Thread: No comparison between 770 and PDAs
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Remote User is offline Remote User
2005-12-06 , 15:35
Posts: 192 | Thanked: 5 times | Joined on Nov 2005 @ Eugene, Oregon
#5
Originally Posted by aflegg
Except, of course, it doesn't (with the current software revision & design). The virtual keyboard is tied at the wrong level and so only applies to Hildonised/osso-based apps using Gtk on the device :-(
I'll email NOKIA and to Matthew Allum at openedhand later today asking about fixing this. It's the kind of screwup that has resulted from X being narrowly appreciated and not well understood. It proves what I suspected, that from day one Nokia never had any idea that this X terminal they were building would ever actually be used as an X terminal. Somebody there should be embarassed about this and it should be fixed ASAP.
I don't regard this design shortcoming as a complete showstopper because the apps I have in mind are touchscreen driven and the keyboard on the box where the app is running is available.
Assuming that this shortcoming is dealt with, if the 770 is not widely used as an X terminal it will be a huge diminishment of its potential value and usefulness.

Merely changing the tech device paradigm from one of PC-centric islands browsing & sending files to each other to one of PDA-centric islands browsing & sending files to each other isn't, I hope, the extent of what is ahead of us at this point. What I'm hoping for a tech device paradigm where the 770 is a lot more than just an exceptional PDA with high resolution browser but is a display and input device that makes a whole world of hardware and software resources available to each user. The 770 must be a versatile network, display and input device, clearly. But that's all that a PDA tries to be and it isn't enough in 2006. More than this, then, the 770 must be a versatile TRANSPARENT network, REMOTE display and REMOTE input device - a fully enabled network resource, the ultimate personal network resource. Unless and until the 770 allows both display and input over the network, it's just an ultra PDA that is limited to browsing and sending files over the network - it's crippled, in comparison to what it could be.