6 ms·

Call me crazy, but I think there is room for a third platform. Especially if this platform was bootstrapped in a smart way, for example with an emulation layer

by nextos 5y ago

Call me crazy, but I think there is room for a third platform. Especially if this platform was bootstrapped in a smart way, for example with an emulation layer to be able to run applications from Android. Or perhaps WebAssembly will make it viable to do more things from a (mobile) browser. I really miss the N700-N9 series with Maemo and Meego. It was so elegant and simple.

sircastor 5y ago
I don’t think you’re crazy. I think WebOS really could’ve done it if they’d had a better launch partner than Sprint, and had done better marketing. Their application Model was web technologies based, which is quite popular now, between React-Native and PWAs. I’m doubtful though that someone could pull out off now. Mostly because you need access to the services that people already use and Google/Amazon/Apple already wall their gardens to their own liking.
usrn 5y ago
PostMarketOS is pretty great.
goosedragons 5y ago
There doesn't seem to be. Hell BB10 was basically what you describe and IIRC had a layer to let let devs submit Android apps into the Blackberry World from day one. It wasn't enough and devs couldn't even be bothered to do that. Later they partnered with Amazon and added the Amazon App Store and let users add their own Android apps. Still wasn't enough. It was a great phone OS and hands down was the best at email/messaging. Maybe a true FOSS community effort could carve out more of niche with this though. Even Microsoft couldn't make it work with barrels of cash. Granted they did make some huge mis-steps.
- officeplant 5y ago
  Blackberry's android application sideloading made it one hell of a killer smartphone. I had a Q5 as a work phone for a while and it was great to still have so many apps I was used to from android. The killing blow was everything moving to needing play services just to function.
- ghaff 5y ago
  You can probably make the case for it being a triopoly today had Microsoft done some things differently. But that's different from saying that Microsoft could realistically start down the mobile phone path again today. You can be sure if they thought they had any realistic hope of making it, they would try.
meremortals 5y ago
long live WebOS!
guitarbill 5y ago
Windows Phone was a shame, but completely Microsoft's fault. I liked the Windows Phone UI/UX, and the irony is that if they had've invested more into something like Xamarin, they could've likely had extremely compelling tooling for big enterprises (like banks) to support Apps on different platforms. But even Skype for Windows Phone took ages to actually land. Or emulate Android apps, like you said. That solves the initial issue of having no apps. It seems like Google Fuchsia will likely take this approach. Although it isn't clear if another platform could do this, without a lot of goodwill from Google - and good luck with that.
- kd913 5y ago
  I loved my lumia 520. It was cheap as chips, fast as hell and at the time more user friendly than whatever overheating droid alternatives were available. I think it was one of the fastest selling phones at the time. I distinctly remember Google making it a right pain to use Google's products on the phone, namely Youtube and Google Maps. In addition I remember a bunch of articles talking about how Google prevented Microsoft from developing a native youtube app and doing shady nonsense regarding User Agent filtering. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-phone-and-an-avoidable-mess/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-... https://geekinsider.com/google-blocks-youtube-on-windows-phone/amp/ https://geekinsider.com/google-blocks-youtube-on-windows-pho... How Google got away with that is beyond me. Certainly makes me somewhat glad that Microsoft just chose to yoink chromium for edge. At least now Google can't do any more shady nonsense with the browser to filter them out.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    I never owned a Lumia phone but everyone I knew who did have one loved it. It was on my short list for my next phone at one point, but the platform imploded before that happened.
  - Zardoz84 5y ago
    Microsoft using Chromium for Edge, it's a bad notice. It only helps Google to get a strong hold on the web and his standards...
sylens 5y ago
I have no idea if they will try it again someday, but I would love to see Microsoft give this another go. I think strong messaging about "quality over quantity" of apps would actually be a boon to them. I never go looking in the App Store for new apps anymore - just give me my video streamers, a Reddit client, Spotify, Slack, Discord, and Signal and I'm good to go.
- criddell 5y ago
  Google seems like they have lost a lot of their Android enthusiasm. I could see them making a deal with Microsoft for Android.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads and search? Maybe cloud services? I would be afraid to use anything but open source tools on their cloud service given the kill rate they have for products...
    - fsflover 5y ago
      > Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads and search? Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads? Fixed that for you. More info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094407.
- sorenjan 5y ago
  Exactly. Years ago the number of apps in each app store was portrayed as "more is better" and a moat against new platforms. But realistically, how many apps does the average mobile user actually use, now that the novelty has worn off? I would guess that 75% of all users actually care about maybe 50 different apps combined, like Facebook, Netflix, WhatsApp, Spotify, etc.
  - rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
    It's been said many times that Microsoft could've won the mobile wars by simply taking a billion dollars, and paying the companies with the top 100 apps in the Apple app store to port their apps to Windows Mobile. That's $10 million each. Instead, they spent billions and billions of dollars trying to attract developers to their platform before eventually shuttering it. There was a phone with awesome hardware, an awesome mobile-first operating system, and practically no apps. Bill admitted his biggest mistake was being too preoccupied with the antitrust activity in Europe, and missing the shift to mobile computing cost him ~400 billion.
sorenjan 5y ago
One problem with relying on emulation is that Google has moved a lot of functionality from the open source Android layer to Google Play Services, and they obviously wont publish that on someone else's platform. https://developers.google.com/android/guides/overview https://developers.google.com/android/guides/overview
- nextos 5y ago
  Yes, this is a problem. But frankly, many users only want messaging, maps, banking and a few other things. WebAssembly could solve that.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  You can install those from the Play Store, can't you? If you are going yo emulate Android, it's best to go all in and install the Google services into the emulator too. (Of course, the distributor can't just install it, but he can make the device ready for installing it, requiring only some confirmation.)
fsflover 5y ago
> I think there is room for a third platform And it already exists: GNU/Linux phones running desktop OSes, Librem 5 [0] and Pinephone [1]. [0] https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 [1] https://pine64.org/pinephone https://pine64.org/pinephone
- bitwize 5y ago
  Surely, 2022 will be the year of Linux on the palmtop!
- kaba0 5y ago
  I think there is absolutely no way we should consider it a third platform next to the other two giants. It is way too early to call it that when they struggle with even just being daily drivers for the most enthusiastic.
dosenbrot 5y ago
You should take a look at SailfishOS. I switched from Android to Sailfish OS 8 years or so ago. The original Jolla Phone was really nice and the OS too. Later I switched to an Sony Xperia X with Sailfish OS, but it goes only downhill from there. I think the problem are the devices, the software might be okay. Now I'm with an IPhone and I'm still not happy, it's just something that is not horrible.
Zardoz84 5y ago
Firefox tried it some years ago. Same Microsoft, Samsung, etc...
- Abroszka 5y ago
  I still miss Firefox OS. What happened to it? To me it seems that it was going well, but it was impossible to buy a phone with Firefox OS.
  - schroeding 5y ago
    Got abandoned by Mozilla :/ AFAIK KaiOS (the operating system for some T9-keyboard-only phones like the rebooted Nokia 8110) is Firefox OS with a new coat of paint, but it also seems kinda dead. And no touchscreen in those devices, so not really comparable to "normal" smartphones anymore... :/

