Hey all,
Just a quick question for members of this community - I'm in the process of setting up a news resource site focusing on windows mobile devices and wanted to get some feedback on the usage of the term 'XDA'.
It seems that, for the most part, this community has accepted XDA as a generic term for a mobile device which runs the Windows Mobile OS (feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted).
Personally I prefer the look of XDA over PPC or WMD but before I go and purchase a domain I just wanted to put my ear to the ground and see what people (in the know) think.
Thanks,
~ elroy
In my opinion the term XDA is mostly known by enthusiasts who know the roots of the device. If you were to start a website I would use a term that is more common to people who are new to this area such as PPC, WM, or even a brand name such as this site has done. This would help improve the traffic of your site for sure.
elroyel1327 said:
Hey all,
Just a quick question for members of this community - I'm in the process of setting up a news resource site focusing on windows mobile devices and wanted to get some feedback on the usage of the term 'XDA'.
It seems that, for the most part, this community has accepted XDA as a generic term for a mobile device which runs the Windows Mobile OS (feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted).
Personally I prefer the look of XDA over PPC or WMD but before I go and purchase a domain I just wanted to put my ear to the ground and see what people (in the know) think.
Thanks,
~ elroy
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I would keep looking for a name. XDA is just the branding O2 uses for their PPCs and Smartphones. XDA is in the name of this site just because the XDAs were what the "founders" had gotten their hands on first to work on their encryption projects.
For the most part, members here refer to their devices by their HTC codenames. I haven't really seen anyone call their device an XDA.
I see what you mean though. I believe you might think that XDA is as generic for the PPC as Xerox is for the copier, but it really isn't. In my opinion, most people (even including the bulk of the members here) would just be confused by the terminology.
Just a thought. Good luck!
Thanks guys.
I'm leaning towards PPC (based on your feedback) at this point.
~ elroy
In case anyone is interested I've finally gotten the site *kinda* the way I want it. I still need to work on some of the code (my php skills suck, and that's being kind).
Anyway - on the advice given (above) I went with PPC in the title over XDA... and end up with:
http://www.PPCmine.com
The site is meant to be a resource for bloggers and people who run sites and are looking for links to up to date stuff on a specific subject (in this can PPCs)... or for people, like me, who are complete news junkies.
Feed back is most welcome.
~ elroy
xda is wallaby
I was also thinking about this few times...
Choosing the right domain name depends also on habits of people you are targeting. IMO if you target worldwide, PPC is the most culturally neutral and everybody interested into this kind of devices will find that.
In Czech Republic, the most commonly used term for HTC and similar devices is "MDA" - just because firts wallaby here was called MDA by t-mobile (previously paegas). Even who is not interested into PPC technology will understand MDA term and will know what RU speaking about.
Try to perform search how people think about our devices in a country you are targeting - and you will have the right name. Remember - people should understand name and they will come. If they cannot imagine what is hidden under "WMD" or such term (not used here in CZ, seen this for the first time here), they will simply miss your page...
Came across a short article today:
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/will-samsung-buy-hps-webos-50004917/
What do you think about this?
- Will it be good for webOS?
- Will Samsung fill it with bloatware, normalize it and make it just like Android, thus removing the slick interface we love?
I myself think it is a bad thing for webOS, because Samsung's OSs have a history of being less classy than others, and because webOS is the classiest OS I've ever seen, it would spoil the charm.
My thoughts:
I don't want to see anyone own HP's OS. I think it would be somewhat of a Utopian world if it became 'the OS of the people'
I would like to see no large corporation privately developing the OS, and so the hackers who have made Android so famous would openly do so. If some manufacturer such as Samsung took over the business, I think they should do nothing other than manufacture phones and tablets which run the OS.
I think that as soon as a 'standard' OS is loaded onto the phone/tablet, it would be root enabled, allowing people to edit it easily. Known, trusted developers such as the ones on this forum would be supplied some free handsets/tablets to get the ball rolling, and after that there would be regular software updates and custom ROMs ready to download whenever you feel like visiting the xda forums. Because it would be openly developed, it would be hugely successful with the people who love to tweak, edit and customize everything about their phones. I think that, if this happened, that the OS would be quickly adopted by many, as there would be more custom ROMs, apps, themes, hardware tweaks and, after some time, accessories.
