Nexus One First Phone Linus Torvalds "Doesn't Hate" 308
SpuriousLogic writes "Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being 'mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights' even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems. Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago."
He bought one? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? I mean the man is responsible for the free kernel that the phones use. The least companies could do is send him a free one with service contract. I thought Linus did get gifts like that.
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Funny)
Hell. Now even Linus is slave to the Google panopticon.
Hope you like your new, NSA hotline, Mr. Torvalds!
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What is this "new" of which you speak?
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"Doesn't hate."
Dammned with faint praise... [reference.com]
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the "doesn't hate" line doesn't appear anywhere in Linus' words. His actual statement about the Nexus One is not "faint" at all.
From Linus' own blog (TFA):
"But I have to admit, the Nexus One is a winner. I wasn't enthusiastic about buying a phone on the internet sight unseen, but the day it was reported that it finally had the pinch-to-zoom thing enabled, I decided to take the plunge. I've wanted to have a GPS unit for my car anyway, and I thought that google navigation might finally make a phone useful. And it does. What a difference! I no longer feel like I'm dragging a phone with me "just in case" I would need to get in touch with somebody - now I'm having a useful (and admittedly pretty good-looking) gadget instead."
That doesn't sound anything like "damning with faint praise" now, does it?
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even "damning with faint praise" is pretty high approbation, coming from a geek like Linus. Most software geeks are this way; cf. mutt's "All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less." motto, or "X is the second worst windowing system in the world - all the rest are tied for first." re: XWindows. That's not to say that geeks/engineers are more pessimistic than most people - just more honest.
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You've obviously not slept with the same Finns that I have.
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Linus wrote a kernel not a GUI.
Oh, and I think you meant "ease of use".
Other than that, great post!
Re:but... (Score:5, Insightful)
SUpposed you got a mail from bill gates asking for a phone from your company because your phone factory has made a phone running windows mobile on it. What would you do?
The point is that famous people generally don't ask... they get sent stuff unsolicited a fair bit. At the Oscars, when you hear of someone's $100,000 necklace from Saks Fifth Avenue, do you really think the celebrity went out and spent their own money on that necklace? Hell no... that's Saks renting it (perhaps gifting it for smaller items) and getting free promotion. Saks is hoping all the non-famous rich people who watch the Oscars go out and buy the necklace.
In Linus' case, however, perhaps he's critical enough about phones that it's actually a risk to send him one. If he writes a bad review, the company who manufactures it and sent it to him has just shot itself in the foot.
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Or perhaps, unlike celebrities the masses drool over, Linus's endorsement, let alone mere use, isn't worth that much. Frankly, I don't care what phone, dental floss, bike, or anything else he uses.
Your point is well taken, though. If you want to give away free samples, giving them to noto
Re:but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Your point is well taken, though. If you want to give away free samples, giving them to notorious critics of mostly everything is probably not a good idea.
An entertaining case in point [joelonsoftware.com].
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More likely, no one thinks he's famous enough to warrant free stuff. People like... I don't know... Beyonce might get a free phone sent to her in the hopes that she'll be seen talking on it, caught by the paparazzi or whatever. How often is Linus being stalked by paparazzi?
Otherwise reviewers might get free stuff to review, but to my knowledge Linus isn't famous for his reviews. In the case of someone like Bill Gates, he probably wouldn't go into Verizon's local store and ask for a free Windows-based ph
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This is about Linus Torvalds, not Tiger Woods.
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I know this is Slashdot, but how much does a demo phone cost? How much could we benefit from a partnership? Do all commercial partnerships need to have the same principles, or do they just need to mutually
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Informative)
Linus appears to have less hysterical take on the Android Linux fork [blogspot.com] than most people:
I don't worry about out-of-tree development for odd devices too much. I wish we could merge android, but I also accept it likely being a few years away. We had similar out-of-tree issues with the SGI extreme scalability stuff, and it took quite a while before the standard kernel merged all of that.
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Linus appears to have less hysterical take on the Android Linux fork [blogspot.com] than most people
Very smart your argument! I also wait Android Linux Fork hear in Brazil!
This [blogspot.com] ought to be a new Slashdot meme.
Re:He bought one? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, it's not technically Linux these phones use, as it's now an incompatible Linux fork. So, I guess like the authors of this article, the company told Linus to go fork himself.
Well, what you're saying is not technically true either.
These phones absolutely do run the Linux kernel and anyone who says otherwise is misleading at best and trolling at worst. Period. Just because a single device driver was recently removed from the official source tree does not suddenly make the kernel any less Linux. To suggest that's the case is ignorance or stupidity.
