41–50 of 165 posts
I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you actually use WebOS? I've had a great experience with the Palm Pre phones, way ahead of its time.
I was a big WebOS advocate, and loved it very much. Owned 3 Pre series phones. But you do have to admit that UI latency on it was quite high compared to iOS. I mean, so was Android back then, but they improved it significantly.
There’s good reason to blelieve that given enough time and even a fraction of resources that the Android team had WebOS would be able to significantly up their performance game (I say a fraction of resources because there is a lot of well funded open source development being done to improve web tech on mobile, through Chromium, WebKit and Firefox that would be leveraged).
I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
But really, hardware is not a problem from a marketing point of view, from a competition point of view. You can make FxOS to run on the best hardware with supported drivers, but the ecosystem is so behind, eventually users would move away from it. That was the real problem. Consequently, developers would likely give up on FxOS.
Samsung's are all based on Android - which tops iOS's market share by nearly 70%. Neither Ubuntu Touch nor FxOS had any real chances.
From the FAQ Can I develop apps for KaiOS? KaiOS is a curated platform for apps and we are working closely with app developers to provide the best experience for our users. At the moment we are not accepting submissions into the Store, but will do so in the future. If you are interested in developing apps for KaiOS in the future, leave your email in our developers section. We will notify you when of important product…
As a user, I for example much prefer the harsh controls that Linux distributions have in place. If it's in the repository, you can essentially be sure that it does not do anything that's not probably actually in your interest, and just as well that it is actually decent software, somehow useful to someone. Probably the best software in its class, available on the platform, too.
Yeah, it also means that less is available on the platform. That maybe the highest quality software in a class is not always as high quality as in other distribution platforms, but for most jobs really, you don't need the non-plus-ultra, you need a tool that does the job and one of which you know that it does the job, without trying it out for hours or having to fight defaults that work against you.
On Android, F-Droid sort of provides that, but it's still just a small island of decency glued on top of a system and ecosystem that lives off of user-hostile behaviour. If as a user you don't know of F-Droid, you're hardly going to find these decent apps in that sea of not-so-decent apps, which really discourages the creation of decent apps as well.
With a curated platform, you could provide the user with trust in their platform (which might especially also be sellable to businesses) and you can keep the air free around those actually decent apps.
I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
I know the person behind this, but not sure of the status
Software is the problem for these OSes. The only way to be able to compete IMHO is to make it compatible with APKs, installable via a store.
Otherwise, it's a nice effort but you'll never reach the adoption necessary to make it worth continuing working on the project.
I'd really like to see a truly open alternative on the mobile space. The biggest issue is the hardware. It's just not standardized and there's no incentive to do so. It's really preventing the way Linux took off on developers desktops back in the late 90s/early 2000s. FirefoxOS and Ubuntu Touch looked promising, but they lacked good hardware to run on. I'd really like to try Plasma, but I don't like any of the device…
I wish Google would define a "standard" like Intel has with what is and what isn't an "Ultrabook". As in, to be a "Nexus" phone it must have a minimum resolution of ..., it must last for x hours of video playback and x hours of wifi use, it must have the damn alert-killing side switch, it must have a camera of a minimum quality (megapixel/zoom/can record at 1080p@60hz), etc...
Google should be defining what an Android phone is in terms of hardware; define a brand other makers can adopt so customers can trust the standard to at least cater to those needs. And that isn't even getting into how fucking awful the Google Play store is. What a malware magnet.
Sorry this is somewhat off-topic, I just feel this is how Google has lost us and why we seek alternatives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Windows Phone is discontinued, but sure as heck wasn't experimental. I've used it flawlessly since about 2011 with rock-solid stability and battery life.
What I meant was that I don't follow why does Nokia rock the boat with their choices of operating systems. They already have their own software running on the likes of the renowned 3310, so why not spend the engineering time to extend that instead of risking another platform becoming discontinued? That's what I would want to hear more about.
I agree that it is similar to Google in that they seem to hedge their bets too much (like how Google has two OS, two languages...etc etc). I would really like a third popular OS...there are so many out there, but with no steam (this, firefoxOS, sailfish...)