Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Well note I what I was replying to. What I said is that as long as you keep doing this then _anyone_ will be able to just put regular Android on it and do the same for a fraction of the price or even for free.

So yes, Android, AOSP and Hybris are hammers. I'm thinking there's a huge world out there of hardware where running Android would make no sense, but this Android-as-hammer requirement means people just don't see it.


That said, I obviously also have a huge anti-Android agenda. So here comes the off-topic part...

It's a bit ironical that the quote you mention comes from a person who has succeeded at exactly that.

"Ruinous compromises" for me.

Last time I was actively trying to port the Linux kernel to anything, it was the day I fried my Palm T|X*.

Well, that was in 2009 more or less, so I can tell you something: things have not improved. Running the software you want on the devices you own is _at least_ as hard today as it was 6 years ago, probably harder since nowadays the minimum amount of supported hardware for a device to be considered "usable" has increased dramatically.

Android has done _absolutely nothing_ regarding hardware freedom.

It just happens that it is a POSIX-like operating system and thus running most programs is much easier... but so is iOS. But from a hardware point of view? No improvement at all. Same as Windows CE days. Even words from WinCE I believe should be considered _blasphemy_ are still in use today (e.g. BSP, ROM), thanks to Android.

* When I fried my Palm T|X, I suddenly found myself without a working PDA and without money. Alongside many Palm PDAs, I found a cheap used N810 on eBay, so after a bit of thought I decided to take a risk and try it, instead of getting another Palm. That was 2009. The rest is history :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I would abstract it even further and say user experience. You do not need all the services - even Apple did not try to reimplement Facebook, Twatter or Gmail. Besides, if you want to disrupt services, it would be more effective to do it directly, not around the long way by developing a new mobile platform.

It is not easy to define a good customer experience. It is much easier to define a bad one. For example, a mobile phone that cannot even create a contact from a received call or SMS. Or another example, I am typing this already the third time. I lost the first two because 1, my phone rebooted (again) in my pocket during a forced break in typing and 2, I foolishly wanted to check the weather forecast and the browser reused the same tab in which I was typing this. I am not going to name and shame the device in question but it does not shout "good user experience" to the world, does it?

Dave is right, the users do not care (much; I will get back to that) about the OS. They care whether the gadget does the job and whether it does it better than the competition. The only time the OS comes into the equation is for the availability of apps.

This is so obvious that I feel embarrassed to even mention it. Yet I keep reading about how important it is to open the sources and similar insignificant details. The user does not care! What good is it to have the most advanced and completely open OS if the gadget does not do what it is supposed to do? Or, if it does, but another, cheaper gadget does it just as well or better, why should you choose this one?

In my fictional world, a brave new entrepreneur decided in 2011 to make just such a device. He came from the background in a large company and knew how such companies work. He took great care to avoid the arrogance, hubris, lack of flexibility and other ills such companies are usually plagued with.

After 2 years of hard work, my fictional entrepreneur released a new mobile device at the end of 2013. The device was fresh, it was new, it challenged the way we were used to seeing mobile computing and our relationship with the producer, yet it was pleasant to use to the point of filling Apple users with envy. It did not come with all bells and whistles right away, but there was a clear direction and a clear roadmap of what missing features would be implemented and when. After two years of listening to the feedback and ceaseless polishing, polishing, polishing, most of the missing features were finally implemented.

My fictional device's use was completely anonymous, you did not need to create an account to use it. It had updates for individual components delivered as and when ready, without bunching them together in big monolithic updates. It was, in a word, something different. You might even say unlike.

As I said, this is just a fiction. Luckily, I do not have to include the usual disclaimer since there is no device that my fiction could have resembled, even by accident.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

As someone who at some point predicted the N900 community would die away as much as the previous NITs communities did, I've been surprised to have been proved completely wrong. I hereby admit that.

In fact for a shitton of time attention on this forum has been half split between N900 and Jolla. Not the 770, not the N8x0s, not N9/50, but the N900.