The reality is, Android uses their own driver for power management. Their design stinks. They've refused to maintain it in the official source tree. The stinking, unmaintained driver was removed. Despite no longer being maintained in the official source tree, Google continues to maintain it in their own kernel tree - which is freely accessible to all. This was all previously covered here on /. Having said all that, it is extremely common for external drivers to be maintained outside of the official source tree for a variety of reasons. This is one of the primary reasons the dkms project exists.
Furthermore, since the source portion of Android's framework which accesses the power management driver is freely available, if someone wanted to, they could easily change the internal implementation to use Linux's official power management interface rather than Google's driver. Battery life is likely to only slightly suffer. And with small improvements to Linux's existing power management infrastructure, to bring it more in line with Google's implementation goals, battery life parity can be achieved while maintaining full Android compatibility.
At the end of the day, removal of the driver from the official source tree changes nothing for anyone.
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Chris DiBona and other people have stated that it's a fork.
Its a fork only to the degree that anyone who developers a device driver is forking the kernel - which is to say its not. Its a "fork" in the most general of layman's expressions. Technically its not a fork at all. A fork is a divergent source tree. This is not a divergent source tree. This is the official source tree plus a driver. That's a huge difference.
If you want to call it a "fork", fine, but technically that's not accurate. With this definition of fork, every distribution and every device which runs
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So wanting different things than you makes someone a douche? What a douche.
If I'm going to bother carrying the thing around, it may as well be a phone, but that's well beyond second in my feature priority list. YMMV.
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I want my phone to be a pocket sized computer with an available everywhere (that I go) data connection. Anything else is just annoying.
So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:2)
Hopefully, he's not also eating a cheeseburger while inputting addressess...
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How is using the Nexus One as a GPS any different than a dedicated GPS unit? It has voice input and turn-by-turn voice prompts just like a "real" GPS so there's no need to touch it once you set it in the car dock. The experience of these post-2.0 Android phones is a lot different than the lousy Google Maps feature you'd find in lesser phones like an iPhone.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most "in dash" GPs's are inferior than a $99.00 pocket cheapie.
Why? well the Updates for in dash units are typically so outlandish that nobody buys them A buddy of mine has a BMW 525i that it will cost him $399.00 for the map data update discs, he bought a pocket garmin unit he stuck to the windshield.. I buy a new $99.00 garmin yearly and that not only gives me a new map data set, but new hardware to boot!
Plus I get POI data. press one button and it will tell me that the next two exits have gas stations and restaurants..
Nope, it's dumb to spend a couple grand on an in dash unit and then pay out the butt yearly for updates.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:5, Funny)
You know, when people are reaching back behind themselves whenever they need money... they're not digging around in their asses. They have this thing called a wallet and you put money in it. Then you put the wallet in your pocket. And thus you see people reaching back whenever they need some cash.
It's a lot easier than stuffing rolls of coins and wads of cash up your rectum. More hygienic too.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a lot easier than stuffing rolls of coins and wads of cash up your rectum. More hygienic too.
However there can be benefits to storing coinage up your rectum.
If you were to say store unrolled rolls of pennies up your rectum then spend them at locations your boss visits then he would surely get some of that change when shopping there. Next time he goes to buy his kid an ice cream or take his wife out for coffee he's using money that has come from your rectum! You just can't buy that kind of superiority.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:4, Informative)
Obligatory Ass Pennies [funnyordie.com]
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a lot easier than stuffing rolls of coins and wads of cash up your rectum. More hygienic too.
That's more of a long-term strategy. [comedycentral.com]
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I buy a new $99.00 garmin yearly and that not only gives me a new map data set, but new hardware to boot! ...
Nope, it's dumb to spend a couple grand on an in dash unit and then pay out the butt yearly for updates.
Times have changed. Now the biggest manufacturer of cellphones offers proper navigation in their smartphones, with free updates.
It's dumb to spend additional $99 yearly.
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They do, but only because it helps perpetuate the telco's control over you. They list the phone at $600, and you can pay $200... or even $100... that pricing is pretty plastic (I paid $100 for my DROID, out of pocket). They make it really easy to get a nice pocket computer, but they also know that schlepping these things around, they're lucky to last two years (in the case of an iPhone, the non-replaceable battery doesn't last two years except for casual users). So they'll get you next time.
Meanwhile, you'r
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:5, Insightful)
Citation Needed
Considering I don't know of anyone who would ever call x86 anything 'big iron', I find it hard to believe a guy who started writing a kernel for himself at home on a 386 PC would say something like that.
