Ubuntu Touch Beats Firefox OS For 'Best of MWC' From CNET 152
Jono Bacon writes "This week at Mobile World Congress both Firefox OS and Ubuntu have been wooing the audience with their mobile offerings. CNET reviewed both and felt that Ubuntu was 'the clear winner.' From the article, 'The team thought that Ubuntu Touch, the tablet version of which we got our hands-on for the first time at MWC, feels more like the complete package at this point. We liked its slick, elegant interface that makes use of every side of the screen and puts your content and contacts front and center, minimizing the time spent hopping back to a home screen.'"
They still liked Firefox OS though, and the mere existence of multiple Free Software mobile systems with carrier support is a good sign if you ask me.
But but but (Score:4, Insightful)
Ubuntu is evil! Richard Stallman says so!!
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No matter how evil it might be, CNET still thinks it's the best
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Well since CNET is the source that really isn't saying much.
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Canonical is tracking users any more than Google.
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Re:But but but (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "like they are with the desktop" you mean "not at all", then the answer is yes. If you mean something else, then then answer is "you're wrong".
Re:But but but (Score:5, Interesting)
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From the demo video, I'm kind of drooling over the split screen setup it can do, especially on a high resolution device like a Nexus tablet.
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Installing Ubuntu Phone OS .. (Score:2)
Where can I get it, do you have a link to the download and installation instructions?
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Is there a Tor phone yet? (Score:2)
Could it run on this?
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Anybody know if Canonical is tracking users with Ubuntu Touch, like they are with the desktop distro?
While were about it does anyone know if you've stopped beating your wife?
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Richard Stallman has contributed to society. His comments on the legalities and philosophies of open source software have provided the software community with the possibility of sharing their works without having them stolen.
Your comments on slashdot are not on the same scale.
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His comments on the legalities and philosophies of open source software have provided the software community with the possibility of sharing their works without having them stolen.
Actually, copyright law is what allows people to share code without it being "stolen". Stallman makes fairly novel use of it, but give credit where it is due.
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Actually, copyright law is what allows people to share code without it being "stolen".
Actually, ideas can only be "stolen" because of intellectual property law. Without it, ideas can only be copied.
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I agree with you - thus the quotes around "stolen". I hate the terminology, but it's in the vernacular. All I can do is hope some of my sarcasm seeps through.
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Copyright doesn't protect ideas, it protects specific works.
Great, but the works are just series of thoughts.
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Re:But but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But but but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But but but (Score:5, Insightful)
Proprietary software enforces controlled standards, locked systems, treacherous computing like UEFI.
Rubbish, if i run a proprietary application on my system i don't end up with a 'locked system', it doesn't enforce any 'controlled standards' and I don't end up with UEFI. I haven't had anything taken away, even if it does aid your agenda to suggest that.
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You are giving money and consequently power to corporations that are struggling to take our control over the system we buy from them and impose their standards and policies upon us.
I'm not giving money to anyone, I said 'proprietary application', i didn't say i paid anybody anything, but i see you need that to justify your new extrapolation of your perceived evil to some other ridiculous scenario. Again, I can run a proprietary program on my system and I haven't had anything taken away from me, that's just rubbish propaganda spread by people like you that have an agenda.
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Even if you didn't pay for the application. Just by using their standards you are helping them to enforce them
Who's and what standards? Just because it's a proprietary application doesn't mean it uses any particular standards, much less secret or proprietary ones.
And as you keep mentioning, I can't avoid noticing that the one who seems to have an agenda here is you, my good sir. You seem to be going out of your way to try and discredit RMS.
I have no agenda, I just see that his claim is patently false, by comparison you resort to reductio ad absurdum to justify it, clearly it is you that has an agenda. Free software can pervert standards and be malicious just a proprietary software can. Again, the use of a proprietary program does not take anything away, it doesn't make it better in any way,
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You may believe in whatever absurdity you wish, it does not make it more true. It does not seem to be the case, though. You can't be so stupid. So I am forced to con
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Free software can't pervert standards and be malicious just as a proprietary software can
Ubuntu does! So yes it can! Perhaps you should give your definition of 'proprietary software', because you clearly think it has something to do with proprietary standards and paying corporations and treacherous computing...but it doesn't.
