On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 9 Jun 2008, at 01:56, Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: >> ... i am asked by product management to do >> things that are just not possible in vga (to do sanely/fast). >> ... in the end if product management want X they get X. and >> if for X to happen we go QVGA, then so be it. you guys lose. i need >> a very very >> very strong argument against going to qvga - and that means product >> management >> need to drop a feature. > > > On 10 Jun 2008, at 11:55, Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: >> ... graphics is the most intensive thing your device is likely to >> do in terms of >> processing. if you want soft drop shadows, alpha blending (and >> trust me - >> everyone is drooling for it out there - the iphone is doing it >> already) the >> sheer memory bandwidth and cycles needed to do that stuff at a >> smooth framerate >> is astounding. sure - if your life is plain with still images/ >> content and >> everything is plain solid rectangles, you don't. but i am being >> shown designs >> wanted that REQUIRE compositing - REQUIRE alpha blending and all >> that snazz. >> this is coming to me and i need a way to accommodate it in the long >> run >> ... cpu alone can't do it all - unless you really cut down the >> workload. that means too >> bad - no alpha" ... > > > On 6 Jun 2008, at 08:45, Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) wrote: >> ... if we want to play the "my specs are better than your specs" >> game right now, we will lose. >> ... if all you measure a device on is dpi and pixel >> count, you are being silly. how it looks matters even more. dpi >> helps there, >> but so does compositing, translucency, smooth animation etc. in >> fact these >> probably have a much greater "buy me" effect. by far more. i'll put >> money on >> that bet actually (this is just speaking from having done eyecandy >> for over a >> decade - on linux, and having seen what it can do to attract >> people). to make >> things like compositing fast, smooth and nice, you must lower >> resolution to do >> it, or increase graphics power grunt. so given that graphicws grunt >> is not >> changing, cpu is not, the only 2 things that can change are screen >> resolution >> or the "eyecandy" has to remain toned down. so does vga buy you >> more sales for >> the average joe than a sexy bit of eyecandy at qvga? i'm leaning to >> qvga + >> eyecandy myself. > > > Reading these posts of the last few days it has just occurred to me > that it's not Carsten we should be beating up on here. > Who the heck asked for translucency and flashy animations? > > Management seem to be asking for this "alpha" bleeding rubbish, and > it seems to me that we users need to be telling management that we > don't care a heck for it. > > Sure, I know the iPhone does this now, but that doesn't mean Openmoko > has to do it. Do we really want Openmoko to be just another iPhone > clone? I know we see a fair number of posts on here about the iPhone, > but surely that's just a result of the current buzz - is UI animation > really a *necessity* in the long-term (or medium-term) future of the > mobile phone market? > > DISCLAIMER: I haven't used an iPhone, and I'm not terribly interested > in it. I do use a Mac as my main desktop, but that's not for the > animation, it's because I want something that "just works" when I sit > down at my computer. All us Mac fans found Expose to be a *massive* > UI improvement when it was released, but that's because virtual > desktops have always been rubbish on a Mac - with so many windows on > a single desktop *some* way of finding the bottom-most one was > required. The other day I was talking to a Linux developer who turned > off compiz on his desktop because it slowed down his productivity - > you simply don't need Expose if you have virtual desktops (which > admittedly are not suitable for my granny). > > It seems to me that, whilst the iPhone's animation may "wow" people, > what really distinguishes the iPhone is the same attention to UI > simplicity that Apple have always brought to their products. It does > a FEW things amazingly well, and that's where it separates itself > from the majority of phones on the market, none of which *quite* suit > the mass-market of users. Most users don't want to understand the > filesystem on their mobile phone, so Apple do away with it; Apple > have made it spectacularly easy (so much so that one must include in > the discussion the word "intuitive") to email a photo taken on the > camera or grabbed from a webpage, but they make it impossible to > email attachments under many other circumstances. The majority of > users don't want to copy & paste text on their mobile phones, so > Apple just got rid of it - other manufacturers "muddy up" the phones > they aim at girls and little old ladies (excuse me) by including the > ability to copy & paste; Apple have realised that only a minority of > business-phone users want or need that. > > The Neo & Freerunner have both been "smartphones", and that's surely > the interest that draws Linux users to this list. We want to be able > to shell into our unix servers, read PDFs and so on. The idea of an > open phone fires our imagination because we can integrate our > contacts from our LDAP servers and our diary with an iCal server, we > can do whatever the heck we want with Openmoko - we want to ADD > features, not remove them. > > In the context of that, does animation and transparency matter? Heck > no! We want a phone that displays text & icons on the screen, and as > long as the phone does that quick enough, we don't want you wasting > resources on trying to make the "experience" more flashy. > > There has been mention in these threads about the screen requirements > of smaller phones. I can only conclude from this that FIC are > planning to leverage their experience in building smartphone hardware > in order to break into to the larger market of small "girlie" and > "soccer mom" phones. Fine, but please don't do this at the expense of > your smartphone market. Honestly, I don't see how you can do this > well, without castrating your power-phone offerings. > > Parts of this conversation have focussed on making a "use case" for > VGA screens, but please, FIC management, make a use case for > transparency and flashy animations before having Carsten work on it. > Whilst I was writing an Apple spam arrived here, promoting today's > new iPhone announcement - I clicked on the link to iSteve's > presentation. The "enterprise" take-up from Fortune 500 companies was > surely impressive, but this leverage is because of Exchange- > compatibility and all the features that OS X gives to the iPhone for > free, not the flashy animations. This is where Openmoko can compete. > > I could write a lot, LOT more here, > > Stroller.
If OM's going QVGA onwards, please let me know now, so I won't waste $400 on a dead-end phone platform. Seriously, it's 2008. If you can't do it at 640x480, get a better CPU. -- H. Lally Singh Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science Virginia Tech _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community