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Software Developer Explains Why The Ubuntu Phone Failed (itwire.com)
troublemaker_23 quotes ITWire:
A developer who worked with the Ubuntu Phone project has outlined the reasons for its failure, painting a picture of confusion, poor communication and lack of technical and marketing foresight. Simon Raffeiner stopped working with the project in mid-2016, about 10 months before Canonical owner Mark Shuttleworth announced that development of the phone and the tablet were being stopped.
Raffeiner says, for example, that "despite so many bugs being present, developers were not concentrating on fixing them, but rather on adding support for more devices." But he says he doesn't regret the time he spent on the project -- though now he spends his free time "traveling the world, taking photographs and creating bad card games, bad comics and bad games."
"Please note that this post does not apply to the UBPorts project, which continues to work on the phone operating system, Unity 8 and other components."
Raffeiner says, for example, that "despite so many bugs being present, developers were not concentrating on fixing them, but rather on adding support for more devices." But he says he doesn't regret the time he spent on the project -- though now he spends his free time "traveling the world, taking photographs and creating bad card games, bad comics and bad games."
"Please note that this post does not apply to the UBPorts project, which continues to work on the phone operating system, Unity 8 and other components."
The Ubuntu phone failed because it's a fucking stupid idea. People want smartphones with a large base of popular apps.
Yeah, not so much.
Sounds like Linux right now. Who cares if systemd is s steaming pile of shit and that route and ifconfig are now legacy. Those tools weren't broken and worked fine for decades.
1. Not solid through US carriers. ...so yeah, there were seemingly no advantages and lots of disadvantages to moving.
2. Focus on low cost hardware; no "flagship phone".
3. Primary benefits were ideological; no new features or distinction over incumbents.
4. No integration with a movies/music/tv ecosystem.
5. Practically no existing market to leverage.
6. Dependency on browser over App Store model.
7. No focus on a migration path.
Linux was a successful exception to this type of effort for ONE reason: it was drop-in compatible with its competition. Linux was user-installable on commodity PCs that people already owned -and- it ran Unix, a popular OS that already had applications and a technical user base that was used to making tweaks to enable their apps to run on various Unix flavors. Linux was just another flavor.
-nomsh
Nothing has really improved; it's all just gotten a different interface.
Us computer nuts have put up with a lot of crap across the years, but that's part of the appeal of our interest. But phones are for ordianary people, or people who at the moment of using the phone want just an ordinary sane experience. What I'll put up with on my computer, for instance, I'd never tolerate on my phone.
So Microsoft and Linux phones were really stillborn. And who, with at least one working braincell, is suprised at this fact.
You wanna mess around anyway- Andorid phones give you the power. You want the walled garden experience, you go Apple. A rubbish third option ain't needed or wanted.
Anyway the main figures behind Linux are mentally unbalanced, and you wouldn't want to bump into any of them in a dark alley. Mostly mediocre coders with egos the size of planets, and zero people skills. The very opposite set of characterists needed to work on that most social of devices that just needs to work without excuses.
PS I use a lot of open-source/free software on windows. Sometimes a really pathetic (and easy to rectify) bug has me search the dev forums- where I am horrified to see reports of said bug literally years back- and the devs telling the users to go eff themselves. As a happy but informed user of this type of software I just shrug- understanding the psychological issues the devs have- but psychology makes them 100% unsuited for working on devices like phones.
Raffeiner says, for example, that "despite so many bugs being present, developers were not concentrating on fixing them, but rather on adding support for more devices." But he says he doesn't regret the time he spent on the project -- though now he spends his free time "traveling the world, taking photographs and creating bad card games, bad comics and bad games."
Is this a story on the failings of the Ubuntu Phone project or how cool this person thinks they are now. Who fucking cares if they're now some instagramming douche bag.
way of working. What differs that from this?
You're basically another APK, only with (slightly) better punctuation.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It can always serve as a bad example.
