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Time For a Hobbyist Smartphone?

Posted by Soulskill on from the grassroots-tricorder dept.

theodp writes "Over at Scripting News, Dave Winer has a hobbyist phone on his wish list. Innovative phone manufacturers, Winer suggests, should 'make a smart phone with a really great scripting language, with all kinds of scriptable tools on board. Instead of disallowing scripting, disallow apps that can't be scripted. Make a great simple programming environment that runs on desktops or laptops that plugs right in, but it should also be easy to write scripts on the phone itself. Dave concludes, 'We've already seen the Jobs phone. Now it's time for Woz's.' Having ditched App Inventor, it would appear that Google isn't interested. Microsoft Research has the idea, if not the right implementation, with TouchDevelop (video). Any other existing or in-the-works projects that might fit the bill?"

27 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. Moron by binarylarry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He forgets that authoring and creating things on Tablets is annoying.

    And I don't mean "get off my lawn" annoying either, they're just poor tools for those tasks. They rock at redditing and slashdoting, however.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    1. Re:Moron by jones_supa · · Score: 2

      A netbook would be all that.

  2. Disallow apps that can't be scripted? by Improv · · Score: 2

    Sorry to be the pedant, but that "disallow apps that can't be scripted" line seems kneejerk and fairly stupid. Scriptability is not a yes/no thing, it's a measure for how good an API is. If you just want apps that are minimally scripted, I'm sure you could make a platform where every app accepts a hello() message, and does a popup with that, but that doesn't get you close to being able to do neat things.

    I suspect what we'd really like is more choice in programming languages on the phone and a cleaner split between UI and API.

    I wonder how many people would write apps for such a device for free. I might, and the opensource community might too, but is that enough?

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
    1. Re:Disallow apps that can't be scripted? by tlambert · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Dave Winer basically invented application scripting on Macintosh when he released Userland Frontier in the late 1980's. This was before Apple's own AppleScript. He also was a key in the creation of XML-RPC and SOAP for creating web API's.

      I read this as a HARD requirement for scriptablity across all applications. If all apps are able to respond to and make scripting API requests, any app would be able to be the "programming" language. Python, Sqeak, C, Photoshop, nginx, OpenOffice could all be equals.

      That was my take, too. I recognized the name, and more or less translated the idea to "I want PhoneGap for everything".

      This idea will never fly. Dave is old. I understand his perspective, because I lived through that era too: no one writes malicious code because everyone plays nice, and because of the way Apple codes things I don't have libraries to e.g. access my iTunes library as an iTunes library without doing a whole hell of a lot of work so I'd like to be able to ask iTunes to do it for me.

      The reason this will never fly is manifold:

      - There are incredibly sound UI and UX reasons to not allow "skinning" or "themes", or, frankly, even things like the Facebook ban on "Social Fixer". Programmers who like to tweak UI bits, but who either could never write iTunes on their own, or find doing things like that incredibly boring, don't like the lack of tweakability. Users, on the other hand, like to be able to call up a support person and get quick answers to their problems. Having the same icons and application layout everywhere GREATLY helps this. Users also do not like learning curves; having the same "look and feel", and having all applications follow the same HI guidelines, like they all have a "File" menu in the same place, and they all largely have the same items on the menus in the same places GREATLY helps this. It also makes it look like all your Mac apps were written in Cupertino, and all your Windows apps were written in Redmond, which programmers also hate, since it disallows use of trade dress to make their product stand out from the other products that do almost exactly the same thing.

      - It requires reaching across NECESSARY security protection domains. If I can talk to iTunes, and make it do things, there is effectively no more protection domain between myself and iTunes. Same for AddressBook. Same for Email. Same for Safari. Same for GPS info. Same for making phone calls. Make no mistake: there are assholes out there writing code; some do it just to be assholes, while others do it for money, politics, religion, etc.. But there are assholes, and having these Chinese walls between things that operate on data keeps a nice apps data from being accessed by assholes. So no cross-compaartmentalized scripting, unless you want to let the assholes do it too.

      - There just aren't that many programmers out there, and of those, only a fraction really get their rocks off tweaking UIs, and of those, only a fraction like to do their tweaking in a scripting rather than a compiled language. So there's not a lot of MARKET for the idea, and without a market, the idea isn't going to get done. Or it'll get done, and go nowhere, because the company will fail... hence my earlier comment about him feeling free to found a company or three to pursue the idea.

      Really he should be asking for APIs for things, but that's very antithetical to the whole historical Apple worldview that "iTunes databases should be managed by iTunes, and everyone else should keep their damn noses out". That's a pretty big paradigm shift for Dave, and an even bigger one for Apple: it's just not going to happen.

