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I actually think there's still potentially room for a new phone OS, though maybe only just barely. iOS is in dire need of new UX patterns. Take the text select

I actually think there's still potentially room for a new phone OS, though maybe only just barely. iOS is in dire need of new UX patterns. Take the text selector for example, which felt like a stopgap when it was made and hasn't been changed since its release. There a ton of papercuts like this in iOS. I don't use Android regularly so I can't speak as much to its weaknesses, but I believe there's a lot of room for improvement there as well, e.g. app discovery and distribution There's a photo floating around of Paris Hilton holding 5 phones. It's comical but I think it also shows what's lacking. It'd be great if phones had sandboxed profiles, completely isolated from one another in true multiuser fashion. There are a lot of opportunities either for greenfield ideas or adopting existing computing ideas to phones. You might find at least enough market for a niche use capable of supporting a small to medium business

grzm 10y ago
iOS is in dire need of new UX patterns. Take the text selector for example, which felt like a stopgap when it was made and hasn't been changed since its release. I'm not familiar with touch alternatives to iOS' text selector. Do you know of better ones, or have ideas how it can be improved?
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  I have to admit that I'm not, but I do think that iOS's is deeply flawed, especially considering its snap to behavior which has no overrides or disambiguation for where to snap. I'm not a UX person and my mind doesn't naturally work on that domain, and yet I'm confident that UX people could improve the process. One concrete idea comes to mind - why not a modal dialog that only has selection abilties. If the default behavior works, then use it and if not, move up to the modal
  - grzm 10y ago
    I'd love to hear more about your idea. Care to expand with an example of how it would work? What kind of overrides are you thinking of? What would the role of the modal dialog be?
    - brian-armstrong 10y ago
      A modal is the kludgiest way to accomplish it, but say you only wanted a portion of the text in the selected box. The modal would have dedicated selection inputs so that you could zoom and carve the block up. Frequently websites lock the viewport which makes it much harder to get the text you want. Just in general I think the snap behavior needs to be massively overhauled
thewhitetulip 10y ago
We need a full fledged OS for the mobile, despite the fact that Steve Jobs created iOS so that phone softwares won't be "baby software" we are still not seeing many apps which are mobile centered, they build the webapp first and as an after thought the mobile app comes into place. I want my phone OS and my laptop OS to be in sync, I want to program using my phone and many many more features. But both iOS and Android lock us out of the real stuff by making locking things up. Just imagine how the computing landscape would have been if Linux wasn't open and as locked up as the "FOSS" android. We'd be still using and cursing Windows3.4
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  1. " I want to program using my phone and many many more features." Yes--and yes! I actually don't have an activated smart phone. Partially, it's the monthly data cost--that just irks me. I think there's collusion going on. But a bigger part of me is I don't want to get used to just receiving information. I want to work on that little device. I want to build. 2. I want to see data costs go down. I would like to see more companies combining wifi, with cell signals. Someting along the line of what Republic Wireless is trying to pull off. Actually, I might just sign up for Republic wireless tomorrow. I think any smart phone that radically brings down monthly costs will be huge. Those $50 monthly phone bills are rediculious, at this point in the game.
- icebraining 10y ago
  If you want to program using your phone, here's a C/C++ IDE and compiler, which doesn't even require root: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.n0n3m4.droidc&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.n0n3m4.dro... There are also interpreters for many languages, various tooling and even full-blown ports of GNU/Linux distros: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu... Frankly, people overstate the lockdown-ness of Android itself. Maybe your specific model was particularly locked down, but introducing a new OS won't solve that problem.
  - thewhitetulip 10y ago
randomdata 10y ago
> Take the text selector for example, which felt like a stopgap when it was made and hasn't been changed since its release. It was updated for 3D Touch devices. Granted, not even the newest iPad has 3D Touch.

grzm 10y ago

iOS is in dire need of new UX patterns. Take the text selector for example, which felt like a stopgap when it was made and hasn't been changed since its release. I'm not familiar with touch alternatives to iOS' text selector. Do you know of better ones, or have ideas how it can be improved?

brian-armstrong 10y ago
I have to admit that I'm not, but I do think that iOS's is deeply flawed, especially considering its snap to behavior which has no overrides or disambiguation for where to snap. I'm not a UX person and my mind doesn't naturally work on that domain, and yet I'm confident that UX people could improve the process. One concrete idea comes to mind - why not a modal dialog that only has selection abilties. If the default behavior works, then use it and if not, move up to the modal
- grzm 10y ago
  I'd love to hear more about your idea. Care to expand with an example of how it would work? What kind of overrides are you thinking of? What would the role of the modal dialog be?
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    A modal is the kludgiest way to accomplish it, but say you only wanted a portion of the text in the selected box. The modal would have dedicated selection inputs so that you could zoom and carve the block up. Frequently websites lock the viewport which makes it much harder to get the text you want. Just in general I think the snap behavior needs to be massively overhauled

thewhitetulip 10y ago

We need a full fledged OS for the mobile, despite the fact that Steve Jobs created iOS so that phone softwares won't be "baby software" we are still not seeing many apps which are mobile centered, they build the webapp first and as an after thought the mobile app comes into place. I want my phone OS and my laptop OS to be in sync, I want to program using my phone and many many more features. But both iOS and Android lock us out of the real stuff by making locking things up. Just imagine how the computing landscape would have been if Linux wasn't open and as locked up as the "FOSS" android. We'd be still using and cursing Windows3.4

icantdrive55 10y ago
1. " I want to program using my phone and many many more features." Yes--and yes! I actually don't have an activated smart phone. Partially, it's the monthly data cost--that just irks me. I think there's collusion going on. But a bigger part of me is I don't want to get used to just receiving information. I want to work on that little device. I want to build. 2. I want to see data costs go down. I would like to see more companies combining wifi, with cell signals. Someting along the line of what Republic Wireless is trying to pull off. Actually, I might just sign up for Republic wireless tomorrow. I think any smart phone that radically brings down monthly costs will be huge. Those $50 monthly phone bills are rediculious, at this point in the game.
icebraining 10y ago
If you want to program using your phone, here's a C/C++ IDE and compiler, which doesn't even require root: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.n0n3m4.droidc&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.n0n3m4.dro... There are also interpreters for many languages, various tooling and even full-blown ports of GNU/Linux distros: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cuntubuntu... Frankly, people overstate the lockdown-ness of Android itself. Maybe your specific model was particularly locked down, but introducing a new OS won't solve that problem.
- thewhitetulip 10y ago

randomdata 10y ago

> Take the text selector for example, which felt like a stopgap when it was made and hasn't been changed since its release. It was updated for 3D Touch devices. Granted, not even the newest iPad has 3D Touch.