I say this because the fact that Android is open source, easy to develop on and fairly cheap means that it has become the most popular smart phone operating system in the world.
This would make webOS hugely popular with thousands, even the people who don't read these forums on the basis that:
- As soon as you find a bug or something that you don't like on IOS or others, there is nothing you can do, but wait. On this "OS of the people" you would be able to come here and someone would already have a fix or a modification.
- If you don't like the appearance of other OSs, you have to root/jailbreak your phone to edit it. With a pre-rooted phone you would not void your warranty just to install a theme. You install all modifications at your own risk, however, so if you do so, you risk your warranty, but do not void it.
These are just my opinionated opinions, feel free to criticize.
while it'd be nice if HP were to release webOS as open-source, that is very unlikely to happen. That is the sad reality. I think if anyone were to pick up webOS, I'd rather it be HTC, just because they have proven to be very hacker friendly. Even if htc were to put sense over webOS, it has proven to be easy to modify anyway.
Samsung is so lagging with updates to their hardware. This is what scares me about them dropping the ball with webos.
I love webos and it is such a hot topic right now, it could really blow wide open if played out correctly- like simply supporting it and not mucking around with it. It just needs some big dollars behind it, get it noticed and get some solid hardware to run on- like the touchpad- ha-i actually like it a whole lot. That's it, just let it spread out from there. Don't try and tweak it, brand it, or otherwise piss all over it. Sorry bout the rant, but I agree with the above/ previous posts.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Better samsung then nobody at all I mean face it HP pulled the plug besides homebrew there is no more development for it unless they went ahead and release it open source which they won't so I welcome if samsung did take over as mentioned better then nothing i'd say sure would I prefer other companies no doubt but that's the current rumor. Haven't heard any other company willing to take it over.
Ideally if you can mash up webos frontal interface with the backend application support of android hell that would be a match made in heaven.
HP just acquired a European based software company to further WebOs
Tecnica001 said:
Ideally if you can mash up webos frontal interface with the backend application support of android hell that would be a match made in heaven.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that's an interesting thought. Make the Android for Touchpad "look" like webOS and use the android market apps. Whoot!!
Am I the only one who agrees?
Hp should license webos with specs to make sure it runs smooth like Palm or touchpad or whatever. If such a thing is possible. Believe it or not I don't know if I'd trust webos with anyone other than hp. Ha. In there lack of support for it, they've somehow managed to keep it in this sweet virgin like state.
Let someone else take on the burden of hardware production and os brand recognition and then produce some more tabs/ phones for the newly established fan base following.
Just sayin!
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Endgadget just reported that Samsung has stated that they are not interested in webOS. Take it for what its worth...
Hi.
I have seen these apps from Björk but they don't seem to be for android. They are only for iPhone.
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
She told Drowned in Sound that the apps had been specifically designed so that they could be easily ported to other platforms -- like Symbian, BlackBerry and Android. "We really made sure when we wrote all the programs that they will transfer to other systems."
"I'm not supposed to say this, probably, but I'm trusting that the pirates out there won't tie their hands behind their back."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive...shttp://www.compositiontoday.com/blog/115.asp
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
Thanks!
Some videos of these apps. You can interact with the music and make your own versions playing or changing things in a very innovative concept.
http://youtu.be/FsxsGrnCGIk
http://youtu.be/kb3kLXVs9J0
http://youtu.be/0Rx-P2UsD5g
Still waiting!
Did anything ever come of this?
Hey anybody! Do sth about it! She preety much asked to do this, so lets do sth. I guess many people would want this app for android, and here? No reply? Please!
Nobody is interested...
I think this app is cracks for iphone, but it wasn't ported to android... It would be much more interesting.
Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.
[email protected] said:
Yeah, It would be interesting for milions of people who have android phones, and not Iphones. Android is bigger market than iphone so i just don't have a clue why nobody wants to port biophilia app on android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There no hackers who like this app, i would say.
humano said:
BUT I've read that the app could be ported from iOS to another operating systems because it was made to allow this. And Björk encouraged hackers to do that! That was said from Björk herself in an interview!
I personally think that the art, sounds, videos, etc, could be extracted, but what ist with the software itself? How could it be ported if the source code is not available....
What do you think?
Can someone clarify if it would be possible?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.
mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person. But with all the paid work, and interesting free projects available to a person with the skills to port an ios app to Android without source code, why would anyone spend at least several months doing this ?
