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Basically the reason this thing gets $300 million is because Andy Rubin is at the helm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Basically the reason this thing gets $300 million is because Andy Rubin is at the helm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). I agree 100% with everything you have said but I'm willing to see where this goes based solely on his reputation. Surely their is something more to this than just building a high end Android phone with a little privacy tech thrown in.

_pmf_ 9y ago
> His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). Let's not fool ourselves: Android gained momentum because it was what was there when Google needed it; it's not a particularly well engineered or cohesive system. Everything down to the very basics is rushed and haphazardly thrown together, and I cannot see any improvement (Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling).
- pawadu 9y ago
  > Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling Android is open, most good ideas come from the community. The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins.
  - rubber_duck 9y ago
    >The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins. In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? Android is built on top of a JVM - Go is a native language with no JVM access. Not to mention it has nothing to do with Go target domain. Google already has an alternative mobile OS with Fuchsia and the front-end Flutter stack is built on their Dart language which can be viewed as a Java alternative without the JVM. Kotlin is the only practical alternative to Java on Android because of technical reasons (Scala stdlib is too big and the compile time ends up being too painful) - but I don't see how it has anything to do with the legal aspect (the entire platform is still built on top of JVM and tons of Java code).
    - noway421 9y ago
      Hopefully we'll see Kotlin on Fuchsia too, the language is way to nice to break that relationship
      - rubber_duck 9y ago
        IMO compared to Dart it's not (or at least that much of) an improvement like it is over Java.
    - pawadu 9y ago
      > In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? It actually works rather well, specially as a C++ replacement. https://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide https://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide https://github.com/golang/mobile https://github.com/golang/mobile
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
axaxs 9y ago
I won't attack his history, I don't know it well. I will attack his sustainability, however. This phone won't sell. It is not innovative enough nor in touch with the market. I will say I watched his interview at codecon, and he seemed completely self absorbed. It didn't help that he kept bragging about Android popularity, which he had little to do with, on top of its awful design.
- mirsadm 9y ago
  Providing a stock Android experience and timely updates is enough innovation when it comes to Android phones. If they manage that then I'll give them a shot.
  - axaxs 9y ago
    The pixel and nexus phones did this. They, comparatively, did -not- sell well. Nokia is claiming to do this, but the jury is still out. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it's not novel, either.

_pmf_ 9y ago

> His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). Let's not fool ourselves: Android gained momentum because it was what was there when Google needed it; it's not a particularly well engineered or cohesive system. Everything down to the very basics is rushed and haphazardly thrown together, and I cannot see any improvement (Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling).

pawadu 9y ago
> Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling Android is open, most good ideas come from the community. The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins.
- rubber_duck 9y ago
  >The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins. In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? Android is built on top of a JVM - Go is a native language with no JVM access. Not to mention it has nothing to do with Go target domain. Google already has an alternative mobile OS with Fuchsia and the front-end Flutter stack is built on their Dart language which can be viewed as a Java alternative without the JVM. Kotlin is the only practical alternative to Java on Android because of technical reasons (Scala stdlib is too big and the compile time ends up being too painful) - but I don't see how it has anything to do with the legal aspect (the entire platform is still built on top of JVM and tons of Java code).
  - noway421 9y ago
    Hopefully we'll see Kotlin on Fuchsia too, the language is way to nice to break that relationship
    - rubber_duck 9y ago
      IMO compared to Dart it's not (or at least that much of) an improvement like it is over Java.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    > In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? It actually works rather well, specially as a C++ replacement. https://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide https://talks.golang.org/2014/gothamgo-android.slide https://github.com/golang/mobile https://github.com/golang/mobile
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

axaxs 9y ago

I won't attack his history, I don't know it well. I will attack his sustainability, however. This phone won't sell. It is not innovative enough nor in touch with the market. I will say I watched his interview at codecon, and he seemed completely self absorbed. It didn't help that he kept bragging about Android popularity, which he had little to do with, on top of its awful design.

mirsadm 9y ago
Providing a stock Android experience and timely updates is enough innovation when it comes to Android phones. If they manage that then I'll give them a shot.
- axaxs 9y ago
  The pixel and nexus phones did this. They, comparatively, did -not- sell well. Nokia is claiming to do this, but the jury is still out. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it's not novel, either.