Really, it seems that the N900 is something to a lot of people. Maybe we should open another thread to discuss exactly _what_ it is, since I'm not sure I get it.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Doesn't seem much of a surprise to me -- it works as a phone, and as a portable computer. Really, no device even tries to do that today -- modern "smartphones" are phone + portable media-player + portable gaming device.

I really wish Jolla had tried to release something like that, but no, they're explicitly going for yet another iPhone, just like everybody else. :(

EDIT: Except, yeah, as javispedro points out below, Microsoft is giving it another try. I hate to say it (being as I have been ignoring Microsoft for so long), but I may have to take a look at their offerings again...

(That, and take another look at cobbling together my own RPi mobile device...)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

While that actually resembles an "hybrid" laptop more than a dockable phone,
i am generally against anything that is "big-slot-in dockable" like those early Asus phones. Several reasons:

- Completely proprietary docking port,
- You can't carry the dock easily,
- When the phone is docked in, you cannot use it independently. Crap!

I think I like approaches like just plug in a "USB Type-C video cable" and you get full desktop video out better.


By the way, these days it is MS who is trying to revive the "phone as mobile computer" again:

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OUP...review-1.0.jpg

Doesn't the above image ring a bell?

http://depot.javispedro.com/nit/usb/displaylink.jpghttp://depot.javispedro.com/nit/usb/xvnc2dlusb.jpg

Yes, that's my N900 connected to a 20'' inch screen, in 2010, and in the second screenshot showing a native 1080p Hildon desktop totally independent of the on-screen one. We were so close....

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Will. Never. Happen. "Fill Apple users with envy?" How in the heck are you possibly going to do that? The iPhone is the baby of Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs was a true believer with an unlimited amount of cash and an army of brilliant engineers -- he's created the most user-friendly, feature-complete, bug-free smartphone the world has yet seen. So long as you use it in the way he meant you to use it, the thing is unassailable, at least in terms of being pleasant to use.

You, personally, may have some strange aversion to the device, but let me tell you, the iPhone users I know will hand over their devices when you pry them out of their cold, dead fingers.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I dropped by in the DNA-store, which used to be the main Jolla retail seller in Finland and there is one - yes one - Jolla phone on sale in whole Finland. How they think to make money if they don't sell the product?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Simple -- the phone is not Jolla's product. Sailfish is their product, and they're trying hard to sell it to various manufacturers. Jolla doesn't want to be in the business of selling phones...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Let me try to describe something in my mind for quite some time.

The mobile phone only has one purpose : to help its owner in doing some tasks. Its goal is not to provide access to some ecosystem.
Each person will have different tasks he would want the device to do.

Mainly, the kind of tasks done actually revolve around communication, media creation/sharing/playing, localisation and navigation, gaming.

Each time there is a need, the solution usually chosen is "create an app". I think this is where it starts to create problems in usability.

If I try to follow Jaakko's articles, we have to think how to answer the needs without taking the old paradigms as the only ones. In this case, the application is a desktop paradigm of the way the underlying system works (running programs). In any case does it mean that this low level constraint must be visible on the UI level.

There has been some works in several ecosystems to blend the application together (like adding a share on twitter/facebook link in the camera app, or the contact hubs).

This should be taken on a higher level, removing completely the applications from the user level, and increasing a lot the intergration between those services.

Usually, on the phone, the user follows a task flow, and doesn't work in a single app.

For example :
* receive SMS. Get notification
* Open the SMS app : A friend asks if you want to go see a movie
* Open the movie app (or browser), search for the current movies and time
* Go back to the SMS app : answer the friend

An other flow:
* Have an alarm reminder of the coming meeting with a friend
* Open the mail app, and search the mail were a friend gave you the restaurant website's URL for tonight
* Open the website, find the address
* Open the navigation app, to drive to this address

On most systems, you would have two apps open : SMS and movie/browser (or 3 for the second example : Mail/Browser/Navigation).

