Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I could swear I read that Nokia will not continue Maemo5/Freemantle after the N900.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

i'm pretty sure thats incorrect.

Re: Nokia N920 Leak ?
 

No, from the slides at the Summit, it looks more like liqbase than Bora.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

You're unnecessarily narrowing the meaning of the word "touch interface". There's a lot of possible use cases, and by no means the stylus is "old" and the thumb is "new". There's things you just can't do comfortably with your fingers. Then there's the question what you want more: using your fingers only or doing the things you'll always need a pointing device with pixel precision for.

It's two different ways of thinking, two preferences. Making it sound like there's an evolution from old and bad to new and good just isn't correct.

Personally I do believe, though, that they will eventually sacrifice the ability to run full blown desktop applications. They'll move to capacitive to keep the press happy. Engadget doesn't care about full Debian on a phone, nor does the mass of consumers.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Then I hope n900 lasts a lifetime. I tried a capacitive screen: it was one of the reasons I ordered an n900. Today someone gave me their phone to sort out and I realised (after a few minutes of purely instinctive use) that it had a resistive screen - it felt so natural I hadn't thought about it. I do not want a capacitive screen.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

with a desktop/latop sized touchscreen you can get away without a stylus, with devices that have smaller screens you'll probably be better off with one

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

i dont understand...
resistive is sensitive enough for a tiny stylus point, but not for typing with fingers?

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

i dont need a stylus for everything.
a finger friendly ui is also stylus friendly, bring it on!
but don't force us to use fingers for everything.

Its like a knife and fork, I walk around without them most of the time, but I use them when I sit at the table and eat.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I can accept that and yes I was probably narrow minded in my view. On the flip side however not using a stylus or being partial to capacitive screens does not mean that group of people is stupid or lament users, which is a view I've seen expressed in this thread (not you) and elsewhere.

But as you said it all boils down to the fact that nobody really cares about running full Debian on a phone.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Well I sure do. Especially at the beginning there's likely going to be a bunch of applications that won't run properly on maemo, but are usable enough if I boot to debian. Also, I expect to take a lot of handwritten notes on the thing, try doing that with your fingers, duh.

Different people just have different needs. If I just wanted enough functionality to select menu items, I'd be happy with just me fingers, too.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

IMHO this capacitive vs resistive argument is based on the fact that resistive screens have been out longer, and the older resistive screens that most people are used to are nowhere near as good as the latest capacitive screens.

But multi-touch is a nice feature, and when the N920 comes out and if it does have a capacitive screen (and OLED I hope) I would assume that it will be much better than the current range of screens.

Guessing about the N900 when the device was a few months away from production is one thing, but guessing about a device that is possibly over a year away is something else....

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Wrong again. :D

It's not that nobody cares about running Debian (or full blown, unaltered openoffice.org or whatever) on a smartphone - or mobile computer or tablet or whatever the marketing word du jour may be.

It's that the masses don't care. But there is a relevant number of people who do and who are afraid they're about to lose their favorite platform for doing exactly that. I'm one of them.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

When i said nobody i meant "most" :)

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Lets see how the internet will now play out with the Capacitive screens, since the N900 is doing a great job navigating all the small links. and scrolling threw pages.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I know. :D

I just thought your post was a welcome excuse for pointing out that there are those who aren't "most".

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I never really understood that when capacitive style screens hit the market that they were "better" than resistive. It's all about apples and oranges and no I am not talking about that kind of apple.

If you like multi touch ability and don't need any precision then go capacitive. If you like precision and have no need for multi touch then go resistive. People really need to stop thinking that one is "better" than the other.

Personally I love resistive screens because they are both stylus and finger friendly if the UI and Apps UI are designed right. I have had nothing but problems using a capacitive screen so I personally will never own a device with one.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Just for future reference:
This is WRONG

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Has it ever occurred to you you can actually use multi touch to zoom in and get similar accuracy as stylus? In the case you're gonna need backwards compatibility this is quite useful. Or, you zoom in and read. Because you're going to zoom in anyway because resolution is different. The proclaimed useless pinch is actually useful for this specific task, and undervalued because people only think of Google Maps.

No, this use case won't work for e.g. drawing. But for that we already have professional tools ie. Wacom, or you can still use resistive screen. Nobody is saying either one is perfect.

You can how well this works today with LogMeIn Ignition. I wouldn't want to use this day by day, but for in case of emergency it works pretty well. Same for non-optimized UI. Wouldn't want to run them day to day. It could also use some serious improvements such as 'sticky windows', much akin to the zooming Fennec and MobileSafari use.

Now, by the time of Maemo 6, the plan is, in my eyes, that you're not gonna need a stylus at all anymore because beautiful, HIG'ed, non-distracting, native, finger touch Qt4 applications are providing most of the features you need. IOW, context matters.

An application meant for PCs just does not fit in that role unless it is less bloated (lightweight version), takes into account 800x480 resolution, and optimized for the UI (finger touch), and HIG'ed. Well, you might as well start over then. Although I saw a post of KOffice Mobile the other day (OO.o uses GTK so it is on longer term out of the question anyway).

