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[BUSINESS EXPERTISE, Mobile Industry] Does anyone here meet that description? If so..

I've been planning, and information-designing, for the past year a business venture which I will describe very vaguely at this point as:
A portal site & directory for all touchscreen platforms, devices, apps and carriers, targeted primarily at mainstream consumers ... and secondarily at app developer individuals and companies seeking clients for custom development. This directory cuts across the Apple iPhone platform, Android OS, WindowsMobile, Blackberry, Palm OS, (and whatever Nokia ends up with). And manufacturers including HTC, Motorola, SonyEricsson, Nokia, Samsung.
I'm a UX/ Usability Designer who's participated here for 4 years, first as a clueless new consumer with a T-Mobile MDA, to solid participant, with both broad and deep underdstandings of the touchscreen marketplace. My HTC Hero arrives tomorrow and I embark on my own personal exploration of and investment in the Android OS.
I'm now interviewing business/operational candidates who are experienced in leading and driving startup operations, and who absolutely love the full spectrum of this mobile industry.
If you are such a person, or have recommendations about such a person, please PM me. I live and work in San Francisco, CA, USA. Thank you

[Q] What is the best Android / Win phone 7 for developers?

Hi all,
Was hoping I could get a bit of help with my dilema!!!
I am due for an upgrade at the end of this month and cannot make up my mind as to which mobile to go for!
Over the last 12 months I have been learning to develop applications for android while on a work placement via my University. I have found this to be a steep learning curve as my Java knowledge was very limited, will I continue? not sure yet...! But, I do like the HTC Desire HD whether developing android apps or not.
On the otherside of the coin.....
Next year (this coming October) I will be learing to develop Windows phone 7 applications while on my third and final year. While I am still a novice with Silverlight and Expression Blend, I have had some considerable experience over the last 2 years writing C# code to develop Windows forms and ASP.Net sites, and have looked into developing for WP7 and feel quietly confident that this will be better than my experience developing for android.
I have never held a WP7 let alone used one and have read a number of negative reviews online about them. However, due to the areas I will be studying next year and my current knowledge I cannot decide on what handset to get, and as my contract will be for 2 years I want to make sure im stuck with the right one!
I havn't got a clue as to which WP7 is the best and am not fixed on the HTC Desire HD either...
I would like to hear from both android and WP7 developers / consumers your views on both OS's and preferred handsets.... from both a developers and a consumers point of view...... Also if there is anything that should be avoided i.e. specific versions of android / WP7 OS's?
Thanks guys!

Android and Smartphones

Hey guys I just wanna ask you a quest :
Do you believe Samsung, or other brands just like HTC or maybe LG, would have been as successful as they are now...if they had no Android OS in their devices?
IMO I guess the answer is : NO WAY. Hardware is not the only essential thing, and I really believe Software (instead of hardware) has made the REAL difference
I'd like to know what do the world think about that
Sent from my Xoom on Tiamat

I think they've all been spamming the Marketplace with countless devices which are, at best, clones of every other device out there and are selling devices on the strength of pure numbers alone. Basically a brute force approach.
If Android had never been created, each Manufacturer would still be pushing out twenty Windows Mobile clones every year instead, and then that platform would still be dominating the Market. (Fruity products aside.)

hardware and software go hand in hand...
hardware makes the phone and gives it the capabilities that we all want...
but without good software to go along with that then the phone is useless...
if android had never come along there would be something else to take its place. maybe windows phone would be more popular, maybe webos would be bigger than ever...maybe ios would rule the world...whatever...
i think a better question would be if android hadn't come along which current os do you think would be the most used on devices?

Not so sure: IMO, Android is a great competitor do iOS, which was one of the main drivers of smartphones in the market with its App Store and rich functionality (when I had an N-Gage, I already enjoyed tons of community apps, but had no market)
Would they go far with Windows Phone 7? Maybe. But not with Windows Mobile, which was iOS' competitor at that time.

I'm pretty sure the brands you mentioned would be selling with success even if Android didn't exist.
They are industrial giants (samsung especially), which can invest huge amount of money on development. Some say they lack imagination, but I must say I'm impressed by the pace they keep improving our techno gadgets.
The real thing is what would the smartphone world look like without android.
I owned a bada smartphone and every time I was using it I felt a chain around my neck, hands and feet...
We've been really lucky with the path smartphone took: android is free, android is open-source.
Industry may provide the fittest and strongest bodies, but it is we, the people, who provide the SOUL and let the magic happen.
I find this pretty amazing

[Q] Ubuntu or Android for a 3rd world tablet-based education project?