But are the resources all that scarce? Seems to me we've gone from "on the internet nobody knows you're a dog" to "on the internet even your dog can be a 'developer' ".
Resources get tight when you want someone to work on your for-profit project for free or at below-market rates. That's entirely normal - the previous hype of all things computer-related is over.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
That's not why it failed. It failed because there was next to no demand.
The Linux Nokia N900 and Sharp Zaurus used regular x11, you could compile desktop ARM Linux stuff pretty easily or chroot.
Ubuntu Touch used a screwball OS and never got convergance working, it was worse IMHO than even Cyanogen which was not GNU Linux but at least you can install APKs and get some mainstream functionality. No x11, no pulseaudio or ALSA, no apt or rpm; it was a forever weird broken os which resembled the Ubuntu color scheme. And with the dearth of usable apps there was no wine like compatibility to install an APK to run a dirty Android bin app.
Ubuntu Touch, I really tried but it was not suited to hacking, useful for only the most simple web browser only noob or the most godlike intuitive code hacker; though what a $#!t platform to be stuck on.
I soldier on with an old N900 and an up to date bluetooth tethered tablet running LineageOS and Fdroid repos(no google anything but some APKs from APKmirror). I don't have a better solution, and I feel like we are farther from a good hackable mobile OS than ever before in the era of mainstream pocket computing.
I thought it was lack of interest from any big hardware, app developer, or end user that killed Ubuntu mobile. Seriously you only have a small percentage of PC users running Ubuntu, how do you expect to sell a lot of smartphones with a OS most consumers don't even recognize?
Who cares about a bug free system, when there is only one crappy phone, where it works? Of course, the bugs should not be too extreme, but still adding hardware support has a priority as well. And bugfree systems are rare. Have a look at the mozilla bugtracker. And there are many serious problems, ten year old platform bugs and so on. But firefox mostly works and that's the important part. Abitious projects do not have the ressources to do everything perfect. And there are always more new bugs than fixed ones. If you're in a market as mobile phones or browsers, you need to keep up with features. HTML5 gets new features like every month. So when do you have the time to fix the minor bugs of the feature from a year ago? You start doing so, when people actually care and report they are having big trouble with them. Or when you got a bit of spare time. But now while the users are complaining, that netflix runs slower as it does on chrome.
"despite so many bugs being present, developers were not concentrating on fixing them, but rather on adding support for more devices."
This could be a generic description for Linux in general. It is hard to get people who volunteer their time to do work (or is it really play?) on things they don't want to.
Writing new stuff is fun. People will do that. Fixing bugs is hard work. It requires effort and thought and understanding. You can't persuade people to give up their time to do that, it's not fun.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
... you couldn't run the programs on it you expected from the platform. It could have easily attracted a market of more professional users if it wouldn't have tried to copy iOS and Android.
There is a market for something like the communicator with modern hardware. Essentially a device which on the outside is a regular phone, and once you fold it up becomes a portable computer, complete with keyboard.
The market for portable devices with an app-store is already full. However for some reason both Canonical and Microsoft are chasing it on both the portable and the desktop side. Both fail doing so, even though Microsoft should have known better since its Windows CE had a far greater market share than Windows Mobile.
Another problem with Ubuntu's phone OS: its UI bought into the militantly-fashionable idea of eliminating all physical buttons & reducing the phone to a touchscreen for literally everything UI-related. From what I recall (circa summer 2013, at least), it didn't just ignore things like volume buttons for the OS's UI... it didn't even have an API for thirdparty APPS to read their state or react to button-state changes. It was insane.
It's the same reason why Android & IOS (and Windows Mobile & PalmOS before them) never became popular alternatives to universal remote controls, even though everyone has a drawer full of old ones begging for some meaningful repurposed use at this point. A well-designed remote allows you to grope blindly, pick it up, and (at the bare minimum) raise & lower the volume, toggle mute, and pause/play/skip by feeling the shape of the buttons alone. An app that forces you to divert your full attention to its UI egregiously violates user expectations, and basically sucks to use. It's also why so many people have bought a Roku or Kindle Fire instead of a (slightly-cheaper) Chromecast... having touchscreen-control as an OPTION might be nice, but having it rammed down your throat as the ONLY way to control a device results in a miserable use experience.
