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This is probably what Android should have been. I'm not a big fan of the Dalvik virtual machine layer on Android. It does drain device resources, especially RAM

This is probably what Android should have been. I'm not a big fan of the Dalvik virtual machine layer on Android. It does drain device resources, especially RAM. I also think this type of architecture would have allowed convergence with Chrome OS more easily and cleanly. I wonder if there is space left in the market for another open source OS though. Most people seem to think Android is open enough. What gives me hope this could succeed is that the Ubuntu desktop is currently the desktop OS that is most user friendly and has the best user experience (IMO). Bringing Ubuntu's design team's superior skills to the mobile platform might give them the edge they need to become relevant in that space. I love my Ubuntu desktop. I really hope this takes off.

mtgx 14y ago
When Nokia started working on Meego, and Microsoft had plans for WP7, I was hoping Nokia would be smart enough to hurry up and form alliances with other manufacturers to become the defacto alternative to Android for all companies who either didn't want to use Android (RIM, HP, themselves) and companies who wanted a second OS for leverage against Google (Samsung, LG, HTC, etc). I think they could've done it if they didn't slack off so much with Meego, and were serious about it, but in the same time I also knew Nokia was way too arrogant for their own good back then, and even if they made Meego on time, they probably wouldn't have shared it with others. But that would've been a mistake, because as we can see no OS that depends on one company alone can succeed anymore. Heck, even the ones that depend on several companies are having a very hard time already (WP7/8). And the reason I would've preferred Meego to become the Android alternative, was because it was also an open source OS, and I would've liked more competition between open source OS's, rather than have just an open source one fight against multiple proprietary ones (iOS, WP, WebOS - at the time). So I think there may still be time left for Ubuntu to become that alternative to Android, especially if manufacturers stop relying on WP8 and even Windows 8, and start to focus more on Ubuntu phones and Ubuntu laptops instead. But it's very hard to see if it will actually happen, right now, and if it does happen, we won't see it until 2014-2015.
- pekk 14y ago
  iOS is successful, is anyone making iOS devices other than Apple?
  - fosk 14y ago
    Exactly. That's because the large majority of customers just want a good phone, that works well and does everything it needs to do. My mom, for instance, doesn't care if it's Android, Ubuntu, iOS, whatever. She doesn't care about tech-politics either, or who makes it, how they make it and what partners they have. She only cares that it works, that has a good ecosystem of apps, and that she's happy to have bought it. Meego, WP8, WebOS would have been mainstream if they had achieved this somehow.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Users want a phone that works well and does everything they need it to do as well as being heavily and creatively marketed and praised by the technical elite. There have been several platforms come and go that succeed at the first two parts and fail at the second two. Marketing is in control of the company, approval from the would-be first adopters is much harder. Apple didn't need to work hard to impress people like us with the iPhone; we bought it because it was made by Apple in a time when they could do no wrong in our eyes. Windows Phone, for example, has massively impressed the tech press as a truly different experience compared to Android and iOS but failed to make an impact on the technical elite for one reason or another. WebOS was another "should have been bigger than Android" but we snubbed it due to what we deemed to be inferior hardware (exclusive carriers doesn't mean much when so many switched to AT&T just to get the iPhone even on EDGE). I use "we" and "our" metaphorically, but I think the point still remains. The iPhone didn't become the defacto standard for the average customer without the approval of people like you and I. Bear in mind, the iPhone didn't have an app store to rely on until mid-2008.
