Multitasking is overrated. The only OS doing multitasking right is WebOS.
What? I listen to Pandora, browse the web, check my email, take
phone calls, dip in an out of whatever python program I'm working on
in ASE,
and various other programs all day long on my Droid without missing
a beat or experiencing any slow down. Going from one to the other is
lightning quick, just long press on the home button and the icons for the various programs pop up and I press the one I want. I think the multi-tasking
on Android is well executed. It's not as slick as on WebOS but that
mostly comes down to eye candy, so to
say it is not done right because it isn't a carbon copy is over stating
the case a bit.
BTW, cut and paste between code snippets I look up in the web
browser and ASE rocks most excellently.
The company is doing pretty well ow in both video games and search,
They have lost billions on both of those markets and don't look
like they will be making that money back any time soon. If you
throw billions at something and make some progress, are you
really "doing really well"? That doesn't sound like success to me.
Ford, like the rest of the American is a zombie animated and propped
up solely by the American tax payer. I'd hardly call putting your
software in their cars any great success or something to crow about.
Did you even read what I wrote? Or did it just not jive with your
"us against the world" soap opera talking points so much that you just decided to
respond to what you pretend I said?
Allow me to reiterate. Open
or closed, it doesn't matter as they can both be malware. The
only real difference is that I at least have the opportunity to
take a peek if it's open. I'm only speaking for myself and yes,
I have gone through some programs line by line for various reasons.
Mostly to either add some functionality or to clean up some rough
edges but if I'd seen anything bad, I certainly would have sounded the
alarm.
Really? We get to beat up on this decomposed to dust horse again?
Whee!
If its open source, is it really a threat?
Have you read the source to all the open source apps you use? If your answer is no, then the answer to your question is yes.
No, skippy, it's a threat if it engaging in nefarious behavior.
Open source or closed is irrelevant. What is relevant
though is that if it is open, and you really really really
want to know, you can either take a look or have someone do it for you.
No. MS might want a little good PR to rub off by encouraging
a little open source development here and there but if suddenly
all third party windows software went open source overnight, they
would have a conniption. If that happened, how much trouble
would it be to just port that software to $PLATFORM_OF_CHOICE and
leave Windows?
So could Google - but no one seems to be bitching about Google Code.
Googlehas been a greatfriend of open source. They
have earned and continue to earn a great deal of trust and respect
from the open source and free software community.
Compare to the current CEO of Microsoft and I think it will be clearer
why Microsoft needs to do more.
then it shouldn't matter to you, I, or anyone else except zealots who pays the bills
Based on MS's historical disdain for open source with the current
CEO Steve Ballmer even going so
far as to refer to Linux as a cancer, I think it extremely
naive and presumptuous to refer to people suspicious of their motives
as just zealots implying that their caution is without
merit. Contrarily, I think anything other than an attitude of extreme skepticism
is foolhardiness approaching absurdity.
Furthermore, any license which by its very nature being a
legal document is open to ambiguity and interpretation by a court
and can very well be used in unpredictable ways to damage open
source and
to completely downplay this possibility in general and in the case
of MS in particular especially in light of their very direct statements against
open source is extremely arrogant and misinformed on your part.
Interesting. Could you cite some specific examples of the FSF exhibiting this behavior and explain in a little detail
how they are the same as what AOL is doing here?
The idea of a clamshell form factor for an e-reader is compelling, I'll admit.
However, practically speaking, what are you really talking about?
Twice the price. Twice the weight. I typically hold paperbacks
by the top when I'm reading so the e-reader would have to be pretty
light. That's not happening with this device.
Since we're on the subject, though, the ultimate e-reader is basically
a book with about 50 or so "pages" that change based on what you want
to read. This solves the problem of being able to flip around which
in my opinion is the real bane of any e-reader and what kills their
mass adoption.
Re:The iPhone and finally walk and chew gum!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
·
· Score: 1
Put my phone down, punk, before I go over there and kick your ass.