But... user are multitasking a lot, as anything can happen during this task flow. You were cooking while doing this, and have to go back to check the recipe ? Someone calls you ? In the movie app the director name reminds you of a friend you had to mail a file ?

Mix some simple tasks for some time, and now you have several apps opened. The broswer app is shared between two task flows (the movie, and the recipe), the mail app two (you were writting a mail, but some other mails were received in the mean time and you read them), ....

At the end, you have some task flows, and a multitasking view that doesn't represent it anymore.

What I think would be better, would be that app were hidden behind "views". Then the multitasking page would now list the task flows, and not anymore the apps used.
A task flow would be a chained list of "views" used to get to the intented result : the task being complete.

That way, you could add a new task flow, interrupting the current one, when something happens, and then be able to leave it there for some time, while switching from one flow to another.

I am not sure if this is well explained, and how to do this to be usable (that's were someone like Jaakko would help a lot!). Ask me if you want to rephrase some part, or add a drawing.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Did I not make it clear enough that it was a fiction? ;)

That was IMHO the mistake. You do not make money on components, you make them on complete solutions. Even a phone is not a complete solution, but it is closer than just a bunch of screws. Or an OS. Does Google make money on Android?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Having those flows as running apps in current paradigm, with the example you gave of suddenly changing flow, how would that work? Or is it just a stack of open programs, so no actual change except going back to movie app would bring the previously opened email app as the "back" app?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

So basically like the Activity concept in KDE ?

While, at least from my experience, it does not really work on desktop it could make quite a lot of sense in a mobile environment - and there seems to be even something already going on in this regard as part of the Plasma Mobile project. :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Very cool concept! I could see implementing this with one of the most basic data structures in computer science: the "stack". Rather than starting a random app, you inform the OS that you're starting a new task, and push the first app down into that task. As other apps are needed, you push them on top of the stack (suspending the apps below if necessary), automatically bringing those apps back up when you pop the current one off the stack. If you need to start a new task, you tell the OS that, at which point it suspends (if necessary) the entire previous stack and begins a new one.

And you could switch between task stacks as desired. :) Anyway, that's one way you might implement this sort of concept...

EDIT: Szopin beat me to it... :)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I found that very interesting.

This is something that webOS actually handled more or less (barring lots of bugs), e.g. a browser window opened by a program would stack on top of that program, instead of stacking on top of the "web browser" stack.

E.g. note:

http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/...-webOS-2.0.jpg

Note how the onion.com web browser is on the same stack as the mail message that opened it. Note how the other web browser windows are unaffected.

Same thing if you clicked on a "mailto:" link on the browser window. A new "compose mail" window would open in the current stack. The other mail windows would not be interrupted.

And you could switch to different stacks and even different cards in the same stack by swiping.

I for example think that the current multitasking implementation is completely broken on Sailfish, among other things because you can't open a new "compose mail" window without closing the older one.

And as usual, iOS, Android, and the rest of the bang are even worse in this regard.


webOS would be my without a doubt my favourite (open) mobile OS ever if it wasn't for the entire... webOS thing. Although maybe that's the reason implementing proper multitasking was trivial to them.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Didnt xerox have some similar concept? "Cards" or something? Point is, given the concept s that old, and we still have no good realization of it, means it either is very difficult to realize properly, or nobody cares, or nobody thought of it. The closest i can think of is Microsoft ole, i do not know if apple has something similar.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Why not? I know a lot of people who organize their desktops like this, using virtual desktops and the ability of most desktop programs to open multiple instances.

E.g. you have a desktop for "research" (with PDF reader, web browser, terminal, source code editor, etc.), you have another desktop for "family & friends chitchat" (with pidgin/IM and the occasional procrastination web browser -- that does not interact with the "research" one), etc.

