QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
Stroller wrote: > 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. Amen to that! > 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? This is especially true because if the GTA03 tries to be an iPhone clone, it will be at best a half-assed iPhone clone. The hardware just isn't competitive with an iPhone's. If the GTA03 has QVGA, will it have fast 3G networking? No. Will it have a state-of-the-art SoC? No. That's not to say the GTA03 will be a bad device. There's a lot of very exciting things you can do with the Freerunner hardware. But it's just stupid to try to imitate the slick, largely useless, graphics goodies found on high-end video feature phones. It is also a little alarming to hear that alpha blending is even being discussed by corporate OM personnel, when you consider the state of the current OM software stack. I don't think OM should target consumers who care about watching videos and having slick graphics at all. They should go after uses of Palm and RIM products, who will be attracted to a rich ecosystem of useful 3rd party applications, and a phone geared towards letting professional people get some work done. There are not nearly so many of those people as there are Apple fanboys, but they are willing to part with serious money to get the best phone for their work and hobbies. Think Differently! -- Ken Young ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
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 u
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
Well said. Ortwin On 6/10/08, 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 th
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
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 t
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
I have used an iPhone, my wife's. The animations are pretty at first. After a while, they're just annoying. My wife gets impatient waiting for windows to get out of the way so she can get on with what she's trying to do. What's really funny is that some times the phone will do all that neat animation, and the window that shows up has no content. You stare at an empty contact list for as much as 3 seconds easily before it suddenly fills up with names. My wife may be an exception to the rule here. She sometimes does data entry at work and has the dialogs of her application memorized so she can type in the fields much faster than the application can keep up. When the keyboard beeps, she'll sit back and take a sip of her beverage while the application is popping dialogs up all over the place filling in what she typed. It's fun to watch. (FWIW: the application is running over a slow network via citrix, so it would take a lot to speed things up. She's stopped asking) With the touch screen UI, she can't use this approach. She has to wait. --Steve On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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. ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
Ortwin Regel wrote: >> >> 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. >> >> I second this. Rob ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
Ken Young wrote: > > This is especially true because if the GTA03 tries to be an iPhone > clone, it will be at best a half-assed iPhone clone. The hardware just > isn't competitive with an iPhone's. If the GTA03 has QVGA, will it have > fast 3G networking? No. Will it have a state-of-the-art SoC? No. > That's not to say the GTA03 will be a bad device. There's a lot > of very exciting things you can do with the Freerunner hardware. But > it's just stupid to try to imitate the slick, largely useless, graphics > goodies found on high-end video feature phones. It is also a little > alarming to hear that alpha blending is even being discussed by corporate > OM personnel, when you consider the state of the current OM software stack. > > I don't think OM should target consumers who care about watching videos > and having slick graphics at all. They should go after uses of Palm > and RIM products, who will be attracted to a rich ecosystem of useful > 3rd party applications, and a phone geared towards letting professional > people get some work done. There are not nearly so many of those > people as there are Apple fanboys, but they are willing to part with > serious money to get the best phone for their work and hobbies. > > Think Differently! >-- > > Ken Young > > I second this as well. I posted an email with some ideas / brainstorming about how we can take the phone idea and extend it with some lateral thinking. There is A LOT of room to innovate and set the moko appart from the competition. I think what the project needs to do is OUT THINK the competition, not COPY the competition. Look, Microsoft cannot compete with the Apple brand ... why try and fail at this? Let's not follow behind iSteve (tm) and beast in Redmond. I think we can take this mobile device thing and take it in a totally different direction and really set it apart. Rob ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
I third this (if that is even how you say it...) - Original Message From: Robert Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: List for Openmoko community discussion Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:49:21 PM Subject: Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions Ortwin Regel wrote: >> >> 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 wr
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