      - simonh 14y ago
        > Apple didn't need to work hard to impress people like us with the iPhone; > we bought it because it was made by Apple in a time when they could do no wrong in our eyes. Can you really argue that there were no significant technical advantages to the iPhone over phone OSes of the time? The iPhone was first true smartphone, with a workstation grade OS core and top of the line application development framework. By comparison Windows Mobile, Sybmian and Blackberry OS were hopelessly crippled, designed for an older resource-starved generation of hardware, and just couldn't scale. That's aside from the radical touch interface. > WebOS was another "should have been bigger than Android" Another myth. WebOS was a cobbled together compromise. Writing all your apps in javascript, running inside a browser session was never going to work efficiently. It was a desperation move to leverage web technologies when their attempt to develop a true native OS framework failed. The constraints of running everything in a browser rendering engine make the constraints of the Dalvik VM look like the freedom of open blue skies in comparison. Forget efficient memory or power management no matter what hardware you throw at it, just look at the battery life stats despite the modest hardware. And before anyone mentions it, no, it was nothing remotely like Firefox OS, which has a radically different architecture. > The iPhone didn't become the defacto standard for the average customer without the approval of people like you and I. > Bear in mind, the iPhone didn't have an app store to rely on until mid-2008. The iPhone was successful because it was a pleasure to use, in fact the first phone I ever used I didn't absolutely hate, and because developers flocked to it. By mid-2008 when the app store launched Apple had only sold about 5 million phones. Since then they've sold over 200 million.
rogerbinns 14y ago
> I'm not a big fan of the Dalvik virtual machine layer on Android. It provides a processor independent application format. It is obvious now that ARM has won, but not so several years ago. There are many technical benefits to an abstract format including bytecode verification, and the consequent ability to run multiple applications in the same address space because you can't create pointers. JIT/hotspot style execution can also provide better performance than C. In any event providing a CPU neutral application format isn't a bad decision - others have done it too. > It does drain device resources, especially RAM. That claim needs to be substantiated. Is native code significantly denser than bytecode? The mobile vendors have all gone with GC. Mark and sweep style GC has more RAM in play by design than something like reference counting, but there is no requirement that mark/sweep is used - Dalvik could use reference counting. Again there are tradeoffs but calling them a drain seems a large stretch.
- janardanyri 14y ago
  > The mobile vendors have all gone with GC. It's a minor point, but Apple created ARC specifically as a streamlined reference counting alternative to GC, which was never used in iOS and is now deprecated in Mountain Lion.
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    I do count ARC as a form of GC. The test is if the developer has to manually litter their code with calls to release/free memory. You do not need to do so in Android (Java), iOS (ObjC), Windows Phone (C#) etc.
    - delackner 14y ago
      These terms have basic meanings that are independent of what you seem to wish they meant. GC is not reference counting, and it would benefit you to put he difference in your memory.
      - hetman 14y ago
mmanfrin 14y ago
Ubuntu desktop is currently the desktop OS that is most user friendly and has the best user experience (IMO). Bringing Ubuntu's design team's superior skills This is debatable.