In fact, that usecase is slowly being forbidden on the desktop, since the number of programs that are not multiple instance friendly is decreasing. E.g. the browser now opens a new tab (thus taking you to a different virtual desktop instead of staying at your current "activity"), the terminal opens a new tab, the photo viewer is one-instance-only no matter what, etc. etc.


I don't think anything as big as OLE is required for this. Some semantic window tagging would be enough.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Definitely it should be lightwheight. And easy to use; ole is a mess;
But to be honest, this whole concept just rings "organizing " in my head; hence i am not sure of it actually faciltate a user s use of the phone, rather making it more complex. To be clear, with this you put the burden of organizing on The user s shoulders; but thats the last thing users want to do. Take facebook as an example, they try to distance the user from searching with different techniques, albeit showing him what (ok they think) he /she wants.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

What 'desktop'? What window manager? Even on work-desktop with win7 I manage to have two 'flows' running independently (one with work browser instance, few other programs, second monitor with second browser instance, outlook etc).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Which browser window (and from which desktop) is activated when you click on a link from outlook? It has nothing to do with the window manager (and that's the problem).

In my experience it's always.. the wrong one. Probably Firefox does some most-recently-used heuristic, but it's often wrong, and it only takes one wrong guess a few times per day to make it annoying.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

It's the first one you opened (main one) when using IE, with two chrome instances running though it's just an IE window you can close as soon as you've finished with it, not that big of a deal (sure could be better, just not sure if overhead of initializing each window/flow as the one you want outlook to interact with is not extra management that has low ROI, on mobile would be even worse, Clippy: hey! We see that you want to open a browser window, please specify which flow that is now and which applications to interact with, or how would that work)

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

just selecting a window _in the current workspace_ would already be an improvement. and implementing that would be _trivial_. see above webos screenshots...

for further heuristics, maybe even remember which browser window has the most tabs coming from mail client links. things like that.



In any case, going back on topic:

Despite our bias, are we certain "make my desktop mobile" the answer?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

At least, it's an answer that Apple and Google haven't chosen. I don't see any point in trying to make yet another iPhone-knockoff; Android is already a cheap enough and complete enough iPhone-knockoff to make the duopoly smartphone market pretty unbeatable...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I am not able to reflect on "What if Jolla never existed" as i have not been here long enough and just came to "make that n900 usable again" and jumped on the Boat just for non google android / Alien Dalvik in the beginning. :rolleyes:

But as you are looking for a business idea anyway, i think i am competent enough to suggest abbreviations of things keeping me afloat as a steadily growing freelancer and share my special view of the market.

1. As said before, "disrupting the market" is not possible without adequat firepower -> money. So simply forget it, the train is gone by 7 years now. Do not be the next "Don Quijote".
Consequence, make no expensive PR at all, be and attract super elitists that do not mind to spend money for top notch features/experience/customization(!!).

2. Find your niche, stay true to it and slowely grow from there. (privacy, low hw/power requirements, relatively easy to maintain).
Specialise to an extreme level but bring this specialication to the broadest market possible.

3. Plan 10 years ahead wit your rough idea.
Will Smartphones even be relevant then?

Aren't we moving towards a unified device much smaller than that? I humbely "forsaw" the Apple watch 5 years before it materialized because what i ultimately want since childhood is that frickin' "Dick Tracey" meets "Star Trek Communicator" device.
The screens will disconnect from the devics again as we are moving into a world where everything around you will be a possible screen waiting for input from your personal device.
Even Apple is still years away from that and heavily struggeling to "thin out" IOS to turn the watch from early adopters notification system playground into the next killer device.

That also is my only argument on a strategic fail by Jolla apart from "imperfect Communication":
Why did it have to be a tablet...
That sice of a device will soon be a "dump screen" only. The real sustainable challenge for sailfish would have been a watch imho.

Nevertheless i totally enjoy the ride, thank you @stskeeps for being a vital part in that experince and ALL the best of luck for your new endevours!

