Slashdot Mirror
Intel To Challenge Android With Moblin For Mobile Devices
darien writes "Intel has officially entered the smartphone fight, giving a bullish demonstration at IDF of an Atom-based phone running the latest incarnation of its mobile Linux-based OS, dubbed Moblin for MIDs (mobile internet devices) v2.1. The system isn't aimed at current Atom CPUs, though — they're too power-hungry. 'One of the drivers of this initiative, and a key reason for the acquisition of Wind River, will be Intel's own app store, catering to ultra mobile devices based on the Atom chipset. The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience."
Yeah.... good luck. Overtime ahoy!!!
The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience.
I don't get it. VxWorks is an OS, right? How does that help with "write once, run anywhere"?
Seems to me that Android is doing more towards this, given that native Android apps target a VM, and thus aren't tied to ARM, x86, or anything else. I'm not saying Intel isn't doing this, I just don't see what that has to do with Moblin, VxWorks, or an App Store.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Is there anyone these days who ISN'T releasing a mobile OS?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ok, the articles linked to by the summary are already slashdotted, and, even by slashdot standards (or lack), the /. article summary is highly confusing. . . Is Intel planning to use Moblin, VxWorks, or both? I mean, the article non-quoted text talks about Moblin, but the quote talks about VxWorks, so which is it?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. The main selling point seems to be that it can run regular Linux apps. Which of course you would not want to do in the first place in devices with such a constrained screen size and different input methods. You are better off writing apps for that device instead. They should have just tried to improve Android instead.
From Moblin's site:
Worthy competitor to Android, let alone Apple? Not a chance, and you can tell just by looking at the name that was chosen for the UI. But they'd probably have a good shot at Failblog.
It's like the 80s and the begining of windows all over again but for mobile devices. The question is what will be the OS that can use the most software. Right now there are: IPhone OS which is very closed. Windows mobile also very closed and not sexy. Android which is open and has lots of backing by lot's of different builders. Many other smaller options. Moblin look very open too but.. when it will show up, Android should already available from every cellular providers.
What is funny in that mobile war is the position of Apple. Pretty much like when the first Mac came by at the begining of the 80s. They have a great product. But they are too closed. So it's going to be everybody against them. They can't win. Dell, HTC, Lenovo, Motorola, Philips, Samsung, Sony Ericson (on the open side this time) , and many others already have android phones.
I predict that soon when you'll want to build a mobile application, it will have to run on Android first. That way it will be available to everybody. The rest will be second thought. Just like the market for computer right OS now with windows. But this time the winner will be the open platform because it's been early in the market and the manufacturer will simply find it easier then going for windows mobile.
The reason for not using Android is of course the Android market. Should Intel want some of that internet money, they need to create their own app market. Which they did.
I'd rather buy Moblin than Android on a mobile device. Android replaces basically every part of what we usually call "Linux", except for the kernel (which of course actually *is* Linux). Moblin has a heavily custom desktop environment but other than that it seems like a reasonably "normal" distribution. If I were to do any hacking on the device I'd bought, I'd like it to be a familiar environment. If I'm downloading others' apps I'd feel more confident in getting a good range of apps if they can code in a familiar environment.
Android's good because it's an open platform. I can easily believe that for really resource-constrained apps it's better than Moblin. But on anything that can handle it, I'd rather have a "real" distro than Android. The diversity of having multiple mobile platforms is a good thing; I just personally would rather be able to run a familiar Unix-like environment on all my devices, even if they use a custom front-end to fit the form factor. Improvements to infrastructure (kernel, X.org, shell, apps, whatever) required for a small device are something that I'd like to see integrated upstream so that everyone benefits.
Isn't it supposed to be a secret to everybody?
If Intel is helping with tuning linux to mobile hardware, how will that affect other mobile linux OS's? Is Intel going to try to have their own distro or just working on improving the hardware/software interaction of its mobile chipsets?
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
the moblin site advertises it for netbooks and "netttops". netbooks have laptop-like batteries which are orders of magnitude more powerful than those in true mobile devices. nettops are "very small form factor , inexpensive, low-wattage desktop computers" (from wikipedia).
even on android which puts a lot of design into getting the most out of your battery, you can easily shoot yourself in the foot by running the simplest process continuously. people don't understand how tiny and weak mobile batteries are. trying to run any "normal" operating system on it is going to fail for that reason.
I think I'd rather hammer #10 nails into my skull than do another VxWorks project.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
Also it would probably be Mugration
MID may stand for "mobile internet device", but is understood to be a different and larger form factor (4"+ screens) than smartphones. Something being competitive for a MID, isn't necessarily so for a smartphone.