      Most everyone else will also be reluctant to open up APIs to their data, even under Android, even under the misdirection of calling it "making things scriptable". Welcome to the reason that CORBA and OmniORB and other object request broker paradigms are niche market at best and curiousities at worst.

  3. Nokia? by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Too bad Nokia quit making fun phones. The last was the N900. I'd love to have a new phone similar to that with modern specs.

    1. Re:Nokia? by red_dragon · · Score: 2

      I came here hoping to see the N900 listed. Thanks for not letting me down. I still miss my N900, two years after inadvertently walking into the Atlantic Ocean with it in my trunks. If the Neo900 manages to produce something within a reasonable time frame, I'll be able to resuscitate it.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
  4. Suer by i+kan+reed · · Score: 2

    Because when I code, I always want to use a totally unwieldy UI and no text to do it. It's like when we code for robots, how a hobbyist robot you program by directly writing on the embedded chip, using the robot's sensor's as inputs.

    How about we code on a machine that's usable for coding? I can still design neat things for my phone that way. I promise.

  5. All we need is software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are plenty of good devices out there from a hardware standpoint. The difference is that software is tailored by the manufacturer to reinforce their channels, partnerships, etc. (to the detriment of the user).

    Once rooted, these devices get a lot closer to what I think most people are looking for in a hobbyist device. However, that is the trick. Getting root access, and knowledge of the internals so that we can start work on our own.

    We've seen the failures hobbyist devices in the past. I expect the same going forward. If only we had access to the hardware and programming specs, we wouldn't even be having this conversation now. Maybe we can find a way to extort this info from these manufacturers.

  6. Android + QPython3 by Btrot69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I recently defected from iOS and I'm having great fun with an android app called QPython.
    Docs are still a bit spotty, but with a few lines of Python I can do all sorts of things with the Android API.

  7. What an amazing idea!! by realmolo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes, wouldn't it be great if someone made a completely developer-friendly, unlocked phone with good specs at a decent price?

    Yeah, no fucking shit it would. The carriers would NEVER allow it on their networks. We won't see a phone like that until we have a worldwide standard for cell networks, so that somebody could make that phone and actually sell it in the US.

    1. Re:What an amazing idea!! by jonbryce · · Score: 2

      There is a worldwide standard for cell networks, and if you get a phone that complies with it, there is a good chance it will work on the AT&T network, though probably not on any of the other networks.

    2. Re:What an amazing idea!! by the_humeister · · Score: 2

      Yes, yes indeed. I just got mine last week!

  8. Current programming tools suck, that's why. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's true for current methods of developing software. Which is typing in code.

    Programming hasn't changed very much in 50 or so years. And I think it's ludicrous that we're using a language to prgram a computer to do mathematical operations.

    What we really need is a symbolic programming "language" and it would rock on a touch screen.

    Why not go directly from dragging and dropping logic to machine code directly? There is no physcal law that says we have to program computers the way we do now.

    These "verbal" type of programming languages are so 20th century, inefficient and just old fashioned. Their time has passed.

    1. Re:Current programming tools suck, that's why. by snookerdoodle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You do know this is a True Holy Grail that people have been trying to build for a long, long time, right? Object orientation was, at least partially, supposed to be a step in this direction.

      I think Smalltalk had promise (and still does), but it seems I'm the only person who actually likes it. :)

      I think LOGO kinda sparks people's imaginations. I remember a product called "Object Center" on our Sparcs in the 80s or 90s that was really just a class browser. Then I saw Interface Builder on a NeXT and thought that was gonna be it. But it has turned out to be really, really hard.

      You would be a hero if you developed a working, practical, usable graphical (which I think you mean by "symbolic") programming language.

      Mark

    2. Re:Current programming tools suck, that's why. by AJH16 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You mean like the literally DOZENS if not hundreds of flowchart programming languages that have tried it before and failed outright because it simply isn't an easy format for us to follow the logic from when designing complex logic?

      --
      AJ Henderson
    3. Re: Current programming tools suck, that's why. by iamhassi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Already exists. There's a Ubuntu phone in the works that obviously allows scripting. You can hook it up to a monitor, keyboard and mouse to use it as a real computer too. Really that's where Microsoft should be going with Windows 8, the days of a desktop, tablet and smartphone being separate devices are limited, phones already have more CPU power than a 2007 desktop so why are we limiting them to a 4 to 5" screen? Someday soon you'll be able to walk in your office and flick the screen of your smartphone over to your desktop screen and sit at your keyboard and continue to work on whatever you were working on.