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Wow, first time hear a convincing (in sincerity, don't share that fascination myself) argument for an e-watch. Always assumed it's just idea-less executives that had to come up with an idea for friday EOD and watch was a no-brainer but also not really convincing (judging by apple watch sales they still need to convince quite a lot of people that current implementation is worth it). Probably with e-glasses and head mounted displays it will work out like star trek/any other sci-fi vision, still prefer to wind it every now and then rather than it dying on me by afternoon (with VR goggles having it have a virtual display with those notifications longer than 15 chars will also help), but those are still just hoops successful e-watch will jump through eventually.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Future will be bright!
Just imagine literally "throwing" the tiny picture from your watch dislay to a giant screen by a gesture starting from your watch, pointing to the big screen / vr google / tablet size screen.
Maaagic :D

Maybe a viable business idea for now could be "being the universal connector/interface between any smart device and any dumb screen. To start with a practial idea not covered by IEEE yet :p

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I didn't want to bring smartwatches here, since I'm also extremely biased in that topic.... but...

I said, about smartphones:
Well, I'm starting to fill my drawers with smartwatches. And most of them I got as "free devices"...

For some reason many people already believe the form factor to be set in stone.

This reminds me of the pre-iPhone in which many people hated (and I still do) the candybar form factor. And yet after the iPhone you simply _can't_ buy a non-candybar phone.

I.e. I believe that if smartwatches "disrupt" the market they may come in a form factor no one is paying much attention today.

By the way, it's quite probable that once I set my hands on one of these smartwatches with SIM-slot, I'll probably stop carrying a smartphone altogether. What for?

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Well, I use Gnome Shell with 4 desktops in a very similar way.

But the KDE activities, if I understand it correctly, are named and you are kinda expected to create a new activity for any significant task (holiday planing, upcoming talk preparations, coding project foo, etc.) and then remove it once you no longer need it.

But in practice one is usually too lazy to organize stuff like this all the time, so the holiday planing just ends on the "non work desktop", the coding stuff on the "coding desktop", etc.

So basically generic desktops vs desktops for specific tasks.

But as one KDE developer noted on a Plasma Mobile talk I'have visited, activities make a lot more sense for mobile devices - as with the holiday example, you would usually have the mobile device on hand during the holiday, so having various kinds of information ready in a holiday activity makes sense & should be worth the hassle of organizing stuff.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I am not a user of KDE, so I am not sure of what these activity are usable in practise.

There was a talk at KDE Akademy 2013 (I don't like KDE, but the people being it are great !) about task centric UI. I didn't found the video of it, but found the first part of the slides : http://www.slideshare.net/rcolomar/talk-task-centric. If anyone knows where to find the videos, please let me know.

What I am proposing is related to the principles exposed there, except that the contexte is different.
In KDE talk, they want to produce content, and are proposing how to have predefined workflows to reach it.
In my mind, they workflow would be constructed on the fly, and the flow would be more a matter of automatically organising things in a multitasking environnement (so that the multitasking view would shows tasks, not applications).
This would solve the problems that an app can be used in several simultaneous tasks, but the current UIs are not designed for this, and thus require a lot of going back to switch between things.

You can see a start of this integration in several apps, but it is not generalised. Best example would be camera : You open camera, take a photo, then switch to the gallery, select a photo, send it by mms, write the mms, and send it without leaving the application.
This would normally take 3 apps if it was not integrated, but there you never exit the current one. It also only takes one slot on the multitasking view for this whole chain of event to do this single task. Very Good !

However, in the middle of writing the MMS, you kid/cat/.... does something cute and you want to take another photo. It is not possible !
We have a phone where multitasking is the selling point, but where you cannot take a picture while sending an MMS...
There you should be able to start a new task (a new slot on the multitasking view), which would consist of taking a photo, and then other things that you may decide on the fly, and then getting back to your first MMS.

It is a lot more important on a mobile device than on the desktop, as the tasks done are usually smaller on a phone (not working with an IDE, file broswer and 10 stackoverflow tabs, but simple messaging of data searching), things are mostly full screen compared to multiple windows/screen/virtual desktops on a PC, and finally input system is a big limitation (no mouse and keyboard makes everything slower).