by nextos 5y ago

sircastor 5y ago

I don’t think you’re crazy. I think WebOS really could’ve done it if they’d had a better launch partner than Sprint, and had done better marketing. Their application Model was web technologies based, which is quite popular now, between React-Native and PWAs. I’m doubtful though that someone could pull out off now. Mostly because you need access to the services that people already use and Google/Amazon/Apple already wall their gardens to their own liking.

usrn 5y ago

PostMarketOS is pretty great.

goosedragons 5y ago

There doesn't seem to be. Hell BB10 was basically what you describe and IIRC had a layer to let let devs submit Android apps into the Blackberry World from day one. It wasn't enough and devs couldn't even be bothered to do that. Later they partnered with Amazon and added the Amazon App Store and let users add their own Android apps. Still wasn't enough. It was a great phone OS and hands down was the best at email/messaging. Maybe a true FOSS community effort could carve out more of niche with this though. Even Microsoft couldn't make it work with barrels of cash. Granted they did make some huge mis-steps.

officeplant 5y ago
Blackberry's android application sideloading made it one hell of a killer smartphone. I had a Q5 as a work phone for a while and it was great to still have so many apps I was used to from android. The killing blow was everything moving to needing play services just to function.
ghaff 5y ago
You can probably make the case for it being a triopoly today had Microsoft done some things differently. But that's different from saying that Microsoft could realistically start down the mobile phone path again today. You can be sure if they thought they had any realistic hope of making it, they would try.

meremortals 5y ago

long live WebOS!

guitarbill 5y ago

Windows Phone was a shame, but completely Microsoft's fault. I liked the Windows Phone UI/UX, and the irony is that if they had've invested more into something like Xamarin, they could've likely had extremely compelling tooling for big enterprises (like banks) to support Apps on different platforms. But even Skype for Windows Phone took ages to actually land. Or emulate Android apps, like you said. That solves the initial issue of having no apps. It seems like Google Fuchsia will likely take this approach. Although it isn't clear if another platform could do this, without a lot of goodwill from Google - and good luck with that.