Re:So he uses the phone for GPS While Driving? (Score:4, Informative)
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LOL!
He hates mobile phones?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:He hates mobile phones?! (Score:4, Funny)
Yea you would think the would have an N900 wouldn't you?
He has sold out his own birth Nation! How dare he!
Naw it is just a phone and the Nexus one is a pretty nice one at that.
Re:He hates mobile phones?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He hates mobile phones?! (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, as a phone the N900 lacks a LOT. I was able to sell mine on Ebay to buy a unlocked Nexus One.
I tried to love the N900, as I loved my N710. but it's clunky.
This is coming from a guy that has been die-hard Nokia forever. I tried like heck to love my Nokia 5800 xpressmusic phone. it had a great idea, but was only half there. They almost made it, but not close enough for me to suffer using it day in and day out.
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But it is a Nokia that runs Linux....
Never mind..
Re:He hates mobile phones?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I find the N900 is pretty much the first phone I don't hate. Not that it's so much a phone as a very slick ultraportable that you can make calls with.
I can mount my filesystems at home and play my mp3's over the radio transmitter. I can use it as a GPS. I can use it for pretty much anything I could use a netbook for.
As far as phone functionality goes, I'm considering not bothering and simply keeping the cheap fixed rate unlimited wireless data SIM I've got in it now and simply using skype, or perhaps even going to SIP with a PBX of my own. Meh. We'll see. (hmmm, maybe the n900 can run asterisk and _be_ a pbx...)
If I was looking for a 'phone', on the other hand, I think I'd be looking at one of the $30 ones, and certainly not at any of the current generation smart phones.
I third that. (Score:3, Interesting)
When I got my N900 it was several days before I bothered moving my SIM card over to it. It was so much fun to carry around and use anyway. I used local WIFI connections.
The phone functionality is pretty minor part of the device.
Popping up remote X windows on the phone rocks, and the display is awesome.
I am now omnipotent!
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From what I've read, Maemo suffers from the same problem that's always plagued Windows Mobile -- it's a great OS for a pocket-sized laptop, but it's not exactly the greatest user environment for making and receiving actual, voice phone calls.
Compare the way Android handles incoming phone calls to the way Windows Mobile and Linux in general do. When Android notices an incoming phone call, it instantly suspends the foreground app and devotes its full attention to handling that incoming call immediately. In st
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I don't really see it, even in the case of US which has relatively low cellphone penetration of 90%.
(relatively low compared to most of European countries, where more than 100% is the norm; with Finland at 130%)
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Do people really have more than one cell phone? Or does 'penetration' mean something different in this context?
If it indeed is so, don't bother to explain it. I will just sit quietly and bask in my ignorance.
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It means "active cellphone numbers", links to sources covering most of the world here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_penetration_rate [wikipedia.org]
Having a private number and a job issued one isn't that unheard of. Or the second for safer communication with lover/etc....
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Yeah, here in Portugal we have almost 140%. Many people have phones from different networks, to save on calls and sms.
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I think he meant even dead people have cellphones. Just like all those dead people voted for Bush.
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And now I understand why he spends all of his waking hours programming.
Why (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not "supposed" to care, it's just that a lot of us do as result of him being a celebrity among geeks. Besides, his viewpoint is more likely to be closer to ours, as a fellow geek, than that of Steve Jobs or any such marketeer that gets published by pop media.
This article certainly raised *my* interest in the Nexus One. Not enough to buy it blindly, but at least give it some consideration along with the N900 I was eyeing before.
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You realize that we could apply that to the likes of Richard Stallman, too? The guy who uses wget to print out webpages to read rather than "browsing the web."
Re:Why (Score:4, Interesting)
You're not "supposed" to care, it's just that a lot of us do as result of him being a celebrity among geeks. Besides, his viewpoint is more likely to be closer to ours, as a fellow geek, than that of Steve Jobs or any such marketeer that gets published by pop media.
He's exactly the sort of person I would want to hear give an opinion about this stuff. I may not agree with his opinion, time may prove him wrong, but it certainly provides an interesting starting point for a debate. Look at Clifford Stoll and his whole Silicon Snake Oil thing. He raised interesting questions about the internet and viability of e-commerce. I disagreed with his thesis and he has subsequently been proven wrong.
I'll listen to what a Jobs has to say. While I may not agree with all of his ideas, he has certainly had some winners over the years. He's someone who understands the industry. People I'd be less interested in listening to are Balmer and Gates. I don't think they really have a good grasp on the industry at this point and feel that we're living in the time future historians will point to as their decline years. I could be wrong, it's certainly good debate fodder, and time will prove it one way or another.