The use of proprietary programs does take a lot of things away as explained more than once
No, i simply refuse to accept reductio ad absurdum as justification for your point of view.
but if you refuse to understand and be part of the problem it is your choice.
Yet you persist in your ridiculous arguments.
You are nothing more than a corporate shill.
You only resort to that low level because you can't disprove my point, pathetic. Proof that I am not a shill of any sort nor have an agend
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You only resort to that low level because you can't disprove my point, pathetic.
He's already given an absolutely clear justification which you have not addressed properly at all. If you have a proprietary program which processes data in any way then it is possible for it to do secret transformations on it or store parts of that data in undocumented formats which cannot be used elsewhere. Any FOSS program comes with the source code which fully documents those transformations and which can be adapted. This means that any proprietary software is a potential threat and should not be tr
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If you have a proprietary program which processes data in any way then it is possible for it to do secret transformations on it or store parts of that data in undocumented formats which cannot be used elsewhere. Any FOSS program comes with the source code which fully documents those transformations and which can be adapted. This means that any proprietary software is a potential threat and should not be trusted without reason.
That still doesn't take anything away. It's obviously not be ideal but the fact is using it doesn't take anything away. You are right that proprietary software can be used in that way, but not all proprietary software - and that includes services you don't control, particularly web-based - do that.
He's even justified clearly why, by using proprietary software you are imposing problems on everyone else. Please look up the "network effect"
No, my using a proprietary program impacts nobody, unless i'm sharing proprietary formats, which is not the same thing. If i'm transporting jpegs or latex or obj or whatever then it doesn't matter whether i'm usin
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Which would come entirely under the exception which I specifically added to my post in contrast to the grandparent and leads us to ask; did you really read the post you are replying to? This is the one which makes Microsoft evil and Google only slightly mean.
Which is exactly why the initial comment about 'proprietary software' is patently false, because it's overly generalised.
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Your examples could have easily be done with open source software and if they were implemented well would still give the exact same results. Unless of course you want to argue that security by obscurity is better than security by being open for review.
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Proprietary software is unethical because it infringes on your right to use and modify software as you see fit.
I'm all for open source, but I wouldn't file this as an inalienable right.
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as long as there was no copyright at all and all systems were open
How in the world would you open systems without copyleft? Fact is you need copyright to get anything like Gnu's version of open software.
but nothing. (Score:5, Informative)
Ubuntu is evil! Richard Stallman says so!!
No Richard Stallman says this http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do [fsf.org] which is about the intrusive nature of an opt-out system on them in which local system search terms are sent to Amazon.
Quit with the hyperbole already. It is what it is.
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From that link:
This is just like the first surveillance practice I learned about in Windows. My late friend Fravia told me that when he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server, which was detected by his firewall. Given that first example I paid attention and learned about the propensity of "reputable" proprietary software to be malware. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ubuntu sends the same information.
Does anyone have more information and hard references or proof of this(as opposed to idle hearsay) in Windows, or is it just more of the anti-Microsoft urban legend hearsay FUD peddled around these parts?
Microsoft has all you information (Score:2)
From that link:
Does anyone have more information and hard references or proof of this(as opposed to idle hearsay) in Windows, or is it just more of the anti-Microsoft urban legend hearsay FUD peddled around these parts?
Lots of information is passed to Microsoft how do you think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage [wikipedia.org] Windows [dis]advantage works. It is what pushed me into trying linux in the first place. [that and a 132GB hard drive limit]
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I don't see anything related to user search terms being sent.
Do you have a better reference?