I approached the (then) product manager responsible for the OS and proposed a fork in their route-to-market. My pitch was to create an OS for devices built for industry that were being sold running Microsoft® Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5 & Microsoft® Windows® CE and are still be actually sold today.
At the time companies developing and selling devices were not investing in developing new MS mobile OS devices cuz the OS is long dead and the cost of creating new platforms (they still sell device platforms that are more than 6 years old). Also MS Windows Phone was consumer focused completely cutting out the industrial sector.
So they were stuck in limbo with regards to a viable mobile OS.
So I pitched the idea of approaching these companies with the idea of creating a common OS to get around their legacy issues, cuz at the time they were just dipping their toe into Android, and security back then was an afterthought for most.
Talk about not knowing anything about their broader target market, it seemed to me the guys making the decisions were hoping to copy what Apple & Google did, slap a Unix label onto it and they would had a hit on their hands. Without any real depth of knowledge about the wider mobile market.
The mass-market consumer doesn't buy Unix, its a niche market (still) outside business.
iOS is Unix underneath but Apple (very wisely) keep that hidden and point the consumer at the shinny features and eye candy. They talk about iOS and give consumer friendly names to stuff like 'Metal' etc...
But if you think about it, that's exactly what Ubuntu is really, yer they build some stuff along the way but nothing substantial. Don't get me wrong I use Ubuntu regularly and its my preferred distro. But it takes different skills to build something new.
You're a "ne'er-do-well" Zontar The Mindless (good name for you). A do nothing zero douche (& you know it, loser).
* Don't you have anything better to do, loser? Apparently not. Makes sense though - you have zero skills & zero to show for yourself...
APK
P.S.=> I love when you provide me the opportunity to shoot your lame ass down, lol - thank you! apk
Are you a sysadmin? That'd be a pretty convenient excuse. "Well I would fix it, but ...".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'd run that through babelfish if I knew what language it was supposed to be.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"A developer who worked with the Ubuntu Phone project has outlined the reasons for its failure"
Ubuntu Phone failed because Canonical failed to engage with the developers and didn't do a deal with the telecoms to provide a rich user experience. Like apple did with the original Apple Phone Demo.
From the start of the project, they were a bit behind Android. By the time there was a "product" (to be generous), it was far too late for a new player in the market. The android and apple markets were far too well established. They stood less of a chance than Blackberry did.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Swahili, I'm pretty sure.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The resource that is scare in this case is CASH.
Exactly.
Ubuntu being Ubuntu, Shuttleworth being Shuttleworth. T'was ever thus.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
1st take your meds mentalcase https://slashdot.org/comments....
&
I see you're also a druggie too https://slashdot.org/comments....
Going to make more sockpuppets to stalk & troll me with you loon https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?
+
Your sending me postcards with threats too https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?
* You're a butthurt loon freak, plain & simple... you did it to yourself, loser...
You're from SWEDEN the land of UBI slavery, which IS all that result from it, witness your "no go" zones w/ Muslims RAPING your women https://www.google.com/#q=Sweden+and+muslim+rape (you're all "not men" there, punk)).
APK
P.S.=> Still trying to live down how I shot you to pieces in the art & science of computing Mr. Butthurt https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?
How about proving hosts & my program that builds them are useless too https://slashdot.org/comments.... ?
See subject above - They're FACT & your fails made them so, lol!
(I've done all that LONG ago & you haven't done squat of note... must hurt like hell, that truth, or you wouldn't be stalking me like the loser druggie mental loon you're proven to be in YOUR OWN WORDS in those links above, lol)... apk
You know I'm right.