Need more? Use a remote desktop. Feeling masochistic? Run OO.o. :D

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Try using remote desktop (or VNC) and controlling traditional desktop apps at the n810/900's insane dpi without a stylus or the accuracy that comes from resistive. My n810's job is to extend my PC and give me as close to a laptop/desktop experience with something that fits in my pocket. I don't want apps optimized for handhelds or designed for a touch UI, I *tolerate* them. These are sacrifices I make for the sake of the form factor.

Personally I think if the n920 leak is true, it's right on the money. It might not be the device for me, but that's OK because the n900 is (almost). However for people looking for more of an iPhone experience, n920 fits nicely. How to solve the resistive vs. capacitive debate? Make both, and let your customers choose!

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

How about a hybrid capacitive+resistive screen? You would get both the acuracy and the finger friendlines?


How to tell the difference... Make the capacitive always be the one that matters when it can(as it kinda needs your capacitance to actually do it's work) and a resistive would then only function with a fingernail/sytlus.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I did that with N810 (RDP, NX) and while it worked the workflow still sucked because of a too low signal-to-noise ratio. I had hard times reading the text, and clicking right; I had to work around that e.g. by double clicking on taskbar items instead so they'd minimize. Yes, it worked, but there was no way to zoom in or out which sometimes is required. Therefore, I much prefer being able to easily zoom in and get precision. If I were forced to choose between pitch to zoom in at the cost of less precision and lack of stylus I'd pick the former. Some kind of compromise between the two would be, eventually, best IMO because a 100% zoom in is a bit over the top.. rather complex, to find the right balance!!

What a smartphone does is exactly that: its just a computer. If it supports protocols like for example IMAP, SMTP, POP3 then it extends your PC experience because you can use your smartphone to use those protocols instead of your PC. Yet we all agree that we cannot run Outlook on our smartphone (even if it were 1:1 ported to ARMEL). We have always (tried to) optimize the applications for the hardware because the hardware in a product is rather static.

Instead what you do is fail to adapt to a UI paradigm optimized for a handheld. Yes, you're entirely free to not adapt, but there will not be many customers who will prefer your way of interaction (handheld, Linux, GTK, all kind of little checkboxes and cluttered interface with tons of bells and whistles, stylus-optimized, 4"1 screen) instead we are moving towards optimized UI paradigms. That means we say byebye to previous, sub optimal ones.

When newbies come to care about x86-32 compatibility they're laughed at. When newbies want Windows compatibility they're laughed at. Yet, this kind of compatibility is somehow a holy grail to some of you.

Yet the harsh reality is that we have 800x480; not something like 1024x780-1600x960. The fact is we don't have a mouse pointer. We don't have as much resources as a laptop or PC (not even a netbook). We have 3G instead of broadband.

Personally, I won't buy a Nokia N920 a few months after I bought a Nokia N900 no matter how good it may be. And the Nokia N900 I plan buying end this month...

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I will say only one thing with regards to the whole "capacitive vs. resistive" argument and I'm done.

I just wish this would hit the market ASAP so I never have to hear another "capacitive vs. resistive" debate. Ever. Again.

RIM patent filing reveals hybrid capacitive / resistive touchscreens/

Frankly, I hate the fact that touchscreens on mobile devices have gotten so much mindshare in the last several years. I honestly wish that the touch was layered on top of a UI that was mainly drive by hardware keys, with touch enhancing the experience in certain apps (like web browsing) as opposed to being the standard way to interact (and no, I'm not talking about some kludgy implementation like S60 5th Edition). Touch driven devices make it incredibly hard to multitask and/or be mobile in my experience.

But hey, that's coming from a person that has an iPhone, an N97, and the N900 on pre-order so what does that say?

I do hope that the N920, if it comes with AT&T's 3G bands, does have a keyboard or that a Maemo device with AT&T 3G bands + keyboard is released shortly afterwards.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Has anyone else noticed that this supposed N920 has an image of OS2008, maybe even OS2007 on it? I know this is more about the old subject of capacitive vs resistive but I personally believe that prototype to be bogus.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Like I said, I don't fail to adapt, but I merely tolerate the adaptations and they irritate rather than excite me. What interests me is getting full versions of desktop software running on mobile platforms. The first handheld web server I saw was impressive. Now I run full asterisk on Maemo -- pretty cool stuff!

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Then you're not being realistic which is entirely your free choice but it looks really weird because meanwhile you're claiming the masses have it all wrong.

To draw an analogy: you want a Mini to behave like a truck. You can mod the Mini all you want, and succeed in some areas, but why not take advantage of the characteristics of the Mini and use that to apply the Mini where applicable. Or another analogy: running x86-32 on IA-64.

If all you want is running full version of desktop software on mobile platform you can just grab a Zaurus and run KDE on that. Or some kind of whatever device with some kind of form factor ("mobile platform") and hack GNOME on it. You won't need Maemo then; you rather want say Debian GNU/Linux ARM(EL) port.

