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Nexus One First Phone Linus Torvalds "Doesn't Hate"
SpuriousLogic writes "Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being 'mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights' even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems. Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago."
Why? I mean the man is responsible for the free kernel that the phones use. The least companies could do is send him a free one with service contract. I thought Linus did get gifts like that.
You'd think that a guy like Linus would at least have an in-dash GPS unit so he's not distracted while behind the wheel futzing with the phone.
Hopefully, he's not also eating a cheeseburger while inputting addressess...
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
How can a Finnish man hate mobile phones?! Aren't they like the national bird there, or something?
Shiny. Let's be bad guys.
I am supposed to care about his opinion of smart phones why? I mean I will be happy to listen to anything he has to say about the Linux Kernel. I would pay to hear him talk about the early days of Linux development, but his thoughts on smart phones? What could possibly make me care?
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
We knew alread that Google is the NSA. Everything else just doesn't make sense.
here
SUpposed you got a mail from bill gates asking for a phone from your company because your phone factory has made a phone running windows mobile on it. What would you do?
==
PS, Google is a member of the linux foundation which is the current employer of linus. So in a way google already paid for the phone.
I don't share much in common with Linus except maybe the phone, but I got my N1 exactly because of how evolved android had become, how beefy the hardware specs were (I was building PCs with roughly the same specs 8 years ago), and because I preferred a phone not marketed to me with a direct tie-in with a carrier. Overtly unlocked? Yes, please. Granted, it's not for everyone, but it is my first smartphone and I'm glad I waited.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Apparently he judges phones by different standards than I do. It sounds like he wanted a traveling internet connection with a good interface. I personally prefer my tiny little Zoolander phone which plays music, calls people good and has a mediocre interface for checking email.
... most of my phones haven't had an OS that you could play Galaga or Solitaire on. Or really do much more than make a phone call.
Is it possible that the reason he hates phones is that he keeps buying computers masquerading as phones, rather than phones?
Also... he comments that he's always hated phones because they interrupt while he's trying to work or read. I don't know about anyone else, but if I don't want to be interrupted, I turn off the phone. The ringer, if it's a land-line, or the whole thing, if it's a cell. People can leave me a message and I'll listen to it later.
Basically, I can understand not liking the sound quality, or the microphone quality, or the weight, or the fact that it doesn't work anywhere you want to use it (all problems I've had in the past), but really... the things he's complaining about are issues with how he's using it, not with the phones. Maybe, like me, he's someone who just shouldn't have a cell phone, or should buy a small cheap one for emergency use, and not pay a monthly fee for it.
I think most computers in general have been relegated to playing solitaire and Galaga, not just mobile phone platforms.
This phone shall be referred to as the "GNU/Nexus One with GNU/Linux".
Now excuse me, I have to comb my beard.
Richard
.
Trolling is a art,
Linus still a normal guy who decides what to use if he likes it, hes not concerned if its propietary or free (i liked a lot his review on his linksys router), hes not a troll like Stallman who surfs the web using terminal lol
Mod me down!
...like feeding crumbs to the pigeons...
Finally, an article summary that explainings who some obscure person is, rather than assuming we know everyone in the tech universe.
I expected Linus Torvalds to use something more geeky, e.g. N900 or one of OpenMoko devices, but in this case he has chosen user-friendliness instead of endless tinkering. Nexus One is probably one of the most user-friendly Linux-based devices to date (competing with WebOS devices in this respect), and it is very functional as well, so the choice seems obvious.
he could've made serious $$ if he charged google for expressing this opinion. imagine all the linux devotees who are going to buy it now. i mean, there's gotta be, like, at least 10 who can afford it!
weinersmith
As Galaga and the solitaire are the only games woth playing, along with rougue-lke.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Linux fanatic is an elitist. More at 11. TFA sounds like Torvalds has basically no experience with mobile phones. If he wanted multi-touch so bad, why didn't he try an iPhone or any other manner of non-GPL phone?
ok so he dont hate it but doesnt love or like it yea same here.
WOO
still aint buying these peoples overprices calculators
The lesson is: Even people famous for endless tinkering still like a simple, clean user experience once in a while.