Re:Why (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just more evidence of societies celebrity worship.
no (Score:2)
you don't care about what celebrities think about foreign policy and medical procedures, because those are serious subject matters and the opinion holders are fluff
but you do care* what linus torvalds thinks of his mobile phone, because both the celebrity and the subject matter are fluff
*when i say "you do care" i am not saying you care in the same way you care about war with iran or flu shots causing autism, you care in the same way you care about whether batman could beat superman, or exactly how much jar
Re:Why (Score:4, Insightful)
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I doubt he doesn't understand how cruise control systems work. I'm quite sure he can build one out of paperclips.
He just may not have been aware(read:not read the manual) of how the "adaptive" cruise control works on his Prius since its new and probably way different from any cruise control system he has ever used.
http://www.thecarconnection.com/marty-blog/1042251_is-wozs-prius-acceleration-just-toyotas-wacky-adaptive-cruise [thecarconnection.com]
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Ah, that article explains a lot. It's nice to know that the problem stems from a horribly bad design, rather than a bad implementation.
Original blog post (Score:5, Informative)
... was glad to hear it ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know I'm old fashioned, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
... most of my phones haven't had an OS that you could play Galaga or Solitaire on. Or really do much more than make a phone call.
Is it possible that the reason he hates phones is that he keeps buying computers masquerading as phones, rather than phones?
Also... he comments that he's always hated phones because they interrupt while he's trying to work or read. I don't know about anyone else, but if I don't want to be interrupted, I turn off the phone. The ringer, if it's a land-line, or the whole thing, if it's a cell. People can leave me a message and I'll listen to it later.
Basically, I can understand not liking the sound quality, or the microphone quality, or the weight, or the fact that it doesn't work anywhere you want to use it (all problems I've had in the past), but really... the things he's complaining about are issues with how he's using it, not with the phones. Maybe, like me, he's someone who just shouldn't have a cell phone, or should buy a small cheap one for emergency use, and not pay a monthly fee for it.
IDK what phones you've used, but I've had (Score:2)
a new phone every year for the last 10 years. Even one of my first phones, some Nokia from 2000, could play snake and solitaire.
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Anyone who works in a technical or managerial capacity for a very large corporation will find themselves quite fired for that
Ain't my fault that people sign contracts they shouldn't. I've worked in IT for a couple of reasonably large companies, in one case as the sole IT support, and am now working for a university. One of the first questions I'm asked is always "would you be willing to be on call 24 hours a day," and my answer is always "No. I'll work my butt off for you during the day, and if there's a
arcade games (Score:2)
Mislabelled (Score:4, Funny)
This phone shall be referred to as the "GNU/Nexus One with GNU/Linux".
Now excuse me, I have to comb my beard.
Richard
.
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Now excuse me, I have to comb my beard.
You had me going until that part. Something like this would be more apt:
He stood up straight and looked the world squarely in the fields and hills. To add weight to his words he stuck the gnu/rabbit bone in his beard. He spread his arms out wide. "I will go mad!" he
announced.
Re:Mislabelled (Score:4, Funny)
I call fake!
RMS has never combed his beard.
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I call fake!
RMS has never combed his beard.
Actually one of RMS's most obvious behavioral tics is a habit of combing his beard with his fingers. It may not actually make much difference, but he spends an awful lot of time doing it...
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So that's who that is! (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, an article summary that explainings who some obscure person is, rather than assuming we know everyone in the tech universe.
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otherwise, leave this place and never come back.
A balance between geekness and ease of use (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a lesson to learn there (Score:5, Insightful)
The lesson is: Even people famous for endless tinkering still like a simple, clean user experience once in a while.
Design your software with this in mind.
Re:There is a lesson to learn there (Score:5, Insightful)
Even people famous for endless tinkering still like a simple, clean user experience once in a while.
Once in a while? I find that I want to tinker with the subjects in which I am most interested, and prefer drool-proof interfaces the rest of the time. FOSS at its (unusual) best makes tinkering possible but not necessary. Programs should work well off the shelf but be readily amenable to user modification if the user cares to.
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Linus has become too old to spend time tinkering with new hardware.
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Linus already has all the tinkering he could ever want right in front of him; adding a phone to the mix would just be redundant.
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Speaking from my own experience - I've found that if you are in the kind of business where you spend all day tinkering with stuff you have a tendency to shy away from devices or software that require tinkering at all.