Web server and Asterisk are bad examples since they're not GUI software. In fact, for both we have finger touch UI on Maemo 5. :)

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing lol:D:D:D

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

technically, the stylus puts more pressure than a finger. But I agree, and am sick of the capacitive vs resistive. They both have advantages.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Definitely at this point in time, I'm sure even when we get multi-touch resistive screens in the next few months/years there will still be some arguments about random things that make whatever it's competitions is even better than it. They have different purposes and people use them mostly for different things and different target markets.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Because we saw it on big screens in Amsterdam with our own eyes. :D

Ok, ok, not necessarily the very next device, but next year for sure.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Myomy :eek: talking avout force, hallucinogenics are strong these days... pfff!

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

resistive multi touch anyone?
http://www.gizmag.com/getac-multi-touch/13078/

Re: Nokia N920 Leak ?
 

Touch that :eek:

Posted on HoFo today. :)

>> http://howardforums.com/showpost.php...6&postcount=23

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Yup... see how it was done >> http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=37

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Hope you guys caught this.
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=39

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Well, this was posted earlier than your post:

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...7&postcount=37

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Yup... feel free to join a discussion with the author >> http://www.howardforums.com/showpost...6&postcount=23

(registration is not required to simply view posts...

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

I agree with your analogy, but let me apply a motivation. I want a truck, not a Mini at all. However, all that fits in my pocket is a Mini or other similar sized vehicles, and this is a hard constraint. Therefore, I will do my research and figure out which small car is the most truck-like, or most able to be modified to have the features of a truck.

Yep. I had a Zaurus but it died. Now I have an n810 and really like it. Next I want a n900 because of the 3G radio and faster CPU. (OT: Nokia PLEASE PLEASE release an n900 with Canadian 3G frequencies!)

Finger touch UI for asterisk? Link? Or do you just mean the SIP client? I'm actually talking about real command line asterisk with dialplans and the like, that I connect the GUI SIP client to.

Look, I know I have weird requirements and they don't necessarily coincide with what the "masses" want. I've never been to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc (except by accident). I guess my point is that Nokia is building a platform that is flexible enough to serve my needs while also covering what the majority of consumers will use. That takes openness, more so than Android even (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong).

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

Well, there are several options, and not everyone in your situation will make the same choice you make for your choice requires a lot effort.

* Get a stationwagon instead
* Learn to deal with the Mini as manufacturer intended
* Use another Mini-like car more suitable for your particular modifications

My point was that those applications don't require GUI, so they don't count. We'd talk about the GUI of the SIP client indeed.

Yes, but unfortunately (for you) the limits are usually hardware-wise, and what will happen is that the hardware will be optimized to give majority of users best out of box experience. Meanwhile, the applications for the new UI paradigm (Linux/ARM/Qt/Finger-touch/...) will rise in both quantity as well as quanlity, which makes it a more suitable alternative for 1) Truck 2) Stationwagon 3) Other Mini-like cars 4) Mini-used-as-truck -- hence making the group of 'people with weird requirements' smaller. Eventually, at some point, backwards compatibility may even break or require additional work to get usable again. Such is potentially the case with capacitive touchscreen. When that happens you have to understand your arguments don't bear much value because you're an exception who 'lives in the past' so to say, like old hippies and punks from the 60s and 70s.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

There are plenty of valid use cases for stylus input in a modern device. Perhaps you've heard of Wacom...

Anyway, why are you going out of your way to discredit his particular examples?

Frankly all the frenzy and hysteria about capacitive displays blindsided me. I've been a tech nerd for years, keeping up on gadgets and computer tech. Why/when/where/how the obsession with the word "capacitive" in connection with touch screens arose is a mystery to me.

So let's get this out of the way, shall we:

There's nothing inherently better about "capacitive" touch technology. Current market implementations of both resistive and capacitive displays are lacking in features the other supports. On the other hand, there are currently workarounds available in both cases--but not necessarily available yet.

Switching to capacitive without keeping the advantages of resistive is foolish. I hope Nokia doesn't do that, but perhaps they will.

OLED vs. LCD is the same. Each has use cases where it is superior in the current implementations.

Choice--just give us choices, please.

Re: N920 and Capacitive?
 

The reason why capacitive has been associated with touch screen technology can PROBABLY be attributed to the iPhone, like it or not. I think that most people's experience with the screen and device overall, OS etc, has shaped the perception on how users expect a touch screen device to work. I was watching a n900 review and the reviewer was talking about how his daughter or son picked up the phone and swiped their finger on the screen multiple times and said "Dad it doesn't work!".

Me personally, I'm not sure why anyone would want to apply pressure to activate contact instead of just lightly touching the screen. I find scrolling and overall navigation to be light years better on capacitive screens. Although HTC's resistive screens seem to be pretty good. You would not believe the learning curve going from an iPhone to an n97. And lets not even talk about accidental button presses.