A touch screen input system may be better for creation tasks if it has appropriate customizations for each task.
Absolutely. On paper, that makes a lot of sense. However, in reality, we've had touch screen creation oriented tablets for a while now.
Aside from verticals, the software you speak of hasn't moved very
many units. So, sure, you can write something and put it out there and say it's the
best thing ever but it has to sell. It hasn't so far, what makes you
think that's likely to change?
Re:The iPhone and finally walk and chew gum!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
·
· Score: 1
Good luck with your android OS on an inferior device.
I'm having excellent "luck" on my Droid. I'm curious though, in
what way is my device inferior?
Re:The iPhone and finally walk and chew gum!
on
iOS 4 Releases Today
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
That sounds interesting. Could you provide some examples?
Technology changes and those who scoff at the changes are usually the older generation who doesn't want to change. And they usually end up being those engineers who are unable to adapt.
A touch screen keyboard is not better than a hardware keyboard for
a "creation" device. No matter how used to the touch screen keyboard
a generation of people might be.
Technology really only changes when a newer technology is developed
that is actually demonstrably better than the previous technology.
Take the LP record. There were several technologies developed that
were supposed to supercede it in the marketplace (8 track, cassette) but it was only
the CD that actually won the day. The CD was going to be replaced
with DAT, SACD, DVD-audio but it is now only going the way of the
dinosaur because of mp3's and digital distribution. And the mp3 may
even have seen its best days now thanks to streaming services. The point is,
just because a new technology comes along that may have a few
advantages doesn't mean it is The Future(TM). It has to be
significantly better, meaning, functionally, aesthetically, cheaper,
easily marketable, etc. I don't think I'll be turning in my mouse
and keyboard anytime soon despite being a member of "the older generation who doesn't want to change."
I'm not even sure I buy that. I use my Sony e-reader while lying
in bed all the time. I lay on my back and read some, then I lay
on my left side holding the ereader in one hand and read some more. Then I lay on my right side
and so on. The sony is just a few ounces, has a battery that
lasts for weeks, generates no heat, and an e-ink display. I can't imagine how a
dual touch screen laptop is going to be anything but a pain in the
ass as an ebook consumption device.
he Nexus One has a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, whereas the 3GS has a 600 MHz(both ARM Cortex A8) and 256 MB of RAM. The fact that up until Froyo the browser didn't run faster should be quite embarrassing.
I'm not actually sure if it was slower before, it may not have been. However, it is definitely faster now. And the iPad has a 1 GHz proc running native code while the Nexus has the same yet runs jit compiled java. That seems a bit more of an embarassment to me.
Still, GP has a point. Astro is an awesome tool, but it's a 3rd party tool. The fact Android doesn't include any built-in, native file manager is a mistake and a shortcoming
True, there's no default file manager but it's very debatable whether that's a shortcoming to the target market. When you're trying to sell phones to the "Oh, shiny!" set, (and face it, that's always the real aim), do you really want to clutter the device? People like us that see value in a file manager are going to seek one out. Besides, we wouldn't be using the default anyway. I have yet to see a platform
that has a decent built in tool. Explorer sucks, finder sucks, nautilus sucks. The only great file manager I've ever seen was Konqueror in kde3.
BTW, the quote above brought to you via cut and paste on my droid.
Want to store files on the Android? Oh wait, you can't. The only way to access files is through a rooted command-line interface. Or you can install a shoddy-quality, centralized, file manager.
Er, what? Astro file manager is very high quality and you can store
as many files on/sdcard as you have space to hold. Furthermore,
no you don't need to be root to access files on Android with a terminal
emulator.
Want to open a downloaded image in Gallery? Sorry, you can't!
Complete bs. I just did the following on my Droid: Browsed to images.google.com,
did a random search for kittens, clicked on an image for full size,
long pressed it and selected "download", navigated to the download
folder with Astro file manager, selected the kitten.jpg and it opened
in gallery.