Design your software with this in mind.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Racists!
mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights
He's confused a mobile phone for a games console. A surprising mistake really, considering how well-versed he is on most other technical fields. Personally, all I want from a phone is a few buttons that let me call people and a very, very long battery life. If I ever felt the need to play video games I'd use something that has a screen large enough that I didn't get annoyed at it - with Linus seems to, from his response.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Linus is 40, In ohter words, in the first 20 year of his life mobile phones only lived as very bulky carphones, and for a long time after that the calling cost were quite pricy. Only the last 10 year or so mobiles phones became main-stream. Some people still live with the believe you have to be reachable all the time. This may be hard to grasp for generation now that grew up with mobile phones.
Wow, Slashdot Plagerising a Washington Post article that is plagerising an article on Android Community. Practically word for word identical. Not sure if linking to the article is the same as providing citation. :-p
Isn't Linus Torvalds an employee of Google? Advocating his own employer's phone gives little weight. He is paid to say these kind words.
It's only been a couple of days, let's see if he likes it after he had a chance to really use it. I speak from experience. I'm still have my android phone, but the only thing keeping me on the platform is T-Mobile.
Besides, why should we really care?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
fail
Does the version on Android on the N1 have a usable email client yet? I have an HTC Magic, and the email client is dreadful: base64 encodes all messages, automatically top posts with no option to disable, and fails to generate In-Reply-To/References headers so it breaks threading. It's very sad that apparently the easiest way to get an email client that doesn't try to humiliate you in public is to install an ssh client and run mutt remotely.
Because multitouch on the iPhone is TERRIBLE. I haven't used an iPhone yet where the touchscreen doesn't need recalibrating every 2-3 days, it goes out so often. That's not just my iPhone either, it's any friends with ones too, who have the same issue. In contrast the Nexus One uses some pretty decent touchscreen hardware that just doesn't seem to go out of calibration, at least not yet that I've seen.
you don't care about what celebrities think about foreign policy and medical procedures, because those are serious subject matters and the opinion holders are fluff
but you do care* what linus torvalds thinks of his mobile phone, because both the celebrity and the subject matter are fluff
*when i say "you do care" i am not saying you care in the same way you care about war with iran or flu shots causing autism, you care in the same way you care about whether batman could beat superman, or exactly how much jar jar binks sucks: light hearted fluffy subject matter you are emotionally invested in out of sheer shallowness on your own part. which is perfectly ok, since this is just a slashdot thread, and no one is deadly serious all the time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It always ticks me off when people talk about a piece of software as being "invented". One doesn't "invent" software. Software is designed, implemented, engineered, developed. All of those things, and more, but not "invented". Look it up in the dictionary.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
a new phone every year for the last 10 years. Even one of my first phones, some Nokia from 2000, could play snake and solitaire.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I justified the cost of my phone because it runs Andriud, has a GPS receiver, and apps that use it for navigation.
I'd've thought he would be more pragmatic. Rather than "hate" a product, he would instead pragmatically weigh the options and take the best one. "Hating" mobile phones doesn't seem very pragmatic, more odealistic.
You know, like some are idealistic about FOSS and some pragmatic.
Given how he's always on the back of the idealists about how they should be pragmatic, it seems somewhat two-faced to hate a product...
My little brother just got a Nokia N900 and brought it over to show off. My impression: this just might be the first phone I've ever seen which doesn't suck. apt-get install whateverthefuckyouwant totally embarrasses everybody's "app store" and on top of that it's a fully working product.
Is Nexus One getting there too? Cool. I knew shitty phones' days were numbered, but had no idea just what that number was. Looks like we've finally gotten to 0 and I can start taking the phone market seriously.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What the hell did Linus invent? He is not an inventor, he is a builder! Big and important difference, it is the difference between scientists and engineers, between architects and builders.
And you need BOTH but not to confuse the two or you are going to drive over a bridge made by someone who believes in testing rather then knowing.
What next, Newton inventing gravity?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
that's why I like the Internet Tablet idea the N770/800/810 used.
Paired with a phone, the phone is still a phone and small and compact and lasts long on a charge.
When you just need the phone, you take the phone.
When you need computery things, you take the tablet.
Not having to be small enough to hold to your head like a phone and not look stupid, the internet tablet can be bigger in screen than the phone can get away with.
And the problems of having two things when you want a "smartphone" is offset by the ease of carrying a smaller phone when you don't want a smartphone.
