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Canonical adds a $625 and $675 UbuntuEdge reward level
- bdfh42 13y agoThere is a lesson there - you cant sell a lot of kit (available at some future date) at a price that is over 30% more than a ton of other folks got it for. The reward price "spread" is an attempt to reproduce that initial enthusiastic sales surge but I wonder... Might come off but it feels like a marketing "cock-up" to me.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Maxious 13y ago"[Kogan] LivePrice allows you to purchase a product while we are in the process of manufacturing or shipping. The price of the product gradually increases... " http://www.kogan.com/au/liveprice/ http://www.kogan.com/au/liveprice/
- timmillwood 13y agoI am struggling to justify buying a phone now that won't ship for 10 months. By then Apple, Samsung, HTC etc will all have far superior devices
- rplnt 13y agoYou clearly haven't read the specs: Fastest multi-core CPU /s
- cstross 13y agoAnd even if the software sucks, it's got a screen made of synthetic sapphire and a body made of an alloy so hard that when civilization collapses around you, you can use it as a hand-axe! (I ordered one yesterday: I am a sucker for this sort of shiny.)
- corresation 13y agoI'm really surprised they wrote that, as it seems bound for legal issues. They cannot possibly guarantee the fastest multi-core CPU (what, a Haswell? Oh, just "mobile" -- well what if Apple or another non-seller has the current fastest multi-core mobile CPU at the time?)
- jt2190 13y agoThis isn't buying a phone. This is making a donation to support the project [1], and, if all goes well, you'll be rewarded with a very cool phone. [1] I'm pretty sure I've got this right. The text I'm referencing is from their FAQ: > What if you fail to reach the funding target? > > We appreciate every bit of support we receive during the > 30 days, and every backer will be welcomed into the > Ubuntu community. If we don’t reach our target then we > will focus only on commercially available handsets and > there will not be an Ubuntu Edge. (edit: I picked a terrible FAQ item to support the point that I was trying to make, which is that the phone may take longer than predicted to produce, and there's even a possibility that it'll never be produced. I think that Canonical is being very responsible by raising a lot of money as a hedge against the risks, but still, there are some risks.)
- zerovox 13y agoNo, if the campaign doesn't succeed, Indiegogo won't take your money. The campaign is only funded if they raise the full $32m, so there is no worry of not paying and not receiving the phone.
- jt2190 13y agoYes you are correct. I screwed up by pasting the wrong FAQ item. What I was trying to get at is that there's no guarantee of a phone even if the project is funded.
- swalsh 13y agoYou get all the risk of an investment, and all the rewards of a consumer!
- rlpb 13y ago> What I was trying to get at is that there's no guarantee of a phone even if the project is funded. Guarantee from whom? Normally I'd agree, because the fundraiser is typically a startup, perhaps a limited company, with no existing business with which to back refunds. So they could burn through the money and end up with nothing to issue refunds with. So from your perspective, there's no guarantee, since suing them would certainly do you no good anyway. But what about an established company? If they want to guarantee it, why can't they? But, of course, are they? I'm not sure whether they're saying they are, or whether the law would say that they are. But I don't think it's as clear cut as the new startup case.
- bryanlarsen 13y agoI doubt that anybody else will have more than 4GB of RAM or 128GB of flash in 10 months. There may be some phones that match it, but I would be willing to give great odds that there won't be a mainstream phone with more.
- rythie 13y agoIt's a 32bit chip anyway, can they even support more than 4GB of RAM? (or even all of that - PCs couldn't, it was 3.5 - 3.7GB visible to apps)
- vidarh 13y agoPC's can/could via PAE. Each application could only address 4GB (of which some would need to be set aside for mapping in other stuff than application data). Don't know if 32bit ARMs support hacks like that, though.
- m_ram 13y agoIt looks like the latest 32-bit ARM chips have this capability [1]: 40-bit Large Physical Address Extensions (LPAE) addressing up to 1 TB of RAM. As per the x86 Physical Address Extension, still only 32-bit address space is available per process. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A15_MPCore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cortex-A15_MPCore
- socceroos 13y agoI'm pretty sure they're putting an Intel chip in this one.
- lettergram 13y agoI doubt it would be superior.. . Seems to me the specs for the processor are not set yet and Apple, Samsung, HTC etc don't currently have a phone up to par. Meaning AT BEST they would be equivalent.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eterm 13y agoThey've missed their target, I don't think a single kickstarter has been successful having only reached 20% on day 1. (Most successful drives have well over 50% done day 1.) Here they haven't even reached that after a few days. Unless shuttleworth decides to stick the money in himself this won't be happening.