I'm not even going to bother quoting anymore of your rant except for
this:
Java is an abomination, to the eyes, and to the mind. It's a soulless corporate manifestation, the COBOL of the present, the programming language that no one willingly chooses to learn. DIAF.
Well, that's cool. That's your opinion and you're welcome to it.
I don't personally share it but, listen, next time, could you tell
us all what you really think?
P.S. Obviously, they were going for the sandboxed, managed code
approach, particularly taking into account what they wanted to
do with application lifecycles with the seamless killing
and restarting of applications based on the the memory needs, etc. So, if you don't think
Java was the tool for the job, what was? And don't even think about saying Mono.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it. Companies, you know, they do research on this sort of thing. They know what moves handsets. Whatever can be done that increases sales, they do that.
You seem to have a lot of faith in these "companies" you speak of.
Here are two points for you to consider. Firstly, the Motorola Droid
makes up a third of Android phones on the market and it shipped with a
bone stock Android interface so, obviously, an overlay isn't
necessary for massive success. Bear in mind, this is despite the fact
that the HTC Hero preceded it and shipped with SenseUI. Secondly,
there is a vast graveyard of failed products that companies were sure
would be hits. Remember the hype for the Palm Pre before its launch? It
has been a failure despite Palm trying really really hard. I won't even bother beginning to enumerate the rest.
Which means what, exactly? What application can you write for iOS
that you can't write for Android? There are many security and
development advantages to writing apps in managed code and the NDK
takes care of any performance issues. I fail to see the downside.
I could see if there were a speed advantage to the iOS model but
there isn't. For example, side by side, the Android browser in
Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact that they are both based on Webkit.
So, where's the advantage?
That is total BS and it's time for Android users to stop playing the "we're too new to be successful" card.
Did you even read the rest of my comment or did you just stop right
there? I'll just quote it for you:
and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.
Note the bolded points. I specifically point out that, A, more people
have iPhones and, B, Android still has more maturing to do.
which is why Ansroid is missing so many categories of software and why the overwhelming majority of Apple developers are Apple-only.
Also false. iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer and there are more
people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and
momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues
to mature and grow, this may change.
Slashdot Mirror
Multitasking is overrated. The only OS doing multitasking right is WebOS.
What? I listen to Pandora, browse the web, check my email, take phone calls, dip in an out of whatever python program I'm working on in ASE, and various other programs all day long on my Droid without missing a beat or experiencing any slow down. Going from one to the other is lightning quick, just long press on the home button and the icons for the various programs pop up and I press the one I want. I think the multi-tasking on Android is well executed. It's not as slick as on WebOS but that mostly comes down to eye candy, so to say it is not done right because it isn't a carbon copy is over stating the case a bit.
BTW, cut and paste between code snippets I look up in the web browser and ASE rocks most excellently.
The company is doing pretty well ow in both video games and search,
They have lost billions on both of those markets and don't look like they will be making that money back any time soon. If you throw billions at something and make some progress, are you really "doing really well"? That doesn't sound like success to me.
Xbox 360 ain't too shabby....
XBox has lost MS billions.
future sucess with Kinect...
Extremely speculative.
Sync in Ford's
Ford, like the rest of the American is a zombie animated and propped up solely by the American tax payer. I'd hardly call putting your software in their cars any great success or something to crow about.
Allow me to reiterate. Open or closed, it doesn't matter as they can both be malware. The only real difference is that I at least have the opportunity to take a peek if it's open. I'm only speaking for myself and yes, I have gone through some programs line by line for various reasons. Mostly to either add some functionality or to clean up some rough edges but if I'd seen anything bad, I certainly would have sounded the alarm.
If its open source, is it really a threat?
Have you read the source to all the open source apps you use? If your answer is no, then the answer to your question is yes.
No, skippy, it's a threat if it engaging in nefarious behavior. Open source or closed is irrelevant. What is relevant though is that if it is open, and you really really really want to know, you can either take a look or have someone do it for you.
