I read it, to me it sounds like its' written by someone who doesn't
understand the complexities of mobile 'phone development.
Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing
requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU
installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without
a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always
willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example....
(and before anyone says N900, even Nokia don't try to call it a
smartphone, they call it a Mobile Computer).
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Android Discuss" group.
> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com > .
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en > .
FWIW my n800 can go just about that long. Certainly longer than my g1.
(Wifi on, cell radio nonexistant.) Turn off the cell radio and turning
on wifi, and I've got desktops that'll survive unplugged longer than
the g1..
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote:
> I read it, to me it sounds like its' written by someone who doesn't
> understand the complexities of mobile 'phone development.
> Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing
> requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU
> installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without
> a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always
> willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example....
> (and before anyone says N900, even Nokia don't try to call it a
> smartphone, they call it a Mobile Computer).
> ======
> Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the
> company number 6741909.
> The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not
> necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's
> subsidiaries.
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Android Discuss" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>> .
>> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en >> .
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group.
> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 19:31 +0000, Al Sutton wrote: > I read it, to me it sounds like its' written by someone who doesn't > understand the complexities of mobile 'phone development.
As it happens this was mentioned by people who have done mobile development in the past ;)
> Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing > requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU > installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without > a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always > willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example....
Well, it's news to me that my G1 can go for 24 hours without a charge. Guess if I go to GSM, deactivate anything in the background, and don't touch the phone it might manage that.
But then, all my cars have an USB charger. I've got a mobile USB charger that works from batteries.
Hmm, interesting, for my former smartphone I had to buy the car-charger when I needed it, because between uses it got just lost. With the G1 I continuously keep in mind where the next power-up opportunity is.
> (and before anyone says N900, even Nokia don't try to call it a > smartphone, they call it a Mobile Computer).
Well, actually the hardware seems quite similar to the N97 Symbian device.
It's probably being called a "mobile computer", because it came from the department that has been doing the internet tablet stuff. Actually Symbian devices are the smartphone offering of Nokia.
And so what if it's a "mobile computer", if that subsumes the functionality of a mobile phone, which it seems for the N900.
The size of the N900 seems quite like mobile phone.
Just for a comparison:
G1 => 117x55.7x17.1mm == 111.42 cm^3 volume and 158g weight N900 => 110.9x59.8x18mm == 119.35 cm^3 volume and 181g weight
the battery life time that is officially claimed (up to 5 hours talk with UMTS and 9 hours with GSM) sounds similar to my G1 too, and it's quite possible that they are utter irrelevant projections as for the G1 too.
So what if Nokia claims it's a mobile computer. Actually my favorite price comparison site lists it under UMTS mobile.
It has the size, the battery life, the weight and usability of a mobile.
Just for info: Harald Welte was the first system architect of
OpenMoko, so he has built mobile phones in the past.
At OpenMoko they did try to build a GNU/Linux based mobile phone
software stack...we all know the results. I know that I am being
unfair here, there were many reasons why OpenMoko failed, but one of
the reasons was that they failed to create a good software stack.
Personally, I found in Android what I missed in GNU/Linux approaches:
a clean architecture.
Android was not designed to be Linux or GNU/Linux. It is a completely
different system, which just happens to be using the Linux kernel.
Also, if I am not mistaken, some of the Android architects came from
Palm, where they already built embedded devices for some time.
Regarding the lack of System V IPC: There is a clear comment in
bionic, why it was not included. (It creates leaks in the kernel)
Instead, you have Binder.
There is a similarly clear comment about why e.g. pthread_cancel() is
not implemented and why C++ exceptions are not supported.
So Android did not throw out anything. It was simply built from the
ground up by choosing already available components (Linux, sqlite ...
etc.) and implementing others to fulfill the requirements. This also
meant that they had to cut corners where necessary (e.g. time and
resource constraints).
Of course Android is far from perfect (both technically and as an
open-source project), it is enough to just look into the
android-platform list to see that. There are many ugly places in the
code...etc. But its system architecture is clean and I like it way
better to work with than the GNU/Linux alternative for mobile phones.
On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote:
> I read it, to me it sounds like its' written by someone who doesn't
> understand the complexities of mobile 'phone development.
> Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing
> requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU
> installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without
> a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always
> willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example....
> (and before anyone says N900, even Nokia don't try to call it a
> smartphone, they call it a Mobile Computer).
> ======
> Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the
> company number 6741909.
> The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not
> necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's
> subsidiaries.
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Android Discuss" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
>> .
>> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en >> .
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group.
> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
> FWIW my n800 can go just about that long. Certainly longer than my g1.
> (Wifi on, cell radio nonexistant.) Turn off the cell radio and turning
> on wifi, and I've got desktops that'll survive unplugged longer than
> the g1..
> On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 2:31 PM, Al Sutton <a...@funkyandroid.com> wrote:
> > I read it, to me it sounds like its' written by someone who doesn't
> > understand the complexities of mobile 'phone development.
> > Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing
> > requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU
> > installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without
> > a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always
> > willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example....
> > (and before anyone says N900, even Nokia don't try to call it a
> > smartphone, they call it a Mobile Computer).
> > ======
> > Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the
> > company number 6741909.
> > The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not
> > necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's
> > subsidiaries.
> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> >> Groups "Android Discuss" group.
> >> To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
> >> .
> >> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en > >> .
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to android-discuss@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-discuss+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
> > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en.
> > Flexibility costs. It costs in terms of storage, processing
> > requirements, and battery life. I've yet to see a full Linux/GNU
> > installation on a phone sized device that can run for 24 hours without
> > a charge, and I doubt that it would be possible, but hey, I'm always
> > willing to be proven wrong if you can provide me with an example..
That's the problem.
This is the reason why it makes hard to port android, because it's not
flexible.
You should design software for hardware not hardware for software.
Look at the android-on-freerunner Project.
We are stuck on cupcake because we want a clean stable android working
before switch to other versions, but we are still not finished.