Initial question was to disrupt mobile, not desktop. Putting desktop paradigms in mobile is for me an error, as they are not fulfilling the same needs (even my laptop is not comfortable to do heavy work compared to when it is docked, I don't image doing anything heavy on a phone).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Implementation is the hard part, as ever.
Take a look at how your desktop internet browser does it:
you can navigate in a single tab forever by following links. At some point, you want to break your flow to split it between to things. You can create a new tab and start doing something in it (even browsing the same websites as the first tab), and you can also follow a link from the first tab in a new tab (middle click).
If you see it that way, it is not difficult nor a burden to the user, as it is decided on the fly with a single action :
* Do whatever you want, you'll stay in the same task flow.
* You want to break from this one ? open in a new flow (long press on the actions?).
* You want to start something else ? create a new flow (a bit like the app launcher while you are in an app).
* Finished with this flow ? close it (swipe down from example).
* Need to switch to another already running flow ? go to the multitask view
(like current left/right swipe)

It has to be done on the fly, not with tagging or virtual desktops where you have to move windows.

But to see it like that we first have to forget the concept of app (where an app has several view, like phone has call history/enter phone number/calling view), and extract all the views to be used by anything/anywhere. At least with some compatibility from one view to the next, like when a picture is taken is can be sent or edited, but not navigated to (geo-tagging of pictures could allows that thinking of it...).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

It is a USA-centric thinking. In many other countries, smartphones are not heavily-subsidized.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

So, Android phones are insanely expensive in other countries? There are no cheap smartphone options? I suppose that could be a way into the market, then...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Smartphones are not necessarily heavily subsidized but there are manufacturers that effectively dump the devices to the market. It's very very difficult to be profitable against these in small volumes.

Still dreaming about good quality qwerty-device...

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

I personally believe we are heading towards a convergence of devices and whoever gets their first with the right execution will disrupt the market.

What I talking about is the pluggable computing concept, i.e. Jolla's The Other Half or the PuzzlePhone. Both of these examples have been poorly executed in my opinion. I love The Other Half concept and for me that was Jolla's USP but they've done little more than release a few ambience changing back plates to showcase it. Without community support from dirkvl there probably wouldn't be a TOHKBD. The PuzzlePhone concept is also nice but right now it seems to be limited to nothing more than phone customisation.

A few months ago I bought a $200 Toshiba Chromebook 2, formatted it and installed regular Linux on it. I've done very little to optimise the power usage but the battery life is fantastic. I tend to get 7-10 hours on a single charge with fairly normal usage patterns. It's x86-64 based so it's pretty much a fully functional laptop. I've experienced no performance problems at all. It's obviously not great with heavy loads. Full kernel compilation takes several hours (having said that, you often only need to compile what's been changed so it's still quite usable for this purpose). It's replaced my both my i7 desktop and my HP TouchPad for 99% of my tasks.

The point I'm trying to make is that the technology is already there and affordable for many people. If not, the technology is very close. Battery life is not as much of a problem as it used to be and there are potential solutions such as the 10000mAh battery or Huawei's recently announced fast charging batteries. A single pluggable device that can be used as a smartphone, a laptop, a Psion/TOHKBD style PDA and many more kinds of imaginable form-factors is a very feasible prospect.

Now what about the OS for this pluggable device? I see no reason why it can't be based on Linux, just not based on any mobile or desktop distro that currently exists. I have some ideas about how a desktop/server distro could be adapted to be suitable for use in such a device.

Who would be interested in buying one of these devices? That really depends on the form-factors that would be available. Use your imagination. There's a huge handheld gaming market that might be interested in a gaming dock/module. A laptop dock/module could potentially appeal to desktop Linux users. I say Linux users as it starts there but once ordinary (non-Linux) users see what such a device is capable of, there is a potential for market expansion.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

1. Invent libhybris
2. Create the awesome HADK
3. Watch awesome people make awesome ports of Mer + Glacier UI
4. TMO plods along as it always does

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

WebOS was another awesome concept with a mediocre execution.