Re:Microsoft has all you information (Score:5, Informative)
From Microsoft:
"When Microsoft receives a Bing search query, we collect a number of pieces of information, including the search query provided, IP address, unique identifiers contained in cookies, browser configuration and the time and date of the search,"
“Microsoft may access or disclose information about you, including the content of your communications, in order to: (a) comply with the law or respond to lawful requests or legal process; (b) protect the rights or property of Microsoft or our customers, including the enforcement of our agreements or policies governing your use of the software; or (c) act on a good faith belief that such access or disclosure is necessary to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, customers, or the public,”
“Information collected by or sent to Microsoft by Windows 7 may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries, or service providers maintain facilities. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland.”
These are the Windows 7 modules that Microsoft acknowledge phone home
1. Activation:
2. Device Information Retrieval:
3. Device Manager:
4. Dynamic Update:
5. Event Viewer:
6. Gadgets:
7. Games Folder:
8. Error Reporting for Handwriting Recognition:
9. Personalization Training:
10. IME Word Registration (available in Japanese IME only):
11. Installation Improvement Program:
12. Microsoft Error Reporting Service:
13. Plug and Play:
14. Program Compatibility Assistant:
15. Program Properties Compatibility Tab:
16. Rights Management Services (RMS) Client:
17. Teredo Technology: 18. Update Root Certificates:
19. Windows Anytime Upgrade:
20. Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP):
21. Windows Defender:
22. Windows File Association:
23. Windows Help:
25. Windows Speech Recognition:
26. Windows Time Service:
27. Windows Troubleshooting:
28. Windows Internet Explorer 8:
29. Update Services:
30. Microsoft Genuine Advantage:
31. Windows Media Center:
32. Microsoft Windows Media Player 12:
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RMS is talking about local file search keywords and you're talking about web search keywords on Bing.
Two VERY different beasts.
Here, I bolded it for you:
My late friend Fravia told me that when he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server, which was detected by his firewall
Re:Microsoft has all you information (Score:5, Informative)
"he searched for a string in the files of his Windows system, it sent a packet to some server, which was detected by his firewall"
"Our telemetry data shows that 67% of all searches in Windows 7 are used to find and launch programs. Searching for files accounts for 22% of all Windows 7 Start menu searches, and searching for Control Panel items about 9%. Searching for email messages via Start Menu is very rare (less than 0.05%). The remaining 2% are searches executing the “Run” functionality."
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/10/18/designing-search-for-the-start-screen.aspx [msdn.com]
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You don't even know what telemetry in Windows means.
You get one notification after installing asking you explicitly if you want to opt in to help improve Windows by sending telemetry information.
Even if you opt in, those calculations you see in the post are done locally and only the stats are sent to the server.
Those stats do not include people who haven't enabled telemetry.
It's similar to Firefox's dialog here:
http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-performance-data-improve-firefox [mozilla.org]
OMG FIREFOX IS SNOOPING
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You may think it is paranoid, but it is not, it is simply a matter of not trusting blindly on corporations. They may not even do it now, but the fact they have the power and can do it at will is e
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Wait, so it went from "Windows sends your file search keywords" to "it may or might send things"?
Yes, being careful is good, but spreading lies and FUD is not.
As a funny aside, Shuttleworth said they have root on all Ubuntu computers.
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But the fact they can do it without my knowledge is enough for me. It is too much power to give blindly to a corporation.
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People like you, on the other hand, are ignorant and like to remain like so. Suit yourself. Keep being an ignorant asshole.
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What Vista was sending to Microsoft was what switched me over to Linux full time. Part of their indexing program was sending content from even things like my RSS feed. I thought it was a virus, but apparently it's standard behaviour, or used to be.
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Any references or proof, or just hearsay and handwaving with urban legends?
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I was actually just looking around for the name of the module that was sending the data. I remember one thing it was doing was sending URLs to a DNS server on a non-standard port on a cloud server form that was registered to Microsoft. It really looked like a virus. I'll keep digging for the name of the offending module.
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This was not IE. I found the offending executable ... it was SearchFilterHost. I found threads at Microsoft (which seem to have been removed, but it has been quite a while) asking why it was accessing the network.
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Those don't say anything about local file search keywords going to Microsoft like RMS was insinuating.
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Hahahah, so you're just regurgitating the FUD by professional Microsoft haters. Good to know.