The fact that you aren't just buying a piece of hardware, but a platform with a certain set of available applications increases the complexity of the mobile device market. Further, the fact that you're limited to specific carriers based on the compatible technology and therefore have limited options for connectivity increases the complexity even more.
Such complexity is detrimental to markets optimizing each part. As the number of variables at play in a market increase, the chance of any given variable being near-optimum approaches zero.
This reminds me of when Carmack got all excited about gaming on a Mac...that turned out so well for Apple's gaming options (boot into Windows, play game developed for Windows).
Someone should tell him about the n900 w/ Maemo5. Now THERE'S a good OS. Not quite as good as pure debian... but much better than Android. Unless of course Linus WANTS to port gitk (or any other GUI tool) to the Android GUI library instead of well... just _running_ it.
"all I want from a phone is a few buttons that let me call people and a very, very long battery life."
You've confused your desires for his. A completely predictable mistake, really.
No
Rethinking email
> I haven't used an iPhone yet where the
> touchscreen doesn't need recalibrating every
> 2-3 days, it goes out so often. That's not just
> my iPhone either, it's any friends with ones
> too, who have the same issue.
hahahaha. If you have an iPhone with an option to calibrate its screen then you and your friends have bought knockoffs, not real iPhones.
Real iPhones don't have a calibration utility, as like just about every decent quality phone nowadays, they use projected capacitive touch panels, which don't need calibration, but give absolute known positions. They either work, or fail 100%
hahahaha iPhone touchscreen calibration hahahaha
I was highly interested in the Nexus One, but wasn't sure. With the recent updates Google just made, I took the plunge too.
If you've got the cash, do the non-subsidized one. You can get a rate plan that is about $20 a month cheaper from T-Mobile. After two years, thats a $480 savings. That cuts the $529 you paid down to $49 over two years. Thats $130 less ($179) than if you signup as a new T-Mobile customer or $230 less ($279) if you're already a customer. (I'm already a customer)
Why does your mobile phone need GPS? N810 has GPS. And if you want GPS you generally want to do computery things with it.
Things that a small phone won't do and the iPhone won't do as well as a larger screen would.
And you'd take your N810.
So, why does your phone as well as your tablet need GPS?
You're then talking about a phone you can buy second hand for $20 or new for $60. N810 takes up another $120.
Tell me where I can get an iPhone for less than $200?
If they'd done the N900 as a tablet, it would have been $100-150 cheaper. And it's already $300 cheaper than the iPhone 3GS.
I really don't see how this is even classed as news.
Linus hates you and your evil phone (im joking)
(emphasis mine)
The problem here isn't the state of mobile phones in general. In short, Linus has limited himself (rightly or wrongly) to phones running open source operating systems and, surprise, until Android they've all sucked.
This isn't really news to anyone who works in the mobile industry and I didn't quite expect it to be news on Slashdot either.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
When I got my N900 it was several days before I bothered moving my SIM card over to it. It was so much fun to carry around and use anyway. I used local WIFI connections.
The phone functionality is pretty minor part of the device.
Popping up remote X windows on the phone rocks, and the display is awesome.
I am now omnipotent!
Spend a month following, closely, the Maemo community. It's dead. Nokia might be shipping the superior hardware, but unless they step in soon and lead for a while you're buying a dead-end product.
The mindshare isn't there - and you can NOT apt-get install whateverthefuckyouwant, as nice as that would be.
This is because we've finally reached the point where that little computer you carry around in your pocket is actually a general-purpose computing device first and a phone second. Cell phone carriers in the U.S. don't want to sell computers. They want to sell phones. They want us to use minutes, send text messages, browse the web at $0.05/KB. They don't get any money when you use it for some non-phone purpose.
I don't currently have a reason to own a cell phone, but I bought an iPod Touch a month ago and can echo Linus's feelings. There are a few things that I absolutely loathe about this thing (the iTunes lock-in, the lack of a native podcast manager, the uber-restrictive development process) but on the whole it is really darn cool to have a fully-functional web browser in my pocket (almost) wherever I go. Along with email and apps for Twitter, Facebook, stock portfolio management, and so on. If they ever release something like the Nexus One without the phone part, I'd dump this iPod in a heartbeat.
Is there a phone that Stalman would be happy to use?
Or is even the OpenMoko project too proprietary for his taste?
This is hardly news...
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." -Pravin Lal