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12/11/09
12/11/09
I think it bears repeating that the Zune HD is a prime example of what being late and lazy does to good products.
12/11/09
But, you're right... They can't drag things out it only makes the hole they've dug for themselves deeper.
12/11/09
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12/12/09
12/11/09
The only other thing I can think of is that they're pushing back "WM7" but the "Windows Phone" will be their (much earlier to be released) platform.
12/11/09
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12/09/09
12/09/09
I am using Skyfire 1.5 on my Sprint Touch Pro 2 while posting this comment.
It took a little working around just to sign in to Giz but I was able to get on and stay on.
IE Mobile and Opera Mobile do not work with Giz/Gawk like this edition of Skyfire.
For now, I say 'thumbs up'.
12/09/09
12/09/09
This has been my experience using Opera Mobile. Is there a difference between Opera Mobile and Mini?
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
I had the beta on my moto Q back in the day, and it was wonderful.
12/09/09
12/09/09
12/09/09
It's a terrific little browser. Definately worth it if you're running WM or S60.
12/07/09
VMware would really shake things up if it blurred the barriers of hardware. I don't think the carriers will go for it, though. Handset vendors won't care as much, except Apple, whose whole game is "the total user experience" anyway.
12/08/09
(nb Java != JavaScript)
12/08/09
My point is that VMWare would have less work to do as far as supporting basic I/O since it would be piping in a manner similar in all 3 OSes. They are more similar than dissimilar.
12/07/09
There are so many things f**ked the hell up with the wireless industry the ability to load your own OS barely even registers on the radar. How about we start by getting the carriers to discount service for those of us whose devices they aren't subsidizing. Once that happens buying unlocked becomes a much better value proposition, then with the carriers, and their desire for artificial market segmentation, out of the way a multi-boot smartphone might be possible.
People from the FCC / congress, if you're reading this, make it happen.
12/07/09
12/07/09
12/07/09
Even if the only parts installed on the phone were modules to enable the OS with that phone (more likely) I would rather have a proprietary phone too dumb to catch a crossplatform virus that puts my notes and contacts at risk of deletion, exposure, or exploitation. From a security standpoint it's already unfortunate enough that people with smartphones put my info on their contact lists... security really seems to have been the very last consideration in the maturation of smartphones as a common device.
12/07/09
Then we should be demanding more of our Smartphone OS developers.
At the heart of the issue, I agree with your cynicism in regards to past experiences with PC OSes. However, just as we continue to demand more of Microsoft and Apple, so too should we demand more from the folks at Google, Palm, Symbian, RIM, etc...
12/07/09
12/07/09
Money is also a big factor - you said aside from money, but imagine the resources it would take for a developer to port an OS to every handset that had the specs to run it. Presumably the handset makers would do this, but then you'd end up with a single non-proprietary OS that runs on that phone, because it's not worth their resource expenditure to prepare all the other OSes.
They could just make a standard smartphone platform spec list and start making smartphone OSes generic from that point on to run on anything that meets the specs, but that may also keep the makers from moving to a newer CPU architecture, or make new-ish versions, but still support all of the old legacy instructions as it has for PCs in the last 30 years. A new feature like biometric authentication may become the norm, but not be supported in some OSes for a while, leading them to pick a different one, or hack support into it unofficially, possibly with consequences like crashing or incomplete support.
I think overall there are a lot of reasons for and against crossplatform phone OSes, and a lot of factors that would make it doable, or hard to do. Personally though, what I've found is that the OSes we have, single or multiplatform, aren't mature enough to branch out to a far far harder to support model just yet. If you think it's bad having phones "stuck with a broken OS" now, just imagine if the same people who made that OS had to make it for hundreds of phones they would never even see in person. I'd imagine it will at least become an option in time, and it's becoming far more likely with platforms like Android, but I think it will be a while before you can put any phone OS on any phone, if ever.
Finally, hopefully this last reason will fade into obsolescence, but the carriers hate to give the customer any sort of control over their phones. It might allow you to use the phone on another carrier, so despite buying it, they will still lock it down so it cannot be modified or reconfigured. The way around this is to buy a unique phone that DOES allow customization and OS tweaking, for its full, unsubsidized cost. The OpenMoko FreeRunner tried this with a Linux-based phone, but it's not a popular option, or even easy to find... but in theory you can keep running the Linux based OS and write any apps you want for it, or mod the OS as you see fit. Theoretically you could write another OS for it right now, but I'm not aware of anyone who has.
12/07/09
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12/07/09
The iPhone's hardware precludes the loading of other OSes. One of the core means of doing this is via booting from a microSD card which the iPhone famously lacks.
12/07/09