- kevcampb 13y agoVery curious to whether that's allowed or not. Run a Kickstarter campaign, buy your own product to fill in demand. You'd think that if they get within 90% of total and the option is there they'd take it - the 10% of the items they buy themselves they'll get to sell on anyway. Can someone read the Kickstarter T&Cs for me? :)
- kstop 13y agoIt's Indiegogo, so a bit more Wild West in that regard. I'm pretty sure it's allowed.
- LordIllidan 13y agoYou can contribute money without having to get a perk/product.
- lettergram 13y agoI am sure it is, everyone still gets the cut of the donations so you'll still be paying them for their services.
- weisser 13y agoI know bands that have "kicked" in the remainder to reach goal at the 11th hour. Probably waaaay more common than you'd imagine.
- mehwoot 13y ago
- thomasjames 13y agoShuttleworth's interview about how they are going to keep the long term future of Ubuntu's phone OS from fragmenting while still allowing complete manufacturer customization was a really disappointing string of non-answers. I am really confused about how this is going to shape up. Maybe this will set a precendent for a Nexus-style standard device with the blessing of Canonical itself.
- socceroos 13y agoThe general message is this: you don't put a new UI over the top, you add your own services (videos displayed, music store, books, mags, etc, etc). There is a small amount of leg room for making minor UI tweaks such as the welcome screen layout, general colour scheme, etc - but that's it.
- boothead 13y agoDone. £419 for a phone that good, that I only need a screen and a keyboard for to turn into a mobile workstation. Fingers crossed that enough people find this as compelling as I do and sign up!
- dan1234 13y agoSlightly OT, but do you know where you stand from an import duty/VAT standpoint? A quick google suggests you could be liable for around £90 in duty & VAT[1] [1]http://www.dutycalculator.com/popular-import-items/import-duty-and-taxes-for-smartphone/ http://www.dutycalculator.com/popular-import-items/import-du...
- RobAley 13y agoIts says free shipping in the US and UK, so I'm guessing, as Canonical is based in London, they'll do the importing and deal with duty, so the price you see is the price you pay! I'm guessing.
- boothead 13y agoGood question. No idea! If I get charged the VAT and duty, I think I might be able to make up the £90 by charging the other geeks in my office a "fondle fee". We're all forced to use windows, I might even be able to make a profit :-)
- dan1234 13y agoAt current levels they need more than 30,000 people to commit to buy an $830 dollar phone which is not expected to released for at least 10 months and with next to no marketing clout. I'm not saying it can't be done but I'd be very surprised if they meet the target.
- josh2600 13y agoTo me, this isn't so much the problem as the realities of producing a phone with a Bill of Materials like the one they're intending. I can't imagine that spec sheet, at the end of 2013/beginning of 2014, is going to be cheap. They'd be hard pressed to manufacture this phone at all, let alone with sapphire screens and such. Think of it this way, Samsung won't even broker a discussion about RAM unless you order >100k units. If they sold 32M of phones at $600, that's about 53k handsets, which is about half of an initial production run for any serious manufacturer. I'm bearish, but I'd be thrilled if we had another competitor against iOS and Android. Blackberry and WP8 are not real contenders, Canonical could easily get the 3rd slot.
- stusmall 13y agoOR some last minute corporate padding. Either by lots of in house $20 donations or if its a lot left then Shuttleworth saying "Oh we were so close... you know what, I'll write a check for the balance!" They've got a lot to gain from meeting their goal. It will show the big phone manufacturers that there is demand for this new phone OS.
- izietto 13y agoDoes anyone really think the $32 will be reached? The trend seems to me to be against this (and I'm not jealous, I actually gave $630 on the day one)
- aroman 13y agoWhy do they have the same exact item/reward point at $625, $675, $725 and $830? It seems to me they're realizing there's no way they can reach they goal selling at the $830 price point, but why have all other levels simultaneously? Are people really going to pick 725 over 675 for the same thing?
- chipaca 13y agoPeople were picking the 830 instead of the 600, so yes.
- fpgeek 13y agoThe idea is to create the same sense of urgency for people on the fence that they had with the initial $600 tier. Their biggest danger right now is losing momentum and people concluding it's just not going to happen.
- zxcdw 13y agoI've donated useless $20 for nothing(except goodwill funding of the project), so additional $50 for the device would be something I'd choose any day without hesitation.
- aroman 13y agoBut nobody is suggesting that. It'd be an additional $605. You didn't feel that the 625/830 price of the phone was worth it to you. The people who did already chose to donate for the "goodwill funding of the project" -- with $625+.
- mehwoot 13y agoI think he means since he donated $20 just for nothing, if he was buying a device, adding another $50 on top isn't a huge deal.
- rallison 13y agoOne of the important points here is that each price level (aside from the last one) has an allotment of 1250 units. So, while most people won't buy at $625 vs $675, so long as $625 is available, it provides incentive for people to buy now vs later and risk the lower level selling out. Edit: Although, the $625 level is now "1296 out of 1250 claimed" - so I'm not sure what that is about.