mtgx 14y ago

When Nokia started working on Meego, and Microsoft had plans for WP7, I was hoping Nokia would be smart enough to hurry up and form alliances with other manufacturers to become the defacto alternative to Android for all companies who either didn't want to use Android (RIM, HP, themselves) and companies who wanted a second OS for leverage against Google (Samsung, LG, HTC, etc). I think they could've done it if they didn't slack off so much with Meego, and were serious about it, but in the same time I also knew Nokia was way too arrogant for their own good back then, and even if they made Meego on time, they probably wouldn't have shared it with others. But that would've been a mistake, because as we can see no OS that depends on one company alone can succeed anymore. Heck, even the ones that depend on several companies are having a very hard time already (WP7/8). And the reason I would've preferred Meego to become the Android alternative, was because it was also an open source OS, and I would've liked more competition between open source OS's, rather than have just an open source one fight against multiple proprietary ones (iOS, WP, WebOS - at the time). So I think there may still be time left for Ubuntu to become that alternative to Android, especially if manufacturers stop relying on WP8 and even Windows 8, and start to focus more on Ubuntu phones and Ubuntu laptops instead. But it's very hard to see if it will actually happen, right now, and if it does happen, we won't see it until 2014-2015.

pekk 14y ago
iOS is successful, is anyone making iOS devices other than Apple?
- fosk 14y ago
  Exactly. That's because the large majority of customers just want a good phone, that works well and does everything it needs to do. My mom, for instance, doesn't care if it's Android, Ubuntu, iOS, whatever. She doesn't care about tech-politics either, or who makes it, how they make it and what partners they have. She only cares that it works, that has a good ecosystem of apps, and that she's happy to have bought it. Meego, WP8, WebOS would have been mainstream if they had achieved this somehow.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Users want a phone that works well and does everything they need it to do as well as being heavily and creatively marketed and praised by the technical elite. There have been several platforms come and go that succeed at the first two parts and fail at the second two. Marketing is in control of the company, approval from the would-be first adopters is much harder. Apple didn't need to work hard to impress people like us with the iPhone; we bought it because it was made by Apple in a time when they could do no wrong in our eyes. Windows Phone, for example, has massively impressed the tech press as a truly different experience compared to Android and iOS but failed to make an impact on the technical elite for one reason or another. WebOS was another "should have been bigger than Android" but we snubbed it due to what we deemed to be inferior hardware (exclusive carriers doesn't mean much when so many switched to AT&T just to get the iPhone even on EDGE). I use "we" and "our" metaphorically, but I think the point still remains. The iPhone didn't become the defacto standard for the average customer without the approval of people like you and I. Bear in mind, the iPhone didn't have an app store to rely on until mid-2008.
    - simonh 14y ago
      > Apple didn't need to work hard to impress people like us with the iPhone; > we bought it because it was made by Apple in a time when they could do no wrong in our eyes. Can you really argue that there were no significant technical advantages to the iPhone over phone OSes of the time? The iPhone was first true smartphone, with a workstation grade OS core and top of the line application development framework. By comparison Windows Mobile, Sybmian and Blackberry OS were hopelessly crippled, designed for an older resource-starved generation of hardware, and just couldn't scale. That's aside from the radical touch interface. > WebOS was another "should have been bigger than Android" Another myth. WebOS was a cobbled together compromise. Writing all your apps in javascript, running inside a browser session was never going to work efficiently. It was a desperation move to leverage web technologies when their attempt to develop a true native OS framework failed. The constraints of running everything in a browser rendering engine make the constraints of the Dalvik VM look like the freedom of open blue skies in comparison. Forget efficient memory or power management no matter what hardware you throw at it, just look at the battery life stats despite the modest hardware. And before anyone mentions it, no, it was nothing remotely like Firefox OS, which has a radically different architecture. > The iPhone didn't become the defacto standard for the average customer without the approval of people like you and I. > Bear in mind, the iPhone didn't have an app store to rely on until mid-2008. The iPhone was successful because it was a pleasure to use, in fact the first phone I ever used I didn't absolutely hate, and because developers flocked to it. By mid-2008 when the app store launched Apple had only sold about 5 million phones. Since then they've sold over 200 million.

rogerbinns 14y ago

> I'm not a big fan of the Dalvik virtual machine layer on Android. It provides a processor independent application format. It is obvious now that ARM has won, but not so several years ago. There are many technical benefits to an abstract format including bytecode verification, and the consequent ability to run multiple applications in the same address space because you can't create pointers. JIT/hotspot style execution can also provide better performance than C. In any event providing a CPU neutral application format isn't a bad decision - others have done it too. > It does drain device resources, especially RAM. That claim needs to be substantiated. Is native code significantly denser than bytecode? The mobile vendors have all gone with GC. Mark and sweep style GC has more RAM in play by design than something like reference counting, but there is no requirement that mark/sweep is used - Dalvik could use reference counting. Again there are tradeoffs but calling them a drain seems a large stretch.

janardanyri 14y ago
> The mobile vendors have all gone with GC. It's a minor point, but Apple created ARC specifically as a streamlined reference counting alternative to GC, which was never used in iOS and is now deprecated in Mountain Lion.
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  I do count ARC as a form of GC. The test is if the developer has to manually litter their code with calls to release/free memory. You do not need to do so in Android (Java), iOS (ObjC), Windows Phone (C#) etc.
  - delackner 14y ago
    These terms have basic meanings that are independent of what you seem to wish they meant. GC is not reference counting, and it would benefit you to put he difference in your memory.
    - hetman 14y ago

mmanfrin 14y ago

Ubuntu desktop is currently the desktop OS that is most user friendly and has the best user experience (IMO). Bringing Ubuntu's design team's superior skills This is debatable.