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a complete list of all the hardware devices, including make, model and driver version
How else would it know which drivers to offer?
every software package installed on your computer
MS software I can understand (again, how else would it know what updates to offer), but I seriously doubt it'll include non-MS packages.
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He's right as usual. I love Stallman. We need more of him.
(PS, even if the original comment were true he's also right. I didn't know about the Amazon affiliation with Unity, even though I have an Ubuntu machine at work it's not got an outside connection and it has a single function, imaging other machines, so I've never used a Dash search or w/e the fuck it's called.)
As an aside, is there anyone who can tell me what's so great about Ubuntu in the first place? I am honestly not seeing much in the way of
Fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
the mere existence of multiple Free Software mobile systems with carrier support is a good sign if you ask me.
Actually the mere existence of multiple such systems fragments the market for them, thus reducing the already-slim chance they have of becoming real competitors to the established players in the market.
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Hello from 1997.
I agree that this 'fragmentation' thing everyone speaks of is not so great for the makers of different operating systems, such as Apple.
But before The Jobs declared it to be Evil Incarnate, we used to call it 'choice.' And choice was good for consumers. I thought. How strange.
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It's why in 2007, every feature phone could get games, but there were only a handful. They were mostly copies of old arcade games and often cost $3/mo or so. No one developed more ambitious things because of the porting effort and size of the individual markets. A few bigger games would be made (I remember there was a God of War cell phone game), but it would only be on one carrier and maybe 2-3 phones.
We already have 3 platforms (4 if BBOS can survive), plus there are a few other little ones. We have choi
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We already have 3 platforms (4 if BBOS can survive), plus there are a few other little ones. We have choice and competition.
We don't need 8 or 15 options.
I'm intrigued as to which OS you had in mind for number 3. Surely not Windows Phone, which still lags behind BBOS (combining v7 and v10) in market share terms. And Symbian still outstrips both of them.
Really, we only have two major mobile OS at the moment, and half a dozen others scrapping it out for distant third place. There's no real reason why another OS (Ubuntu or Firefox or Sailfish or Tizen) couldn't leapfrog the others into third place, and may even be able to start growing third place into somethin
iOS is the odd duck (Score:2)
Jobs was referring to fragmentation of a specific
Ironically while the rest of the world has chosen on Android its Apple who fragments the market :)
The Android Killer (Score:3)
Actually iOS seems to be the system of choice
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23946013 [idc.com] these are the latest figures from IDC as you can see Android occupies 70% while iOS occupies 20%. However you try to spin in Android is *THE* smartphone OS of choice, and however you spin it Android binaries will work on more phones that iOS binaries. This is true even if you don't care what OS you run on your phone :), perhaps the phones were simply better designed than Apples, perhaps if Apple spent more money on designing its phones, people wouldn't
So... (Score:1)
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using your logic Windows is *THE* desktop OS
Was, not is.
Android is becoming the defacto phone/tablet OS because it is open and supports a huge array of form factors and use-cases.
MS Dos/Windows gained early advantage by the same means - it could be installed on a variety of commodity hardware, and be adapted to a almost any computing task. MS later chose to become predatory and restrictive to enforce and protect its monopoly, but they got their start because they were more open than their competition.
Re:Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1997?
Proprietary vendors keep spreading this FUD, as "fragmentation" is core to Linux/FOSS adoption. Freedom and opportunity for choice in the Linux world means anyone can start their own distro, or fork an existing one to meet their own needs. To many of us, this is one of the truly great benefits of the open source world.
OS vendors like Microsoft and Apple have a sales/distribution model that's antithetical to this sort of freedom, so it's in their best interest to portray one of Linux's great advantages as a negative. Hence the more than a decade's worth of FUD.
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The significant factor in fragmentation is whether or not it's disruptive fragmentation. To date, the existence of GNOME has not greatly hindered the adoption of KDE. Nobody is going to reject Firefox OS because another company has adopted Ubuntu Touch any more than people are going to reject Android for Ubuntu Touch because companies are starting to adopt Ubuntu Touch. No, these platforms will be judged on their merit and applicability to the desired result and chosen accordingly.