They could face the prospect of lawsuits from the rights holders, and might be unable to sell their work on official app markets. For what ? A wink from Björk, without even a physical pat on the back ? And perhaps a certain amount of gratitude from some users...
I hope she and others have learned something. If she/they want this to happen, they should at least release open source code freely, and make sure it's not difficult to port. Yeah, the video and audio recordings can remain "proprietary" but the app source code and design documents need to be released.
Or is much of the artistic expression integrated into the source code ? I haven't looked much but I guess these are not simple apps to play video and audio. These are apps that allow some form of interaction; perhaps the music changes with that.
If that's the case, the rights holders likely will want to hold onto their "intellectual/artistic property" and keep any source and design documents to themselves.
IMO, No amount of "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" from Björk will make a porting job easy.
And AFAIK there are no ios emulators for Android that might render this a simpler "pirating" effort.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Mike for the reply. I didn't see this.
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.
humano said:
Are you sure, that the source code is not included? Is not possible that there's a intermediate state of the the code, that could be built for Android? I always thought, that is something like that.
You are totally right. With the artwork we cannot build the app for android...
And I don't even have an iphone to see how the apps should look like in android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure. Anyone who claims otherwise is challenged to "show me where the source is".
For Android there is an emulator for PCs that many apps can run on, and an app of this type could run.
I know almost nothing of ios development, but likely there is an ios emulator that can run on a Mac at least ? AFAIR, ios development requires a Mac.
Feel free to send Bjork, or the companies that represent her, email asking about this.
I've been a fan of some of her music, and even acting and I even find her cute... And that's why I responded here. I had an initial thought that this could be an interesting project, but I have no time for such an unpaid hobby project.
BTW, Just looked at the iTunes page and some others. Seems to be a $12.99 app. And says "The full Biophilia App Album is now a paid app for new users, old users maintain same in-app-purchase ability." Something tells me the legal fine print says you're screwed if you hack it, especially if you tried to make a few bucks or do it publicly with your real name.
Artists (with money), hollywood and recording industry types tend to have iPhones. They don't know tech per se, don't want to know tech, and they have the cash to spend. They want something that "just works" and that's what the iPhone does, for a price. And ios is where devs make REAL money. Comparatively speaking, Android sucks for making money.
I saw some comment that they didn't make an Android app "for legal reasons". Sounds like a different way to say "business reasons". I imagine her recording company sells her music on iTunes, but doesn't sell it on Google Play in that big ongoing power play between media companies and tech companies ?
mikereidis said:
I think it's generally not feasible.
Björk is a very interesting artist. I think her understanding of technology, and specifically software development, "hacking" and "pirating", is limited however.
Yes, the app may have been made potentially portable, but without source code that is more or less useless.
Porting an app between platforms is a much bigger task than "pirating". It's not a simple matter of pulling files from hidden directories, or even doing some limited reverse engineering and patching of an app to bypass license checks. It's MUCH more than the mere pirating of music and movie files.
I'm presuming the app was written to IOS with Objective C, and not some portable language where the source code is embedded in the ios apps.
Anything is possible, though. With enough time one could reproduce what the app does. That's probably easier than trying to reverse engineer it.
But I'd guess this is a substantial effort, likely requiring at least many months of work by a single person.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.
mikereidis said:
Quoting my words from a year ago out of sheer vanity, LOL.
New news about her kick-starter project for Android and Windows ports of the IPad Biophilia being put "on hold". Among other sources: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/appsblog/2013/feb/08/bjork-cancels-biophilia-kickstarter
Summary of my opinion: I love her as an artist, but she doesn't understand technology. Ooooh, and I wish she would forget about Windows and just do Android.
IMO the IPad was targetted first because that's what all the at least reasonably well off artsy people used at that time, and could afford. Now she wants the app in the hand of those who can't afford IPads.
So why can't/haven't they just open sourced the code ? Original IOS devs still hold the rights ?
Bjork says:
"porting the app "proved unbelievably complicated""... LOL.
And the estimate seems to be 8 devs (staff?) for 5 months, for both Windows and Android. So maybe 20 developer months for each.
And that's a small project in the world I've come from, with 10-100 dev teams working for years. And she thinks that's "unbelievably complicated".
