don't do any of that stuff; I write software and write the occasional blog post. For me, I need a compiler, text editor, git, a good terminal etc. In this regard, my old Packard Bell is honestly more powerful, and des…

Funny. I do all of those things on my iPhone XS these days. Not that I do any heavy work on but it works on the go if I have to.

Blink Shell and mosh = terminal, vim, git, etc.

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