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

[Completed] Budget Android devices, OS ver & ROMs that play well w Mobile Device Management MDM

Budget Android devices, OS ver & ROMs that play well w Mobile Device Management MDM
Budget Android devices, OS version that play well w Mobile Device Management MDM
PS: I havent been on XDA since good old Tmobile Dash/ HTC Excalibur days so PLEASE MOVE THIS THREAD to appropriate Forum/ Sub Forum for best responses.
This is for an SMB
What Brand/ Model/ Android OS versions devices are most MDM friendly?
Given that Android OS versions and Branded ROM releases are all different and at times buggy and some more "usable" and "manageable" than others.
Which ones have you found to play well.. OR Not Play well with MDMs? Any such experiences.
Let's say I am looking at a Free/ Low cost one like Sophos UTM.
"Let me elaborate - The small org I am helping have a few android phones an 3-4 Sub 100/ Sub 50$ Androids to be added to the mix.
Given that Android builds vary between Brands/ Companies and given that Android Releases v3, 4, 5 etc Kit Kat blah blah all VARY in a large manner, I am asking which Android Brands/ Models and OS versions would you recommend.. Or on the other side.. NOT recommend - Outliers that dont work OR play well with MDM software.
Any such experiences?
PS: I recently found some Windows Desktops wouldnt play well with PDQ Deploy without some fixes + .net 4 being applied. in similar light maybe there are Android ROM relases that dont PLAY WELL. "
"Samsung releases the largest amount of API's to MDM vendors and includes additional functionality and features over LG and other Android devices."
"I use LG, Samsung and really cheap "BLU" Android devices, locked with Mobilock and have pretty good success with all of them. Samsung as someone else mentioned is the best all the way around except price. (Best product, best MDM integration, best period.)"
"Samsung devices are known as SAFE Devices (Samsung Approved For Enterprise). This makes them attractive to businesses as Corp Devices, because companies can better control/manage them with MDM."
So the question is what are the thoughts of Android & ROM experts on XDA and can one easily install a Samsung or MDM friendly ROM on non Samsung phones?

Hi crashnburnMDA
Thank you for using XDA Assist
Our experts at the below thread should be able to help you. Please be welcome to post over in there.
**DEVICE SUGGESTION THREAD** -- Not sure what device to buy? Ask here!
Nice regards and good luck.
.
crashnburnMDA said:
Budget Android devices, OS version that play well w Mobile Device Management MDM
PS: I havent been on XDA since good old Tmobile Dash/ HTC Excalibur days so PLEASE MOVE THIS THREAD to appropriate Forum/ Sub Forum for best responses.
This is for an SMB
What Brand/ Model/ Android OS versions devices are most MDM friendly?
Given that Android OS versions and Branded ROM releases are all different and at times buggy and some more "usable" and "manageable" than others.
Which ones have you found to play well.. OR Not Play well with MDMs? Any such experiences.
Let's say I am looking at a Free/ Low cost one like Sophos UTM.
"Let me elaborate - The small org I am helping have a few android phones an 3-4 Sub 100/ Sub 50$ Androids to be added to the mix.
Given that Android builds vary between Brands/ Companies and given that Android Releases v3, 4, 5 etc Kit Kat blah blah all VARY in a large manner, I am asking which Android Brands/ Models and OS versions would you recommend.. Or on the other side.. NOT recommend - Outliers that dont work OR play well with MDM software.
Any such experiences?
PS: I recently found some Windows Desktops wouldnt play well with PDQ Deploy without some fixes + .net 4 being applied. in similar light maybe there are Android ROM relases that dont PLAY WELL. "
"Samsung releases the largest amount of API's to MDM vendors and includes additional functionality and features over LG and other Android devices."
"I use LG, Samsung and really cheap "BLU" Android devices, locked with Mobilock and have pretty good success with all of them. Samsung as someone else mentioned is the best all the way around except price. (Best product, best MDM integration, best period.)"
"Samsung devices are known as SAFE Devices (Samsung Approved For Enterprise). This makes them attractive to businesses as Corp Devices, because companies can better control/manage them with MDM."
So the question is what are the thoughts of Android & ROM experts on XDA and can one easily install a Samsung or MDM friendly ROM on non Samsung phones?
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