One of the reasons I don't personally beta test software ;) (because it was at one point pretty much my job).
Re:There is a lesson to learn there (Score:4, Insightful)
Even people famous for endless tinkering still like a simple, clean user experience once in a while...
... especially if it's something like a phone.
Honestly, I'm not a super-geeky tech genius, but I like to screw around with computers and that has lead to a career in IT. However, I learned a long time ago that I like to keep a separation between "the gadgets that I tinker with" and "the gadgets I depend on." The two can't really be the same, because if I'm screwing around with something long enough, I *will* break it. I'll probably also fix it, but it might take hours or days.
I wan't my phone to work all the time, and therefore I don't want a phone that I need to tinker with.
stupid Linus (Score:3, Funny)
Re:stupid Linus (Score:4, Insightful)
Except as soon as anyone finds out that he accepted money for expressing his opinion, people will value his opinion a whole hell of a lot less.
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You ever stop and think that a person who developed the core of an OS and gave it away isn't in it for the money?
I think if more people behaved like Linus this would be a more pleasant world to live in.
Growing respect to Linus (Score:2)
Ahh, I think I've spotted his problem (Score:2)
mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights
He's confused a mobile phone for a games console. A surprising mistake really, considering how well-versed he is on most other technical fields. Personally, all I want from a phone is a few buttons that let me call people and a very, very long battery life. If I ever felt the need to play video games I'd use something that has a screen large enough that I didn't get annoyed at it - with Linus seems to, from his response.
Plagerism? (Score:2)
Wow, Slashdot Plagerising a Washington Post article that is plagerising an article on Android Community. Practically word for word identical. Not sure if linking to the article is the same as providing citation. :-p
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Only a couple of days (Score:2)
It's only been a couple of days, let's see if he likes it after he had a chance to really use it. I speak from experience. I'm still have my android phone, but the only thing keeping me on the platform is T-Mobile.
Besides, why should we really care?
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Re:Only a couple of days (Score:4, Interesting)
The Android API has always supported multitouch, and the recent update for the Nexus One adds multitouch for the browser and maps and images. Presumably there was a legal situation with Apple that's now been resolved.
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Well it's a love/hate relationship with my myTouch 3G. It crashes with a "Green Screen of Death" when I use the camera functions, but I usually don't use the sub-par camera anyway.
The irritation comes from the multitasking. Pressing the home button to switch apps took some getting use to, but my pet peeve is that some applications will stop doing notifications because it gets pushed off by the OS to make room for another app. The weather bug app works but doesn't update its location until I run the app in
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The iphone is multi-tasking for those built in apps that are allowed to. Even as a developer I am perfectly fine with this
as I know it keeps craplications from installing service listeners, ram chewers and other junk to my device. In use and in development
I have never seen the need for it on a phone device. All applications are required to save and have the ability to resume
when restarted so I really don't see the big deal about it. As a end user it just plain works and keeps the devices fairly junk
free whi
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Yeah, I'm probably just being completely unreasonable, wanting to listen to my XM radio app, while reading an ebook, using the FaceBook app, or browsing websites with my Touch. I should thank Apple for helping me learn the discipline to pick one time-waster at a time and stick with it. Unfortunately my Pre is reinforcing those bad habits with its needless multitasking.....damn you Palm!
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Down is up, war is peace, single-tasking is the new hotness.
Same thing happened to me this weekend (Score:5, Interesting)
My little brother just got a Nokia N900 and brought it over to show off. My impression: this just might be the first phone I've ever seen which doesn't suck. apt-get install whateverthefuckyouwant totally embarrasses everybody's "app store" and on top of that it's a fully working product.
Is Nexus One getting there too? Cool. I knew shitty phones' days were numbered, but had no idea just what that number was. Looks like we've finally gotten to 0 and I can start taking the phone market seriously.
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The N900 was the phone I was hell bent on getting before purchasing the Nexus One. The whole reason I changed my mind was all the in-depth reviews of it and the stories about how there are so many things that should be standard in it that are all marked as something like "Community Fix" meaning, let the developer community fix it rather than Nokia fixing it.
That just seems like a bad way to view one of your high end products. I liked that the Nexus One had a larger screen and was much thinner than the N90
John Carmack Before (Score:3, Interesting)
This reminds me of when Carmack got all excited about gaming on a Mac...that turned out so well for Apple's gaming options (boot into Windows, play game developed for Windows).
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All I care about is a phone that has good audio quality so I can understand them and they me, and is small.
It's a PHONE people!!!