Usually one big problem I see with these projects is that it's difficult to both build a phone OS and come out with hardware at a manufacturing scale that allows selling the hardware people want at a price people can afford. Sony has some decently nice hardware involved in their Open Devices project. HTC also has released kernel source code. Maybe it would be valuable to bring the new OS first to one of these devices that already has market share and look into building mobile phone hardware later on in life.
Remember how much we love how Microsoft decided to make a common interface across all platforms and resulted in making the Windows interface (particularly the now-usesless start men) worse? Mark Shuttleworth must have thought to himself. "You know, that strategy is absolutely going to work for Microsoft. And while we have neither the desktop market or the smartphone market, let's try it!"
(And, as a guy who does UI work from time-to-time over a decade... Hundreds of apps that use Qt, but how many use QML? I remember when QML was introduced and thought to myself "Peope only use Javascript because it's the only language web browsers understand. Almost every desktop application on every platform is written in a type-checked compiled language for a reason -- catching more errors at compile time is a Good Thing (TM).. Why do I want to introduce Javascript into my perfectly good C/C++ code?")
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
The Ubuntu phone was a me-too thing. No one asked for it, wanted it, or bought it.
And yet, Ubuntu ran their game into the ground supporting Unity, and for what?
Let this be a lesson to all the me-too, flash-in-the-pan bullshit instigators.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
There is still no really viable small pocketable linux tablet available (for years now!) surely that would have generated support from a very interested group of hobbyists who would love such a thing and would then help develop it.
It could be cheap and fast to develop, (as in, it's not a phone!) and it would not even matter if the system on it was not highly polished just so long as it works, as it's users would probably improve it quite quickly.
4core 1.4ghz 2gb 4000mah otg usb $200 would be nice
Reading the article it sounds like the openmoko all over again
http://michaelsmith.id.au
> he says he doesn't regret the time he spent on the project -- though now he spends his free time "traveling the world, taking photographs and creating bad card games, bad comics and bad games."
I understand self-deprecation and all that, but does he ever think he might also be responsible for the oh-so-many bugs he mentioned didn't get fixed? That's not the tone I'd use if I was talking, in hindsight, about a failed project.
That's it, really.
I tried it. It was horrible. The idea we were sold on was an Ubuntu desktop OS on the phone.
Then it became a JS-app enabled smartphone-light experience
Then when the preview builds and RTMs came out I tried those. They were... unusable. I don't know what they were thinking.
Ubuntu on a phone wasn't an inherently bad idea. If they stuck with native apps, or did the app model better, got some big players like FB/Twitter/etc onboard in the beginning, which wouldn't have been hard to do, they'd be in a much better position.
They would still have had an uphill battle, but when those stunningly bad early builds came out they weren't even good enough for a daily driver. I couldn't leave them on my phone. They left me cut off from EVERYTHING I do on my phone. No good!
...and it's still working thanks to convergence. She even started to appreciate the desktop experience ;-)
Which was basically RIM's idea to stay relevant with the Blackberry. Provide professional-level services (whatever they are) and sell to businesses. Microsoft couldn't have won that way either.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The resource that is scare in this case is CASH.
A shortage of cash for shit projects? I wish that were true, but SillyValley proves otherwise. This won't attract any more funding only because it's way shittier than most. At some point, sanity begins to push back.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
If it was only him it would be just one of a few choices of sound system and init systems with nobody bitching about having his ideas on what linux should be forced upon them.
We can't blame him especially for his early stuff - RedHat management have plenty of options about who they can have running their projects - it appears he impressed them with his "vision" of not being content with just an init system like the upstart people were doing, but an entire takeover of linux and a change to an MS style environment (as you can read on his blog). Without RedHat he's just a guy with ambition who would have to "play well with others" - with RedHat he can act as he has acted. For example, the "if you want gnome you need to have systemd" deal could never have happened without RedHat behind him.
It's one of the reasons I migrated a lot of stuff to FreeBSD (I haven't seen linux crash so much as it has with recent distros - not even in 1995 on the bleeding edge) including now a couple of desktop systems and a laptop.