As I mentioned: damend if you do, damned if you don't.
Actually, I think it's just "damned if you do". It's a demonstrably stupid idea to let your community vote on features if you've not got the resources to implement them.
Including Nokia's proprietary bits they didn't have access to in the first place?
YES! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!
Why on earth would you expect your new phone to have LESS features than the one you had two years previously? The N9 was their baseline. When I got my Jolla, it was a massive disappointment but I was expecting they'd fix the bugs and finish implementing the half completed features and that they were doing it differently letting the community complete the missing bits but that has not happened.
He who doesn't have the luxury of having enough time and resources for everything, and the one who doesn't at that specific moment have more than one device to support. Mind you that the whole UI was rewritten in about six months because of loss of NovaThor SoC. It meant:
- changing from X to Wayland
- changing Qt4 to Qt5 unstable, writing and backporting quite a lot to it and then updating to stable release, which was painful
- Writing libhybris to accommodate lack of native drivers available
- Redesing the device for another SoC
None of which would prevent you from using scalable graphics and hinted layouts. Surely they expected at some point that they'd be moving the OS to a differently sized screen?
So, it's easy to see that during that time scalability was not the top priority. The easiest part is to say "I would have done it otherwise." But the thing is: you weren't there. You didn't do the decisions and you don't even know most of the background behind decisions made.
The time to consider scalability was not during the rewrite, it was before writing the first line of code. We've all done quick hacks to get something out there but this is the foundations of an OS and a business, not a web app we can update later by swapping out that jpeg for an svg.
Ane yes, I know already that everything I just mentioned will be dismissed as "excuses." It doesn't matter any longer what, why and how anything has been done, as the main objective seems to be bashing everything just for the sake of doing it.
Absolutely not. I'm hoping people, Jolla perhaps, learn from this. It's difficult to express frustration without sounding like I'm bashing Jolla here and it's not "for the sake of doing it". They've screwed up. I'm not here to kick them in the stomach like some are.
Correct. And now we know this. A company the size of Jolla can not create a modern smartphone. They need more staff or outside assistance and Jolla have neither.
Yup, exactly right. Which is why I've pretty much given up on the whole "smartphone" industry. All that we get today is vastly over-engineered pablum designed to appeal to the least common denominator; thus, we get devices based on enormous colorful screens using finger-painting as the default input mechanism. Great for watching videos or playing games, but awful for getting real work done.
Yup, exactly right. Which is why I've pretty much given up on the whole "smartphone" industry. All that we get today is vastly over-engineered pablum designed to appeal to the least common denominator; thus, we get devices based on enormous colorful screens using finger-painting as the default input mechanism. Great for watching videos or playing games, but awful for getting real work done.
Smartphones suck.
Smartphones are as smart as the user.
EDIT: I would consider the N900 to be a smart phone...
I'm hoping people, Jolla perhaps, learn from this.
The trouble with the JulmaHerras of this world is that they are not going to listen. Their interpretation is always going to be, "there is no point trying, all we get is bashing, boo hoo", when all you are trying to give them is a gentle tap on the shoulder with "hey mate, you know there is a better way of doing that, right?"
We've been through this a hundred times and nothing has changed...
A chunk of concrete is as smart as the user, too. But personally, I'd prefer a tool that makes life easier, rather than one I need to put a large amount of effort into in order to get a small amount of output.
Originally Posted by
EDIT: I would consider the N900 to be a smart phone...
It's a smart phone, but it's also a device that out-of-the-box I can open a terminal, start up the vi editor, and write C++ code using the integrated keyboard. Makes. My. Life. Easier. Haven't been able to do that with any smartphone since (without investing a great deal of effort, that is).
Proper design is proper design(not talking about UI).
But you originally quoted about UI and having to rewrite based on hardware as the bad thing. Now it's not about UI?
I'm sticking with the UI point you brought up before if you do not mind until that part is resolved.
Originally Posted by
It doesn't change a lot UI perspective depending on HW and it's common thing even for 12 years old "web developers".
The proper way to scale the controls, UI and make sure the UX flows whether or not can make a difference. Look to Apple for that example in the iPhone and iPad (@2X) and now iPad Pro (@3X).
Originally Posted by
If they were planning to have only one device or same size devices it would be different. But from beginning Jolla was aiming on licensing OS to different devices, so why would they shoot in the leg and do something that will slow it.
Small company, big gamble. I'd almost assume the opposite which is they pushed out a device, showed their capabilities to run/work on a device and backfill scalability which required a rewrite.
Originally Posted by
If they have limited resources they should use them smartly so ...
It's a smart phone, but it's also a device that out-of-the-box I can open a terminal, start up the vi editor, and write C++ code using the integrated keyboard. Makes. My. Life. Easier. Haven't been able to do that with any smartphone since (without investing a great deal of effort, that is).
I other words: it (the N900) is tool to be productive - like a pocket knife. Not the best tool for a particular purpose, but quite universal.
In fact, such a pocket tool is what I would like to have in an updated version.
Smartphones are smart in hiding their limitations ... therefore I don't like most smartphones
A chunk of concrete is as smart as the user, too. But personally, I'd prefer a tool that makes life easier, rather than one I need to put a large amount of effort into in order to get a small amount of output.
It's a smart phone, but it's also a device that out-of-the-box I can open a terminal, start up the vi editor, and write C++ code using the integrated keyboard. Makes. My. Life. Easier. Haven't been able to do that with any smartphone since (without investing a great deal of effort, that is).
No disagreement here. N900 rules! Although, for me, part of the fun is modifing the device to my liking. Actually, with far less effort you put into installing sailfish on nexus 7, you could install a variety linux distributions on an android phone and do as you described. Since you only need to do that once, the effort is minimal over the use of the device. Although this might reveal my age, I've even compiled and run fortran code on my phones! Lol
If you need to rewrite whole UI because of HW - you doing something terribly wrong and you would spend a lot of time and money for each device adaptation ;P
In that case also Maemo and MeeGo were done terribly wrong as they also relied on native drivers.
In Jolla's case, they had native drivers for NovaThor but after ST-Ericsson decied to split and NovaThor SoC was cancelled, they were left without native drivers. So they created libhybris so they can use Android drivers. But it dictated several other things, which forced the rewrite and some other changes (Qt version, Wayland etc).
But of course, you in your infinite wisdom would have avoided that. You just weren't there to tell them.
The proper way to scale the controls, UI and make sure the UX flows whether or not can make a difference. Look to Apple for that example in the iPhone and iPad (@2X) and now iPad Pro (@3X).
"proper" is debatable. Some might call that pragmatic. Some might call it a dirty hack based around their devices only having 2x and 3x pixels. Apple simplified the problem because they control the hardware.
Small company, big gamble. I'd almost assume the opposite which is they pushed out a device, showed their capabilities to run/work on a device and backfill scalability which required a rewrite.
But how many licensees would want to create another 960x540 phone? Answer: none.