In fact, Intel and Nokia were palling around just the other day (http://www.h-online.com/open/What-does-the-Intel-Nokia-mobile-Internet-deal-mean-for-open-source--/features/113612), talking about splitting the market - Moblin for MID, Maemo for smartphones. Of course, now they're muddying the waters a bit, keeping the competition guessing, perhaps?
Watch out -- someone might give you the choice.
Why not just make android better, fix the issues that people have with the UI, make it more user friendly, but don't introduce another linux flavor. It really helps noone but intel if even them
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
"KDE and Gnome are also not complete distros on their own."
You are correct, but they could be, and IMO, they *should be*, because they both have stuff that works perfectly fine for the most part and have established organizational structure and name cred. Either of them could have taken a lead there and developed a business model around their efforts, like canonical is trying or Redhat, etc has established. And, they can still be "non profits". Non profits can make money besides from donations, and also can pay salaries. The OLPC charges money for their work and product, the kids laptop. They just screwed the pooch in not taking advantage of economies of scale and income by not releasing a "civilian" model for sale, perhaps with a modest but useful 10% markup they could use to further their "charity" efforts, instead of the extremely limited and completely screwed up effort where they charged a full 100% markup over what in essence was already the full "retail" price, and even then had it limited geographically and with bad shipping and so on..
Well, some other "real" companies saw what they did wrong, took the basic idea, which was quite sound and reflected a still untapped at the time huge business niche, and ran with it (and it didn't take long for them to do so, either, because it was obvious and easier than not to do) and now look at the explosion in netbooks. That could have been them, easily. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by not being flexible or applying plain vanilla business practices to what they were doing. They could have garnered more interest, built and shipped way more units, and taken an early and big lead in the "dinky and cheap but still functional enough to be useful" laptop market. They only needed two different enough appearing products (with a small but reasonable pricing difference4 as well) to still follow all their basic philospophy, the "poor kids laptop for learning and exploring", and then have "other than that", a normal one. Cosmetic differences and color and perhaps a bit more oomph in the street commercial version for sale in the more richer parts of the world, etc would have differentiated them out on the street so that the kids laptop wouldn't wind up on ebay, instead of staying in the poor kids hands.
Canonical is the only one big company out there now that has an emphasis on "linux on the desktop", and that's why they are ahead there in that particular market, because of that focus, most of the rest of the big names are server and "enterprise" oriented, and either of the two big main DEs could have done the same exact thing, just emphasizing joe regular desktop user instead.
There's still plenty of room out there to explore linux on the desktop, perhaps even with a full guaranteed to work stack like apple does with both software and hardware. There are SIX billion people out there on this rock, that's a lot of potential customers.
Gnome and KDE are in a good position to do that, because they already have and actively develop the bulk of what a desktop user actually uses on a day to day basis. Adding in the kernel and some other stuff and making it all tie together is bog standard, and completely free for them to use, just like any number of smaller distros do that now. And the smaller, well, heck, even the larger distros primarily usually just pick Gnome or KDE anyway to be the default "facing" environment that endusers see and interact with, which is really the most important part.
To intel: What is the point of having inefficient Atoms chips compared to RISC (like ARM's or Intel's own)?
On the contrary it is my great hope that through the smartphone revolution we'll gradually switch to ARM-like RISC chips and hopefully one day on the servers as well.
This will save many percents of power consumption when we get rid of the x86 legacy ! And a few kilotons of CO2....
Moblin will likely fail because, it's a goofy name, the market doesn't want yet another OS, and Apple seems to be the only company in the entire gizmoverse that can make a decent UI.
At least Android has some street cred for being "Google".
As if it weren't muddy enough, apparently Intel is porting Silverlight (not Moonlight, Silverlight) to Moblin.
Every time I think Intel has got it all figured out they pull something like this to remind me that they don't really understand. They're like the 7 year old kid that steals his parents car and drives it 40 miles down the road to buy ice cream, and then tries to pay with lego blocks and a wilted Yugi-oh card. Genius, but misguided genius. They're the RainMan of IT.
Intel, one more time: IT'S A TRAP!. It's always a trap. What are you going to do if this thing is really popular and causes an huge swell of support for your product and puts Silverlight over the adoption knee where it's taking over the world? Do you really think Microsoft won't come out with a Silverlight 6 - Now with No Moblin but enhanced Windows 8 Mobile? Then what? Your name is then mud in consumer electronics - again - because you can't maintain a consistent experience. You guys have been here the whole time. You should know better. Is there no institutional memory in that place? Alzheimer's setting in? What?
Oh, and Miguel de Icaza: Congratulations. You've been had. Again. But then you knew that.
Help stamp out iliturcy.