No. MS might want a little good PR to rub off by encouraging a little open source development here and there but if suddenly all third party windows software went open source overnight, they would have a conniption. If that happened, how much trouble would it be to just port that software to $PLATFORM_OF_CHOICE and leave Windows?
So could Google - but no one seems to be bitching about Google Code.
Google has been a great friend of open source. They have earned and continue to earn a great deal of trust and respect from the open source and free software community.
Compare to the current CEO of Microsoft and I think it will be clearer why Microsoft needs to do more.
I wish I could simply forget SourceForge.net
Why would that be?
then it shouldn't matter to you, I, or anyone else except zealots who pays the bills
Based on MS's historical disdain for open source with the current CEO Steve Ballmer even going so far as to refer to Linux as a cancer, I think it extremely naive and presumptuous to refer to people suspicious of their motives as just zealots implying that their caution is without merit. Contrarily, I think anything other than an attitude of extreme skepticism is foolhardiness approaching absurdity.
Furthermore, any license which by its very nature being a legal document is open to ambiguity and interpretation by a court and can very well be used in unpredictable ways to damage open source and to completely downplay this possibility in general and in the case of MS in particular especially in light of their very direct statements against open source is extremely arrogant and misinformed on your part.
Interesting. Could you cite some specific examples of the FSF exhibiting this behavior and explain in a little detail how they are the same as what AOL is doing here?
Since we're on the subject, though, the ultimate e-reader is basically a book with about 50 or so "pages" that change based on what you want to read. This solves the problem of being able to flip around which in my opinion is the real bane of any e-reader and what kills their mass adoption.
Put my phone down, punk, before I go over there and kick your ass.
A touch screen input system may be better for creation tasks if it has appropriate customizations for each task.
Absolutely. On paper, that makes a lot of sense. However, in reality, we've had touch screen creation oriented tablets for a while now. Aside from verticals, the software you speak of hasn't moved very many units. So, sure, you can write something and put it out there and say it's the best thing ever but it has to sell. It hasn't so far, what makes you think that's likely to change?
Good luck with your android OS on an inferior device.
I'm having excellent "luck" on my Droid. I'm curious though, in what way is my device inferior?
That sounds interesting. Could you provide some examples?
Technology changes and those who scoff at the changes are usually the older generation who doesn't want to change. And they usually end up being those engineers who are unable to adapt.
A touch screen keyboard is not better than a hardware keyboard for a "creation" device. No matter how used to the touch screen keyboard a generation of people might be.
Technology really only changes when a newer technology is developed that is actually demonstrably better than the previous technology.
Take the LP record. There were several technologies developed that were supposed to supercede it in the marketplace (8 track, cassette) but it was only the CD that actually won the day. The CD was going to be replaced with DAT, SACD, DVD-audio but it is now only going the way of the dinosaur because of mp3's and digital distribution. And the mp3 may even have seen its best days now thanks to streaming services. The point is, just because a new technology comes along that may have a few advantages doesn't mean it is The Future(TM). It has to be significantly better, meaning, functionally, aesthetically, cheaper, easily marketable, etc. I don't think I'll be turning in my mouse and keyboard anytime soon despite being a member of "the older generation who doesn't want to change."
sounds like a great e-reader form factor
I'm not even sure I buy that. I use my Sony e-reader while lying in bed all the time. I lay on my back and read some, then I lay on my left side holding the ereader in one hand and read some more. Then I lay on my right side and so on. The sony is just a few ounces, has a battery that lasts for weeks, generates no heat, and an e-ink display. I can't imagine how a dual touch screen laptop is going to be anything but a pain in the ass as an ebook consumption device.
he Nexus One has a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, whereas the 3GS has a 600 MHz(both ARM Cortex A8) and 256 MB of RAM. The fact that up until Froyo the browser didn't run faster should be quite embarrassing.
I'm not actually sure if it was slower before, it may not have been. However, it is definitely faster now. And the iPad has a 1 GHz proc running native code while the Nexus has the same yet runs jit compiled java. That seems a bit more of an embarassment to me.
