Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I'm sorry, but comments like this is akin to a plumber cursing out the customer/homeowner for not knowing the exact spec of his house's plumbing system, when they have other things higher in their priority's list. People just want 'standards that work' within their known ecosystem - that's why we need to bring the good stuff to mainstream.

Don't take this the wrong way, I didn't bring up this example for its social/economic connotations; just to illustrate various layers in LIFE and that we should not be so self centric in understanding the world :)

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

luca: not that I don't agree with you per-se but I don't think that such an opinion is really relevant in this thread.

revamped: I use a few GUI apps and so far haven't found anything really out of whack myself. But yes I primarily use TUI apps simply because they fit my workflow better. And even those aren't always the best :)

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I completely agree with you ysss (from a user perspective). I think 90% of the population wants easy to use software - that does what they need it to do - with the minimal amount of mouse clicks. If they have to click more than three mouse buttons, then they will have problems. Internet standards support is really way below their radar.

But the developer's standpoint is of course completely different .

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

The device, yes, but I see community developers making the most magical apps. ;)

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Absolutely false. I use what's in my corporate environment, not decided by me at all. Current corporate email client is Lotus Notes and I hate it with a passion. Call me "ignorant, stupid, arrogant" or whatever, but if that or Outlook were my only choices I'd be all over Outlook like a dog on your leg.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

The real magic is inside my pants, silly people. :)

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Definitely agree with "absolutely false". First because different people have different needs and different products are built for different environments. I know of no stable, polished Linux email/calendar/contacts/todo/collaboration/IM/database product that can come close to competing in a corporate environment looking for a comprehensive communication solution.

That said, I find Lotus Notes far better than Outlook, especially for collaboration and database applications. It has extremely deep functionality which, unfortunately, is not easily unlocked. After you finish programming your N900, you should take a look at Notes/Domino programming in your spare time. ;)

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Nope. I was trained a few years ago in Lotus (so-called) web and database development and was appalled at the crudeness of the tools, the severe lack of capability, and the IDE from hell. The email client now drives me nuts on a daily basis with its counterintuitive menu system. Whoever designed Lotus have to be sadists. I'd pierce my eyes with fish hooks before I voluntarily developed anything for Notes or Domino. Crap I'd even rather just use Ovi.

:p

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Well, I'm guessing we all think we're in that 90%. But if there's someone here that thinks they're in that other 10%, I'd love to hear from you.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I'd be in the 0.1% of people that prefer writing a script which does 1000 mouse-clicks worth in a single execution. I think that GUIs are for apes (and slowly evolving humans). I hate to look at the screen through someone's fat fingers, mine included. I prefer written words to pictures. I like to hold a pen when I read and a stylus to interact with touch screens...

So sue me...

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Linux can easily compete in these ways:

1. Open source compared to locked down
2. Develop any app compared to apples process of authorising apps, god literally only knows what that is !!
3. Light weight and powerful !
4. Free compared to apples OS's so the saving can be put into better hardware !

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

People don't care, they just want their content, see iPhone, iTouch and iPad.

That's valuable for a developer, not for an end-user, unless the end-user gets informed why he is not getting the apps he wants.

Very subjective in the market that values form over function.

Right on that. And that better hardware should be tightly integrated into the user experience.

Remember, we are not the users. What we want if often what they don't care about.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

1. Open source - so what? Very few people are ever going to need to or want to modify an OS code base themselves. As far as apps, open source apps can be developed for any OS.

2. Apple authorization is a hindrance to freeware developers. Linux focus on FOSS is a hindrance to commercial developers. It all depends on what apps a user wants.

3. Lightweight, possibly. Powerful, it depends on what kind of power you want. In any case, users are far more concerned that the device is lightweight and powerful and not that the OS enables or hinders that.

4. Apple's OS is free to Apple. Except for internal bookkeeping, Apple does not charge Apple to use Apple's OS on Apple's iPad.

Linux may be great if you are building a computer from scratch. However, most users buy finished products. Here the users see "magic" out of the box on products such as the iPad and they did not see that on Linux powered netbooks (which was the point of the original comments).

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Hey, I also agree, since that demonstrates that 90% of the population are *****s. Wait, make that 99%.

Sure, it doesn't matter to them if in so doing they're f*cking the rest of the population (yes, even the 99% of *****s, not just the remaining 1%) and send a winmail.dat since they have already exhausted the only functioning neuron they have.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Well, in that case the *****s are your corporate overlords, because you'd never send a winmail.dat, would you?

If it sends correctly formed email messages and it accepts correctly formed email messages, it's fine for me (I don't know if that's the case, but I do know it's not the case with outlook

You know, those are not the only choices.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I could say that *****s are people who think that because what they're doing is hard to do it must be better and more important than something that's easy to do.

But I won't say that because obviously you don't really believe what you are saying because if you did you'd be printing up broadsheets and handing them out instead of posting with a computer on this forum. Easy is good, regardless of how smart (or dumb) you are.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I didn't say anything about easy or difficult. I just said that outlook users are *****s.
It isn't more difficult to use, say, thunderbird or mulberry than outlook, and while those two are respectful of internet standards and of Postel's law (""be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others""), outlook isn't (it spits out fecal matter and cannot show correctly formed mime text messages).

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

Sorry, you're in the 90% with the rest of us: You want less mouse clicks. And you'll be hearing from my lawyer.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

I'm doing better Jim, I'm doing.

Re: "Linux can compete with the iPad on price, but where’s the magic? "
 

"As an industry, we need to understand that not wanting root access doesn’t make you stupid. It simply means you do not want root access. Failing to comprehend this is not only a failure of empathy, but a failure of service."

The Failure of Empathy

Read.
Grok.