5 ms·

They had Telefónica on board. I think with better planning and execution it could be made to work.

Certhas 6y ago
Maybe maybe not. But it's also good to keep in mind who else failed in that space from many different angles. MS, Nokia, Blackberry, etc... If MS with infinite cash on hand could not get into that market then it is likely that chances of success were always very low. And it still might have been the right thing to try despite the chance being low.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  You are right that it was a very difficult endeavor. I think the main bottleneck is not the installation by the vendors, but the apps available. I believe, what is missing is an abstraction layer between the apps and the OS. If it was possible to create apps for Android and Apple in a generic way and, it was easy to add a third OS, so all the apps could be made available to the new system, a new OS would be not so limited. I know, I know, that is itself a very difficult endeavor.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    PWA's are what you're thinking of. They are platform agnostic apps. The thing holding them back is apples deliberate crippling of them to make them hard to install, slow, buggy, and not having basic platform features. I believe Apple is deliberately doing that because if they supported PWA's properly, they'd loose all vendor lock in.
    - samoa42 6y ago
      apple literally invented pwa's
      - depressedpanda 6y ago
        So? What's your point? Safari's browser engine is the only one allowed on iOS, which makes PWAs effectively crippled for all iphone users.
        trasz 6y ago
        How so?
        nvrspyx 6y ago
        > ...make them hard to install, slow, buggy, and not having basic platform features
        trasz 6y ago
        Are you saying PWAs cannot work correctly under WebKit?
        londons_explore 6y ago
        PWA's do work, but they are hard to install (not available in the appstore, the user has to go through a non-obvious sequence of steps they won't discover unless they Google it). They are slow (because safari refuses to implement caching of compiled JavaScript or webassembly). They can't store persistent data, so the user experience is terrible (yay - who wants a notekeeping app that deletes all your notes every 30 days?). The data doesn't sync to iCloud. It doesn't integrate with the rest of the OS (no way to share a picture to a PWA for example). The Safari browser engine they must run in is ~3 years behind desktop and Android browsers with supporting web standards. There is no way to do background stuff like playing music, using the GPS for directions, etc.
        samoa42 6y ago
        correct me but those features are denied by apple and mozilla for very good reasons (privacy and security) besides beeing anything but 'basic' (midi anyone?)
- yellowapple 6y ago
  > And it still might have been the right thing to try despite the chance being low. This is exactly my take on it. I think timing was a big part of it, too. They were too late to get a foothold on the current market, but too early to take advantage of the more open platforms coming out nowadays like the PinePhone.
agumonkey 6y ago
It was also a big undertaking in very early days.

Maybe maybe not. But it's also good to keep in mind who else failed in that space from many different angles. MS, Nokia, Blackberry, etc... If MS with infinite cash on hand could not get into that market then it is likely that chances of success were always very low. And it still might have been the right thing to try despite the chance being low.

RobertoG 6y ago
You are right that it was a very difficult endeavor. I think the main bottleneck is not the installation by the vendors, but the apps available. I believe, what is missing is an abstraction layer between the apps and the OS. If it was possible to create apps for Android and Apple in a generic way and, it was easy to add a third OS, so all the apps could be made available to the new system, a new OS would be not so limited. I know, I know, that is itself a very difficult endeavor.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  PWA's are what you're thinking of. They are platform agnostic apps. The thing holding them back is apples deliberate crippling of them to make them hard to install, slow, buggy, and not having basic platform features. I believe Apple is deliberately doing that because if they supported PWA's properly, they'd loose all vendor lock in.
  - samoa42 6y ago
    apple literally invented pwa's
    - depressedpanda 6y ago
      So? What's your point? Safari's browser engine is the only one allowed on iOS, which makes PWAs effectively crippled for all iphone users.
      - trasz 6y ago
        How so?
        nvrspyx 6y ago
        > ...make them hard to install, slow, buggy, and not having basic platform features
        trasz 6y ago
        Are you saying PWAs cannot work correctly under WebKit?
        londons_explore 6y ago
        PWA's do work, but they are hard to install (not available in the appstore, the user has to go through a non-obvious sequence of steps they won't discover unless they Google it). They are slow (because safari refuses to implement caching of compiled JavaScript or webassembly). They can't store persistent data, so the user experience is terrible (yay - who wants a notekeeping app that deletes all your notes every 30 days?). The data doesn't sync to iCloud. It doesn't integrate with the rest of the OS (no way to share a picture to a PWA for example). The Safari browser engine they must run in is ~3 years behind desktop and Android browsers with supporting web standards. There is no way to do background stuff like playing music, using the GPS for directions, etc.
        samoa42 6y ago
        correct me but those features are denied by apple and mozilla for very good reasons (privacy and security) besides beeing anything but 'basic' (midi anyone?)
yellowapple 6y ago
> And it still might have been the right thing to try despite the chance being low. This is exactly my take on it. I think timing was a big part of it, too. They were too late to get a foothold on the current market, but too early to take advantage of the more open platforms coming out nowadays like the PinePhone.

agumonkey 6y ago

It was also a big undertaking in very early days.