ti, 2008-06-10 kello 14:59 -0400, Ken Young kirjoitti: > > 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? > > This is especially true because if the GTA03 tries to be an iPhone > clone, it will be at best a half-assed iPhone clone. I don't usually do "me, too"s, but I'll make an exception. This no-nonsense observation warrants attention from the OM powers that be. Indeed if you try to take on the iPhone where its strengths lie at this point, you will fail. Freedom and openness have their own strengths. Concentrate there until you have the resources to spread a wider net properly. -- Mikko Rauhala - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.iki.fi/mjr/> Transhumanist - WTA member - http://www.transhumanism.org/> Singularitarian - SIAI supporter - http://www.singinst.org/> ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
me too --- El mar, 10/6/08, Robert Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> escribió: > De: Robert Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Asunto: Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & > assumptions > Para: "List for Openmoko community discussion" > Fecha: martes, 10 junio, 2008 9:49 > Ortwin Regel wrote: > >> > >> 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 > >&g
Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
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Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:15:53 -0400 "Steven Milburn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled: fyi - that animation of the window popping open and then the pause until it fills - is the application starting up. that is used to "cover up" the fact it takes 1 or 2 or 3 seconds to start. on the freerunner you just sit and wait with nothing but a little ticking clock thing - on the iphone you do the same thing - just a zoom out and display a "screenshot" in the meantime is used. so as such - the blame should really be apportioned to the kernel and application space for not being able to start "instantly" :) not to the animation which is just keeping you amused while you wait anyway (better some feedback than none while starting). :) also note - that zoom is done by the graphics accelerator almost entirely, which is idle while a process starts, so it's unused resources. :) > I have used an iPhone, my wife's. The animations are pretty at first. > After a while, they're just annoying. My wife gets impatient waiting for > windows to get out of the way so she can get on with what she's trying to > do. What's really funny is that some times the phone will do all that neat > animation, and the window that shows up has no content. You stare at an > empty contact list for as much as 3 seconds easily before it suddenly fills > up with names. > > My wife may be an exception to the rule here. She sometimes does data entry > at work and has the dialogs of her application memorized so she can type in > the fields much faster than the application can keep up. When the keyboard > beeps, she'll sit back and take a sip of her beverage while the application > is popping dialogs up all over the place filling in what she typed. It's > fun to watch. (FWIW: the application is running over a slow network via > citrix, so it would take a lot to speed things up. She's stopped asking) > > With the touch screen UI, she can't use this approach. She has to wait. > > --Steve > > On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Stroller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > 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. > -- Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
RE: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions
Seconded. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Taylor Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 12:53 PM To: List for Openmoko community discussion Subject: Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management,features & assumptions Ken Young wrote: > > This is especially true because if the GTA03 tries to be an iPhone > clone, it will be at best a half-assed iPhone clone. The hardware just > isn't competitive with an iPhone's. If the GTA03 has QVGA, will it have > fast 3G networking? No. Will it have a state-of-the-art SoC? No. > That's not to say the GTA03 will be a bad device. There's a lot > of very exciting things you can do with the Freerunner hardware. But > it's just stupid to try to imitate the slick, largely useless, graphics > goodies found on high-end video feature phones. It is also a little > alarming to hear that alpha blending is even being discussed by > corporate OM personnel, when you consider the state of the current OM software stack. > > I don't think OM should target consumers who care about watching videos > and having slick graphics at all. They should go after uses of Palm > and RIM products, who will be attracted to a rich ecosystem of useful > 3rd party applications, and a phone geared towards letting professional > people get some work done. There are not nearly so many of those > people as there are Apple fanboys, but they are willing to part with > serious money to get the best phone for their work and hobbies. > > Think Differently! >-- > > Ken Young > > I second this as well. I posted an email with some ideas / brainstorming about how we can take the phone idea and extend it with some lateral thinking. There is A LOT of room to innovate and set the moko appart from the competition. I think what the project needs to do is OUT THINK the competition, not COPY the competition. Look, Microsoft cannot compete with the Apple brand ... why try and fail at this? Let's not follow behind iSteve (tm) and beast in Redmond. I think we can take this mobile device thing and take it in a totally different direction and really set it apart. Rob ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community ___ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
