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What iOS Can Learn from Unix

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Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#51

Post by rcoh »

RyanZAG wrote: post #45
rcoh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Android phone is my primary device. A few key issues for me: 1. No app discovery -- I want to find out about apps that can work with my content. 2. Action curation -- I want to see the actions that other people think are most useful when dealing with my content. 3. No "Return" actions -- eg. The context knowledge necessary to reply to the same message, or overwrite an existing file. 4. Cross device and cross OS: I…

1. When you initiate any action that would use an intent in Android, you get that selection popup window that let's you choose any app that can handle that intent. So I think there is already app discovery? Unless you mean something like Play Store integration into Android itself, in which you can view applications on Google Play that can handle that intent. That is pretty interesting and should be do-able even witho…

1. I'm thinking of it being connected with Google Play.

2. Once you've increased the scope beyond the apps on the device, work needs to be done to show the most relevant and useful actions.

3. Enabling flows like:

- Take file from one app, edit in another app, save back over the original file

- Take an email attachment, edit / modify in another app, then reply back on the same thread

4. But there is no reason a third party can't come in and make it happen.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#52

Post by RyanZAG »

rcoh wrote: post #51
RyanZAG wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. When you initiate any action that would use an intent in Android, you get that selection popup window that let's you choose any app that can handle that intent. So I think there is already app discovery? Unless you mean something like Play Store integration into Android itself, in which you can view applications on Google Play that can handle that intent. That is pretty interesting and should be do-able even witho…

1. I'm thinking of it being connected with Google Play. 2. Once you've increased the scope beyond the apps on the device, work needs to be done to show the most relevant and useful actions. 3. Enabling flows like: - Take file from one app, edit in another app, save back over the original file - Take an email attachment, edit / modify in another app, then reply back on the same thread 4. But there is no reason a third…

Good points. The problem with creating this is that it would need system level access for each OS, I think. Adding these kind of intents into Windows or OSX would be easy enough, and adding them into browsers should be possible too (Firefox, at least, would be open to it). I can't see how you'd ever get this added into iOS. Google is unlikely to extend intents in this way for Android as it would break backwards compatibility also.

I think the technical challenge may be too great for current gen OSes and browsers? Perhaps we will see a system like this arise on the 'next battlefield', whatever that might be.

Here's hoping someone works it out. The system itself is not that difficult to understand or to implement, it's the logistics of it that would be difficult and (by definition) need a lot more collaboration between corps than currently.

Web Intents [1] are a push in this direction, but adoption is extremely slow and does not look like it is going to take place.

[1] http://webintents.org/

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#53

Post by gwu78 »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #43
gwu78 wrote: post #30

How about we produce an enclosure that looks about as good as an iPhone or iPad (as some are already doing; hello Samsung). Inside we put cheap electronics, but with no barriers to what software can be run (hello Apple) and no barriers to inspecting each and every line of software code that will be running on our device that we own (hello, Apple). Finally, we install our own open source OS (say, UNIX). That UNIX migh…

There is no barrier to what software will run on your nexus device. For example, I could put android, or Ubuntu on my Nexus 4. Doesn't that meet all your requirements? The hardware is even sold near cost, by a well-known manufacturer.

It might meet some. Does it boot from external media? Can I use my own bootloader? Android or Ubuntu are both Linux. What about something like BSD or Plan9?

To be truthful, my "requirements" include first and foremost, a great looking enclosure. There is a reason for that. I want be able to buy the enclosure separately. This is important.

In my vision, there would multiple sources for boards that might fit inside. Not every user might want or need the same computing power or peripherals.

Imagine, to take an example, if there were multiple RaspberryPi-sized boards. Then you could mix and match different available enclosures[1] with different boards.

1. We are seeing the market respond with many, varied enclosures for the Pi.

There are lots of development boards for sale to consumers, and there are dedicated people porting UNIX OS's to run on them.

What I don't see, generally, are reasonably-priced and attractive enclosures for these boards. The RaspberryPi may be changing this state of affairs, as the Pi enclosure market continues to grow.

Separating out the parts of the device, from the enclosure to the PCB to the OS to the third party software is, you might say, like the UNIX userland philosophy of isolating functions to their own individual utilities. This separation allows more flexibility and more power, in the example of the UNIX userland by allowing the user to filter and redirect output and connect utilities together with pipes.

What are the things Apple does well? Enclosures and graphics, in my opinion. (And controlling their users :) UNIX is not on the list. There are better UNIX alternatives than iOS. My opinion.

Or, as in the article, you can wait and hope that iOS can be improved to be more like those UNIX alternatives.

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#55

Post by alanctgardner2 »

gwu78 wrote: post #53
alanctgardner2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no barrier to what software will run on your nexus device. For example, I could put android, or Ubuntu on my Nexus 4. Doesn't that meet all your requirements? The hardware is even sold near cost, by a well-known manufacturer.

It might meet some. Does it boot from external media? Can I use my own bootloader? Android or Ubuntu are both Linux. What about something like BSD or Plan9? To be truthful, my "requirements" include first and foremost, a great looking enclosure. There is a reason for that. I want be able to buy the enclosure separately. This is important. In my vision, there would multiple sources for boards that might fit inside. No…

While there doesn't exist any project to run BSD or Plan 9 on a Nexus right now, there is literally nothing stopping that from happening (except tremendous apathy from pretty much the whole world).

I don't understand being so hung up on the enclosure. Nothing's stopping you from fabricating new enclosures for Nexus 4s. You could even mass produce them, and repackage new Nexus 4s as a value-added service for people. You could, theoretically, buy up busted iPhones from ebay and repack them as Android devices - although it'd be much easier to buy one of the million fake iPhones from China, which are already basically reference Android devices.

On the UI side, Samsung was on the way to shipping their devices with an iOS clone around the time of the S2. If you want an Android experience which is very similar to iOS, you could even look at MIUI [1], which rips off a bunch of Apple's design philosophy.

In short, everything you asked for is already very possible, it's just that nobody is handing it to you on a platter. You could try to get rich enough to buy 51% of Apple, and redirect their whole corporate focus. Or you could pick an interesting project and start hacking ;)

1. http://en.miui.com/

Re: What iOS Can Learn from Unix

#57

Post by gwu78 »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #55
gwu78 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might meet some. Does it boot from external media? Can I use my own bootloader? Android or Ubuntu are both Linux. What about something like BSD or Plan9? To be truthful, my "requirements" include first and foremost, a great looking enclosure. There is a reason for that. I want be able to buy the enclosure separately. This is important. In my vision, there would multiple sources for boards that might fit inside. No…

While there doesn't exist any project to run BSD or Plan 9 on a Nexus right now, there is literally nothing stopping that from happening (except tremendous apathy from pretty much the whole world). I don't understand being so hung up on the enclosure. Nothing's stopping you from fabricating new enclosures for Nexus 4s. You could even mass produce them, and repackage new Nexus 4s as a value-added service for people. Y…

Thanks for this. If I can use U-boot with Nexus 4, I will certainly investigate.
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