If anything, the variety a
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I used to wonder about this back in the mid-'90s, but seeing the quality of some of the free software out there gives me the feeling that it's in a pretty good position at the moment. One reservation there is a common assumption that Linux==Ubuntu, which can be a pain in the ass if you want to experiment with occasional bits of software for which the source is unavailable or too troublesome to compile. (I personally find Ubuntu about as irritating as Windows, and for a lot of the same reasons.)
But all those people who don't really care too much about freedom of choice won't use anything other than Windows or Macs anyway (and, despite its many faults, even Windows is more customisable). While, on the other hand, widespread acceptance of Android, with its plethora of different apps and interfaces, has spurred a renewed interest in looking for new or different ways to use your devices.
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With luck there will eventually be a push for a standardized tablet platform that is open enough to permit users to select their own OS. Most likely this will come from the second tier Chinese manufacturers who would benefit most from a common reference standard.
the common platform is Linux (Android/Mer) or web (Score:2)
That standard platform is the Android kernel.
Meanwhile Plasma Active, Salifish, and Tize
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Good for the hardware makers though, remember when the OEMs controlled what OS went with their own hardware, instead of the current situation where it has to be certified by a software vendor
c|net? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the hell are still linking to c|net articles again? Would it kill the editors to wait for a real news organization to review Ubuntu Touch instead of just posting the first crap that comes along?
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slick, elegant interface (Score:5, Funny)
glad is uses every side of the screen, but just like every other mobile device its almost all unused dead space in the middle, glad it takes millions of pixels to put "5 facebook updates" in plain text onto a screen
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Looks nice, but honestly I wish Ubuntu/ Canonical would have devoted their time on the usability issues in Unity.
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but just like every other mobile device its almost all unused dead space in the middle
That's because the first thing every user does when he gets the phone is put a picture of {his,her} {cat,dog,offspring} there.
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For all the shit they get for Sense, HTC did the right thing by putting a big fat clock there. I was pretty bemused by the UK ROM I flashed to a used Xperia Play. Front and center, big fat open screen. To the right, gigantic clock, which belongs front and center. I can slide left or right to get to some apps, I want to know what damned time it is!
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glad it takes millions of pixels to put "5 facebook updates" in plain text onto a screen
Better than the enormous, non-portable desktop PC + keyboard + mouse + monitor that you're using to do exactly the same thing. Seriously the amount of rubbish posts like this that attempt to trivialize smartphone as devices for nothing more than angry birds and facebook is astonishing. "ZOMG! Why do you need a retina display for Angry Birds?!" or when new iDevices come out the likes of "iSheep marching to the tune of their Apple overlords, enslaving themselves just so they can get facebook lolcatz on their
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I really cannot emphasize enough how much this is applicable, it's been posted here thousands of times yet there's still a bunch of dimwits that actually believe it about themselves.
And yet, if everyone believes that, there may still be some for whom it is true, while the others are doing a fair imitation due to their programming.
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glad is uses every side of the screen
It's not discoverable though, it's exactly like Windows 8, same problem of being horribly unintuitive. Like that swiping down a little bit from the top where the sound and wifi indicators are to reveal a context menu and then moving left and right to change the menu between those icons is just awful from a usability perspective, it looks neat in a video though.
Just sue CBS (Score:5, Funny)
WebApp API (Score:5, Insightful)
I just hope that Tizen, Ubuntu, FirefoxOS et al. can agree on a common WebApp API...
Re:WebApp API (Score:4, Insightful)
Thats the nice thing about standards, there are so many of them.
I would add Webkit to that list.
And something that the people of Ubuntu should agree on UI components [slashdot.org] with the people of Sailfish (that was also in that show), and KDE plasma active (and maybe Blackberry and WebOS), making it easier to port apps between different mobile OSs (i.e. like this calculator [jollausers.com]).
Once you can have everywhere the apps that you want, you are free choose the best OS that fits better in your device/needs.