kd913 5y ago
I loved my lumia 520. It was cheap as chips, fast as hell and at the time more user friendly than whatever overheating droid alternatives were available. I think it was one of the fastest selling phones at the time. I distinctly remember Google making it a right pain to use Google's products on the phone, namely Youtube and Google Maps. In addition I remember a bunch of articles talking about how Google prevented Microsoft from developing a native youtube app and doing shady nonsense regarding User Agent filtering. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-phone-and-an-avoidable-mess/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-... https://geekinsider.com/google-blocks-youtube-on-windows-phone/amp/ https://geekinsider.com/google-blocks-youtube-on-windows-pho... How Google got away with that is beyond me. Certainly makes me somewhat glad that Microsoft just chose to yoink chromium for edge. At least now Google can't do any more shady nonsense with the browser to filter them out.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  I never owned a Lumia phone but everyone I knew who did have one loved it. It was on my short list for my next phone at one point, but the platform imploded before that happened.
- Zardoz84 5y ago
  Microsoft using Chromium for Edge, it's a bad notice. It only helps Google to get a strong hold on the web and his standards...

sylens 5y ago

I have no idea if they will try it again someday, but I would love to see Microsoft give this another go. I think strong messaging about "quality over quantity" of apps would actually be a boon to them. I never go looking in the App Store for new apps anymore - just give me my video streamers, a Reddit client, Spotify, Slack, Discord, and Signal and I'm good to go.

criddell 5y ago
Google seems like they have lost a lot of their Android enthusiasm. I could see them making a deal with Microsoft for Android.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads and search? Maybe cloud services? I would be afraid to use anything but open source tools on their cloud service given the kill rate they have for products...
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads and search? Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads? Fixed that for you. More info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094407 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094407.
sorenjan 5y ago
Exactly. Years ago the number of apps in each app store was portrayed as "more is better" and a moat against new platforms. But realistically, how many apps does the average mobile user actually use, now that the novelty has worn off? I would guess that 75% of all users actually care about maybe 50 different apps combined, like Facebook, Netflix, WhatsApp, Spotify, etc.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
  It's been said many times that Microsoft could've won the mobile wars by simply taking a billion dollars, and paying the companies with the top 100 apps in the Apple app store to port their apps to Windows Mobile. That's $10 million each. Instead, they spent billions and billions of dollars trying to attract developers to their platform before eventually shuttering it. There was a phone with awesome hardware, an awesome mobile-first operating system, and practically no apps. Bill admitted his biggest mistake was being too preoccupied with the antitrust activity in Europe, and missing the shift to mobile computing cost him ~400 billion.

sorenjan 5y ago

One problem with relying on emulation is that Google has moved a lot of functionality from the open source Android layer to Google Play Services, and they obviously wont publish that on someone else's platform. https://developers.google.com/android/guides/overview https://developers.google.com/android/guides/overview

nextos 5y ago
Yes, this is a problem. But frankly, many users only want messaging, maps, banking and a few other things. WebAssembly could solve that.
marcosdumay 5y ago
You can install those from the Play Store, can't you? If you are going yo emulate Android, it's best to go all in and install the Google services into the emulator too. (Of course, the distributor can't just install it, but he can make the device ready for installing it, requiring only some confirmation.)

fsflover 5y ago

> I think there is room for a third platform And it already exists: GNU/Linux phones running desktop OSes, Librem 5 [0] and Pinephone [1]. [0] https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 [1] https://pine64.org/pinephone https://pine64.org/pinephone

bitwize 5y ago
Surely, 2022 will be the year of Linux on the palmtop!
kaba0 5y ago
I think there is absolutely no way we should consider it a third platform next to the other two giants. It is way too early to call it that when they struggle with even just being daily drivers for the most enthusiastic.

dosenbrot 5y ago

You should take a look at SailfishOS. I switched from Android to Sailfish OS 8 years or so ago. The original Jolla Phone was really nice and the OS too. Later I switched to an Sony Xperia X with Sailfish OS, but it goes only downhill from there. I think the problem are the devices, the software might be okay. Now I'm with an IPhone and I'm still not happy, it's just something that is not horrible.

Zardoz84 5y ago

Firefox tried it some years ago. Same Microsoft, Samsung, etc...

Abroszka 5y ago
I still miss Firefox OS. What happened to it? To me it seems that it was going well, but it was impossible to buy a phone with Firefox OS.
- schroeding 5y ago
  Got abandoned by Mozilla :/ AFAIK KaiOS (the operating system for some T9-keyboard-only phones like the rebooted Nokia 8110) is Firefox OS with a new coat of paint, but it also seems kinda dead. And no touchscreen in those devices, so not really comparable to "normal" smartphones anymore... :/