One thing I've learned from Apple is that execution is really really important, at least as important as the ideas you're executing.

The N810 or the N900 should have been revolutionary devices, but they were both really mediocre executions. By the time the N950/N9 came, it was too late. Too much time lost, not enough momentum.

You are either first to the market with an astounding new idea, or you are able to throw vast resources at an existing idea and make the best execution of that idea in the market. Apple did the first thing in the 70s with the Apple II, and they've been doing the second thing ever since. They really nailed it with the iPod, and they never looked back. We all know the iPhone was nothing new, but they did it best.

I think in 2007, there was a chance to disrupt the market. I think the Internet Tablets should have been funded as a core project by Nokia, and they should have built phone capabilities in from the start.

Now? Unless you've got something absolutely groundbreaking, don't waste time and money reinventing wheels. Find someone with deep pockets and get to work making awesome versions of stuff that we already have. Polish the crap out of it. People will buy it.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Today, my daughter asked me to translate a page of her French book for her. So I held up my phone, with Google Translate open, and pressed the camera button. There was the page, but the words were being replaced with English on the page of the book, as I watched. I'd never seen it do that before. It just silently updated sometime recently.

This is the competition. Vast resources, all engines at full speed.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

Yes, it is a possibility. Following this thinking :

1. Many tablet users (with mobile OS) who tried to replace notebook/desktop PC computers in the last years are back to PC computers in the form of ultrabook/hybrid computers running desktop OS. More important is the form factor (thin, light hardware);

2. Many smartphone users don't use the usual phone (voice call) side a lot, but mainly Internet services (social networks, web browser, email, etc);

3. Raspberry Pi can be transformed in many things, like an (smart)phone, tablet, etc. But it needs hacking a lot in terms of hardware and software;

4. Large smartphones (phablets) usage worldwide shows that large hardware (in size), like in Psion handheld computers days (e.g., Psion 5MX or Revo+) is not a problem. Just be lighter than Psion;

5. Smartphones and tablets have hardware specs like PC from few years ago, like 4-core CPU, GPU, 2-3 GB of RAM, high-res screens, etc;

6. Intel hardware for mobile devices (tablets and smartphones) are competitive nowadays in terms of price and energy efficiency;

7. Instead of mobile OS trying to become a desktop OS in behaviour (in convergent devices), why not the other way around ?

8. So, why not put a desktop OS (e.g., Linux with one of the current graphical environments which fits well for touch and different size screens) on Intel hardware, with an added phone software stack using (an optional ?) phone hardware module ?

It would be something like Openmoko GTAx, but with Intel hardware, phablet/tablet screens, and phone hardware being modular.

So :

- it would inherit decades of desktop softwares. E.g., Linux running X11/(X)Wayland. With dependencies. With multitasking. With multiuser;
- it would need few hardware drivers, mainly for the phone hardware module;
- it could be used in many form factors (phablet and tablet screen sizes, without or with hardware keyboards, etc).

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

That was win 8 no? Then the problem becomes fitting a square in a triangle-shaped hole. The result will make noone happy im afraid

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

It's been able to do that for some time but iirc Nokia Multiscanner on Symbian did it back in 2008/9. Google Translate does it a whole lot quicker and more accurately but that's just better hardware and evolved software.

I find the voice audio translation much more impressive.

Re: Alternative history: What if Jolla never existed?
 

You've hit my nerve. Where does all that power go? How come I can do LESS with my Jolla than I could do 20 years ago with my 40 MHz 80386 with 4 MB RAM and 40 MB HDD?

Maybe that's your chance to disrupt the market. Make a mobile computing device that can be actually useful, not just a toy that can make calls if you beg it nicely enough.