Now I don't know exactly the scope of the app is; I've never used it on Ipad, and I don't know if it uses some magic IOS stuff that's hard to port.
For all I know it could require the minimum of my quoted estimate of "...at least many months of work by a single person". Or it could be 10-20 man-years. I don't know.
My point continues to be that she doesn't have a grasp of technology. And that's fine, she's a wonderful artist IMO, and there's no shame in not having or not wanting tech knowledge.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Chad_Petree said:
Yes I love her but that's why I think too , she too thought that porting an app will need 5 guys working on it and two months oh bjork
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.
mikereidis said:
Originally, she hoped that "hackers" would do it, somehow, without source code, and she was giving a "wink, wink" to that.
She seemed to think that porting an app to a different platform would be almost as easy as pirating music, movies or apps.
I'm too busy to get involved, but I would be happy if someone(s) would ask her to get the source code released, and the "community" may be able to look and see and offer opinions or ideas.
Perhaps a few fans have the tech abilities and free time to make something of this at little or no cost, as opposed to professional devs making a normal professional dev income.
There's a forum here: http://4um.bjork.com/viewforum.php?f=16&sid=c28e2e0870bdc695ce7da8da94849918
Anybody know if she communicates openly with her fans online ? Is there an easy way to ask her for source code and offer ideas ?
IMO, she needs to forget about a Windows port, at least for now. It should have been Android from the beginning, but that said, Android is still relatively sub-par when it comes to real-time music generation. IOS stomps Android in this area, though the latest JB changes are promising.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.
humano said:
I will ask it in her forum. Perhaps she reads this proposal. It could work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.
mikereidis said:
I signed up on that forum and didn't get any confirmation email.
I was reading the main thread about this, and I think some of the posters understand a bit about s/w development. But some others are very misinformed about how development works.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am registered in that forum too and it's what you say. They don't have any idea.... :laugh:
But there's good news, at least somebody told in the forum, that she told in an interview, that she will find a cheap way to port biophilia to android.
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy... We would have a BIOPHILIA+
It's what you told before. She doesn't really understand the power of doing it... :victory:
humano said:
She would never release the code as open source... It would be crazy...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.
mikereidis said:
Well, no open source basically, generally means it's "commercial property".
So this is a commercial venture she has.
That's fine, that's OK. It belongs to her (and/or whomever) and she can do what she wants with it. No different than other software devs / vendors, musicians, song, book or movie writers etc.
But she can't expect some "benevolent hackers" to come along and "port" an app like this for her for free; with or without source code.
And she has something going on with bringing music education to the poor or something like that. And that's why she wants an Android port it appears. The poor can't afford iDevices.
And that's fine too. But it seems like it's a jumble of commercial stuff and some form of self promoting philanthropy.
Anyway, I think she should forget about this years old project and make something completely new for Android. Why re-do what's already been done ? But I guess money comes in there too. It should be faster and cheaper to re-use the high level design and media components.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...
humano said:
I fully agree. These apps are already a little obsolete for android.
And I have good news. She found a team of developers who is going to do the work for low price. We will have biophilia for android after the summer. Let's see how it is...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.
mikereidis said:
I hope it's not some "boiler room" s/w dev hack operation that promises more than it can deliver. I'm restraining myself from mentioning/identifying certain world areas where this is more common.
She's apparently coming to my town this summer; I've never seen her live; would be interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
She said that in one interview. That's what the people in the 4um.bjork.com say. I think it's real.
I saw her live last sommer and was amazing.
Well Biophilia app is already for Android devices!
Check the playstore https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bjork.biophilia
Hi all
MY QUESTION
How much work is it to get Ubuntu working on a cheap tablet, (in terms of weeks and stress/reliability)? I'm about to spend a year writing tablet software that needs cheap hardware. If I find a capable Android tablet going cheap, is it reasonable to consider getting Ubuntu working on it, instead of restricting myself to the Android OS to use cheap tablets? Would Ubuntu C++ apps still kill performance? (Ubuntu will save me lots of development in other ways.)
ALL comments pleease, however brief and knee-jerk.
