Posts by mistergrantham 31 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Sep 2012
Yep, x86 compatibility will make continuum useful. Also it's good to know you can run desktop programs on the phone if you really need to. With the n900 I used Linux desktop programs to get paperwork in for important contracts while traveling without a notebook. Very rewarding experience.
Unless the core programs that ship with the OS are well developed. A good example is maemo-harmattan, which (for me) is useful out-of-the-box, except for writing, spreadsheets and and a couple of missing services in its aggregator (whatsapp & G+)...
In any case its no-good having thousands of 3rd-party apps wothout means to filter-out the useless ones (like ads, canned documents, novelties & web-portals) from the repository browser. Otherwise one can waste hours downloading and testing crapware, possibly putting the device into a state of disrepair.
It seems that the goal is to have programs that will run the same on the phone, tablet and laptop. This goal makes sense, especially when combined with secure* online storage of data & settings. However most developers (of business/production software) have yet to partake and it is not suitable for most people in countries with monopolized/under-developed telecommunications infrastructure.
I agree MS has the right idea, it will just take time and plenty of risks & mistakes (by all parties) to get the execution right.
*remains to be seen.
It seems to me like they're concealing a mediocre OS that's still less capable than Maemo/Meego-Harmattan or Android (but with the full spammage agenda of the latter). If so, the secrecy makes sense as it may prevent commitments to rival products by people who are prepared to wait-and-see.
I also suspect their app-store will still be flooded with crappy appvertizements at launch, just the major brands at first.
Iast wp7 device I bought had to returned after discovering applications couldn't read/write files directly to its internal storage. Connecting it to a PC to read/write files entailed installing zune and editing the registry. Also, there was no way to edit/run python on the device... What else... oh yes: The IM client didn't support Google-chat. All of these are a non-issue with the n9 which itself was under-developed... Many of the arguments against using wp variants are perfectly valid.
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