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
  9. Already done, people didn't want it. by Roadmaster · · Score: 3, Informative

    There was already a phone proposed that could have done this with no problem. There wasn't enough interest on it to make it a reality.

    http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge

    And before you go complaining about the cost, please have a look at flagship Android phones and how much they cost *off contract*. The Edge was a pretty good value.

  10. Barriers to enter the market by gmuslera · · Score: 2

    The amount of patents that surrounds anything mobile makes pretty hard to get new players on the game. And if the patents game didn't killed you, you have next the carriers one.

    The best approach so far seem to be the one being done by Jolla with Sailfish, generate enough buzz, get a chinese manufacturer to pledge support (the chinese market is big enough to make this approach profitable), and from there, see how much luck they have in the rest of the world (with preorders at least it worked for them pretty well).

    It could work for existing players, unless it requires deep changes to adapt to that kind of approachs, if so, it must be something new. Or something that could be installed on Android phones very much like Ubuntu Touch and Firefox OS are doing, with the core android OS and its drivers.

  11. Kivy by fliptout · · Score: 3, Informative

    You should check out Kivy- it will let you create a native app in Python for iOS or Android. http://kivy.org/

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
  12. Isn't the Android platform hobbyist-enough? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To me, the Android platform was close enough. It's "just" Java (if you can't figure out Java...), there are no fees required to get the development environment or simulators set up, Android devices and phones are available new for as little as $60 (and cheaper as people upgrade). So...to me, Android IS a hobby-friendly environment.

  13. Neo900 by wick3t · · Score: 2, Informative

    Too bad Nokia quit making fun phones. The last was the N900. I'd love to have a new phone similar to that with modern specs.

    It seems that you haven't heard of the Neo900 project which aims to deliver just that.

  14. OpenMoko? by Warbothong · · Score: 2

    I'm still getting along fine with my OpenMoko FreeRunner. It's currently running Debian, so it's as scriptable as anything. The "programming environment which runs on desktops or laptops" is whatever you use already; the "plugs right in" part is SSH (and its friends scp, sshfs, etc.).

    So, either you love OpenMoko and hence your wish is fulfilled, or you see it as a total failure in which case it's clear why nobody is doing this anymore.

    1. Re:OpenMoko? by galiven · · Score: 2

      Finally someone mentioned this way way down in the comments. Its sad that such a great project has so easily been forgotten. The remains of the project are still very interesting but there aren't enough people to even finance a production run of the new hardware.
      www.gta04.org

  15. OpenWebOS is still around... by zullnero · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's currently in a second Alpha state (if you're pulling the latest binaries, probably further along) and runs on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus (couple other profiles too). It's fully open source at this point, and even though supposedly LG wants to use it for TVs or something, there's a group that's been working on it for awhile ever since it was divulged from HPs hands. There are also efforts underway to emulate Android apps on the platform. The community also greatly appreciates anyone enthusiastic enough to contribute. You can find everything at webOSInternals. I still use a webOS phone as my daily device mainly because it does the things I need it to do very well (and other platforms come with way too many strings attached for me).

    If you want a hobbyist platform that the big platforms still steal ideas from...there you go. That's the epitome of a hobbyist platform. The scripting is all html/css/javascript using the Enyo framework. It's all open standards and there are plenty of tools that were built by Palm and later HP.

  16. Prograph by drerwk · · Score: 2

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prograph
    I loved using this in the mid 90s. I was 5x to 10x productive. But there was no diff available, no way to do SCM, it was hard to come back to code I'd written 6 months before and refresh my memory of what it did. And it was next to impossible to collaborate will a team. I was forced to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable_UML using some horrible tools (Kennedy Carter iUML) in the 2005s - same exact problems.
    Now iBuilder or what ever the I tool is in XCode is pretty nice. But building software that works, is maintainable, is extendible, and so on is a hard task - I don't think it is the lack of drag and drop tools.

  17. graphical symbols, not APL! by optikos · · Score: 2

    National Instruments LabVIEW as graphical control-flow (e.g., looping, branching) constructs http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14556/en
    +
    ROOM+ObjecTime (now IBM Rational Rose Realtime) as graphical object-oriented & nested state-machines http://www.amazon.com/Real-Time-Object-Oriented-Modeling-Bran-Selic/dp/0471599174/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1379088665&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=realtime+object+oriented+modeling+objectime

  18. Chromebook is the new Commodore-64 ? by perpenso · · Score: 2

    The whole point of these things appears to be to provide a modern day version of a Commodore-64, and get people interested in programming, and get them engaged, by having an environment where it's easy to do small hacks.

    Get a $200 Chromebook, install a full Linux distro on it. In adjusted dollars that is cheaper than a C-64 alone, not including tape, disc or monitor.