BACKGROUND (all feedback gratefully received)
I'm at the design stage of a project to use tablets to improve education in poor countries. Extremely briefly, the tablets will use elements of social media to enable children to collaborate remotely and asynchronously on projects, and game aspects to get the kids excited, who have probably spent the day working on the fields, and to welcome kids with special needs. The system will enable education to continue in complex emergencies, such as droughts and conflicts. Currently most kids drop out after grade one as the education they're offered is so poor. Tablets can support teachers and enable kids to get more out of their classroom and homework time.
The system needs some clever back-end engineering to operate a local social network if there is no internet connection. (I'm thinking something like NodeJS acting as both a p2p client and a server.) It also needs to run on cheap devices, if it is to be adopted by third world Ministries of Education.
I am currently torn between Android and Ubuntu for tablets. Android will presumably be the cheapest platform for the foreseeable future - tablets now go for as little as $40 wholesale. However Ubuntu for tablets now offers the ability to bring a proper IT education to these children, as they can learn office software, desktop OS, etc. Ubuntu also provides source code I can customize, eg, GCompris, Tux4kids, KDE and Epoptes. I can see Ubuntu on other tablets here, but it seems the Nexus 7 is the cheapest tablet I can currently get Ubuntu on and performance is still an issue. Is that fair to say?
I can write everything using C++ and OpenGL to squeeze as much as possible out of every processor cycle. I have been a developer for 15 years, but am pretty ignorant when it comes to hardware/OS level.
My alternative is using something like Titanium and Unity, (I don't think HTML5 will perform well enough), so I have a bit more platform flexibility, at the price of having to develop everything from scratch, and using technologies for the back-end stuff that aren't as ideal, (such as Android Java and/or Titanium JS). But perhaps that keeps more options open for me?
My feeling is I should go for Ubuntu, but the price needs to reliably reach considerably below $100 to become a nationwide system in a poor country.
Obviously any comments or thoughts on any aspect very gratefully received. Don't restrict your comments to my question - I want all your wisdom!
Huge thanks for reading all this and any contributions
Chris
Re-post
perhaps you would get more of a response if you made this a bit shorter, and re-posted on ubuntu.stackexchange.com, android.stackexchange.com, and programmers.stackexchange.com
Also, perhaps a little off topic, but have you considered using coffeescript? :cyclops:
Thought it might be a stackoverflow question, this forum is amazing for tablet OS dev though. As ever I blather on too much...people have complained in the past.
All three? Wouldn't that be bad netiquette?
That's kind of a tricky question because technology is always evolving and prices fluctuate so much that in a year you might be able to get a device for half the price. I'm not knowledgeable about the new Ubuntu options but if your gut says go Ubuntu, than do it.
Thanks, I'd love to say gut instinct served me well, and I'm all for intuition, but I wouldn't trust it enough to dedicate 6 months of development on its hunch. However these replies and the act of writing the question has crystallized my view a little so I now have more targeted questions.
found this excellent guide on the hassles of porting an OS to a new device...
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/Linux-For-Devices-Articles/Porting-Android-to-a-new-device/
and this
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...droid-kernel-porting-from-one-device-to-other
So looks like a month, best case, with expert developers and a device well-known for being hackable. So to port ubuntu to a $40 device, I'm thinking three+ months, plenty of risk, and much pain.
Some other interesting posts:
A little gritty detail on porting kernels: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...droid-kernel-porting-from-one-device-to-other
A tutorial on building (compiling, not developing) a kernel: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2110842
The best post I found on porting ROMS: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1941239
Porting modules from within kernels: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1751966
Porting cyogenmod, (a ROM, not a Mod, as anyone on this forum probably knows): http://forum.cyanogenmod.org/topic/15492-general-cyanogenmod-porting-discussion/
A new kernel developer: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2173411
A vocab for noobs like me: http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/beginner/android-rom-and-rooting-dictionary-for-beginners/
I was wrong. Ubuntu Touch is based on the CyanogenMod kernel, which is widely ported.
From Canonical's FAQ on the bits of CyanogenMod used: "The kernel and a few low level drivers for network, video, audio and some other hardware features are taken, all the higher level parts have been taken out. On top of this the whole Ubuntu is started in an chroot environment." ( https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/FAQ#How_is_Ubuntu_Touch_connected_to_Android.3F)
As a result it has already been ported to about 40 devices, and porting to a further 30 is work in progress, listed here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
CyanogenMod officially supports 172 devices, and unofficially supports another 59.
Officially supported devices: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Devices
Unofficially supported devices: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Unofficial_Ports