Still, GP has a point. Astro is an awesome tool, but it's a 3rd party tool. The fact Android doesn't include any built-in, native file manager is a mistake and a shortcoming
True, there's no default file manager but it's very debatable whether that's a shortcoming to the target market. When you're trying to sell phones to the "Oh, shiny!" set, (and face it, that's always the real aim), do you really want to clutter the device? People like us that see value in a file manager are going to seek one out. Besides, we wouldn't be using the default anyway. I have yet to see a platform that has a decent built in tool. Explorer sucks, finder sucks, nautilus sucks. The only great file manager I've ever seen was Konqueror in kde3.
BTW, the quote above brought to you via cut and paste on my droid.
Yeah, I know that and you know that. I was just giving the long drawn out version to the troll I was responding to up there.:)
How about... simple file management tools?
Want to store files on the Android? Oh wait, you can't. The only way to access files is through a rooted command-line interface. Or you can install a shoddy-quality, centralized, file manager.
Er, what? Astro file manager is very high quality and you can store as many files on /sdcard as you have space to hold. Furthermore,
no you don't need to be root to access files on Android with a terminal
emulator.
Want to open a downloaded image in Gallery? Sorry, you can't!
Complete bs. I just did the following on my Droid: Browsed to images.google.com, did a random search for kittens, clicked on an image for full size, long pressed it and selected "download", navigated to the download folder with Astro file manager, selected the kitten.jpg and it opened in gallery.
I'm not even going to bother quoting anymore of your rant except for this:
but I do have a Nexus One.
Have you even turned it on yet?
Java is an abomination, to the eyes, and to the mind. It's a soulless corporate manifestation, the COBOL of the present, the programming language that no one willingly chooses to learn. DIAF.
Well, that's cool. That's your opinion and you're welcome to it. I don't personally share it but, listen, next time, could you tell us all what you really think?
P.S. Obviously, they were going for the sandboxed, managed code approach, particularly taking into account what they wanted to do with application lifecycles with the seamless killing and restarting of applications based on the the memory needs, etc. So, if you don't think Java was the tool for the job, what was? And don't even think about saying Mono.
If it didn't work, they wouldn't be doing it. Companies, you know, they do research on this sort of thing. They know what moves handsets. Whatever can be done that increases sales, they do that.
You seem to have a lot of faith in these "companies" you speak of. Here are two points for you to consider. Firstly, the Motorola Droid makes up a third of Android phones on the market and it shipped with a bone stock Android interface so, obviously, an overlay isn't necessary for massive success. Bear in mind, this is despite the fact that the HTC Hero preceded it and shipped with SenseUI. Secondly, there is a vast graveyard of failed products that companies were sure would be hits. Remember the hype for the Palm Pre before its launch? It has been a failure despite Palm trying really really hard. I won't even bother beginning to enumerate the rest.
You still have to write Java apps.
Which means what, exactly? What application can you write for iOS that you can't write for Android? There are many security and development advantages to writing apps in managed code and the NDK takes care of any performance issues. I fail to see the downside. I could see if there were a speed advantage to the iOS model but there isn't. For example, side by side, the Android browser in Froyo as running on a Nexus One has been demonstrated to be faster than the iPhone 3GS and the iPad despite the fact that they are both based on Webkit. So, where's the advantage?
That is total BS and it's time for Android users to stop playing the "we're too new to be successful" card.
Did you even read the rest of my comment or did you just stop right there? I'll just quote it for you:
and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.
Note the bolded points. I specifically point out that, A, more people have iPhones and, B, Android still has more maturing to do.
The native API is closed. You have to rewrite in Java,
This is false. See here.
which is why Ansroid is missing so many categories of software and why the overwhelming majority of Apple developers are Apple-only.
Also false. iPhone has more applications because it has been out longer and there are more people with iPhones who buy apps thus providing the incentive and momentum for more applications to get written. As Android continues to mature and grow, this may change.