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I hope they are working on this NOW, it is THE defining factor for this to succeed, it has to become a W3C / RFC standard and be sold as the solution to adopt eventually... maybe in HTML 5.2 or something!
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At least the people from Mozilla is trying to get their APIs approved by W3C and spread to other vendors. Check out https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI [mozilla.org]
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Indeed, but I'm not too hopefull after this video from Mobile World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkEb3WSs3CI&t=40m20s [youtube.com]
Cnet? That's a credible source... (Score:2, Interesting)
Stopped caring about CNET reviews after their parent company pulled their review of the Dish Hopper because it's a competing product.
Now, I actively avoid their site.
Nothing new (Score:1)
My cyanogen 10.1 device does all those things. What's the fuss about?
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My cyanogen 10.1 device does all those things. What's the fuss about?
+1 Smug.
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My theory is that in a long-lost tongue coded in some people's genes, "canonical" means "will get you laid." It'd explain a lot about Ubuntu's popularity and blog names like "omg ubuntu!", if you think about it.
As a Cyanogen newbie that ditched Ubuntu 3 years ago, though, it's nice to see that even if little else is familiar, I'll still get to periodically protest, "but my distro already can do that, dammit!" (Though admittedly it's very unlikely to get me laid.)
Slick? Elegant? (Score:1)
Those weren't exactly the words that entered my mind when I watched Shuttleworth demo the OS (go see it for your yourself on YouTube). No, for me, it was more like "clunky" and "cumbersome".
I'm not sure am interface that's based entirely on various swipe gestures is really the best balance.
The way the left app bar shows up every time you swipe left through your running programs will get annoying pretty quickly.
Or the fact that you need to swipe through your running programs in a next/previous fashion (I ac
If that's the case... (Score:3, Interesting)
What a laughable review (Score:2)
- Swipe in from the side to load a vertical menu which requires further scrolling to use. Why not fill the whole screen?
- Swipe in from the top to load settings, then swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe to find the right setting. Why not fill the whole screen?
- Swipe in from the right side to find the first application, then swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe until you find the application you're looking for. Why not display the open applications as a full screen menu?
And what do we get as an asi
Sailfish OS (Score:4, Informative)
Not even a mention of Sailfish OS? This is the one I'm most interested in:
http://pocketnow.com/2013/02/27/jolla-sailfish-video [pocketnow.com]
Real X11/GNU/Linux phone with a fresh, elegant UI. Will support all Android apps out of the box with no porting required. Yes, please...
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Real X11/GNU/Linux phone with a fresh, elegant UI.
I'm really excited about Sailfish, and will definitely be eyeing it up (along with Ubuntu Phone and Tizen) when I come to make my next purchase (assuming they're both on the market). However, Sailfish's UI is hardly ground-breaking. It looks essentially the same, in methodology, as Android (only with a few details changed). Home screen and widgets are stacked vertically, rather than horizontally. Status bar is swipe from the right, rather than from the top. You have to swipe through the screens with the wid
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It's not just the UI that's noteworthy; it's the most Linux-y of Linux phones OS's out there.The UI being nice is just a bonus.
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More "Linuxy" than Ubuntu? Ubuntu's Mobile offering boasts (or will boast) a terminal application, Busybox, SSH, a shared UI with a desktop distro, etc. etc. Just about the only difference I can see with Sailfish is that it runs X11/Wayland rather than whatever it is that Android uses (and Ubuntu will share). Which is certainly nice, but I'm not sure that that's a game changer in any ways that matter.
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It makes it almost trivial to port over 'real' Linux apps.
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The recognition issue could be remedied by partnering with a big name or manufacturer. Nobody's heard of Tizen, either, but say 'Samsung' and and they'll say, 'Oh, right'.
HTC has been struggling with identity issues. They used to lead smartphone manufacturing, now they're becoming just another 'me too' in the increasingly saturated Android/WinMo/iPhone landscape. Hell, they make a Windows phone that's a design ripoff of the N9:
http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=3902 [phonescoop.com]
And here's a reason why a compan