- hamax 13y agoFounding rate: http://ownu.net/rate.txt http://ownu.net/rate.txt
- seferphier 13y agoif all the price tiers are sold out, it would generator 2.5 million only. That is pretty far away from the 32 million they need
- reitzensteinm 13y agoYou're off by an order of magnitude. All tiers combined (including the already sold out $600 tier) is around $25m.
- seferphier 13y agooh. i meant by all the discounted price tiers and not including existing raised.
- yuumei 13y agoUp to date graph: http://vertior.com:9000/ http://vertior.com:9000/
- crayola 13y agoGreat visualization, thanks!
- yuumei 13y agoNot mine
- toyg 13y agoThat's a wonderful visualization, the second graph shows very clearly that the new strategy is working wonders. I still think Shuttleworth will eventually top-up with his own money, but this should reduce his exposure somewhat ;)
- japhyr 13y agoCan he do that? I thought kickstarter tries to block people from doing that. How does indiegogo deal with that issue?
- toyg 13y agoI don't think indiegogo is as strict as kickstarter... regardless: I expect something that brings 32m through IG would get preferential terms anyway. Mind, it's all speculation at this point.
- jlebrech 13y agowhy not make founder $100 and give a discount on batch 2. the phone seems too high and the founder too low. I'd like it to happen but I would rather wait for a second batch.
- Tomdarkness 13y agoThere won't be a batch 2: "The Ubuntu Edge is an exclusive production run, available only through Indiegogo."
- MisterBastahrd 13y agoYeah, it'll be the Ubuntu Edge 2, and they'll have worked a lot of the bugs out of the second one that they didn't anticipate in the first.
- hysan 13y agoSo long as a Paypal account is required to make a > $500 contribution, I won't be contributing at any of those tiers. I know I'm in the minority though so I doubt this will have a big impact on the overall funding.
- GoNB 13y agoI'm wih you on that. While we're probably in the minority, at least in the U.S. PayPal is not a monopoly with Stripe and other services around, so I make it an effort not to use PayPal and it's easy to do so. I havent't logged into PayPal in years and probably don't even remember my password.
- whiskers 13y agoWell that decides it - I'm in. I'm excited about the possibility of a genuinely hand held, pocket sized device that I can hook up to behave like a full desktop. It's a format that has been tried before but the power/price ratio has never been favourable - this feels like the first real chance for it to work.
- bobsy 13y agoJust wondering what scenarios you foresee you using the desktop feature in? If your travelling there won't be a screen available unless you lug one around. In which case you might as well carry a laptop. At home and work you probably have a computer. I think it is an interesting concept but I don't quite see the practical use. Unless it had like a stand and a projector or something.
- whiskers 13y agoI'd rather not need a computer at home and work (and all the syncing issues that entails). Currently I work from two fixed locations and also from home. If I can just have a fixed screen, keyboard and mouse there and take this around with all my current working stack ready to go that'd be ace!
- pionar 13y agoHmm, why not look into laptop docks? That's how we do it at my company. Each workstation is just a dock, screens, and mouse and keyboard. You can move around anywhere really easily.
- socceroos 13y agoYou would not believe how many of my managers complain to us about how heavy and uncouth their laptop is to carry around. We actually had one guy apply for workplace compensation after his back caused him problems - he blamed it on carrying around a laptop + case. I think you'd be surprised at the uptake of this kind of device in the corporate world if it was marketed correctly.
- deepGem 13y agoMan, what a bummer. Can't make a purchase without a paypal account. Guys - please enable credit card payments and you'll have a horde of buyers from India :)
- forgottenpaswrd 13y agoAt this prices they will need to add financing options to their phones. We are in the era of Ben Bernanke free money for everyone. Getting credit should not be that hard. Financing is a top priority thing for selling phones and cars in the real world. Probably not in Mark Shutterworth's land thought.
- toyg 13y agoThey are currently cheap, at least from Europe - an iPhone is £529, the Edge is less than £450. If they really make it and get some carrier interest, prices will go further down.
- freehunter 13y agoEven in the US, financing for phones is becoming more unfashionable with time. Prepaid plans and bring-your-own-phone is now on most if not all major carriers. Google is selling their Nexus phones directly rather than carrier subsidy. People are starting to wise up to the fact that financing is unsustainable.
- netcan 13y agoI don't quite get what's going on here. Is this an idea for a major commercial product or is it a quirky fun thing for the ubuntu community? The scale they're aiming for seems to imply the former. Usable as a desktop is a cool idea, but more of a "linux on your wristwatch" idea than one with real use. I mean, if you have a keyboard & monitor handy, how hard is it to have a PC too? Cheap micro desktops are coming out all over the place. Cheap. Am I missing the point entirely? Is this all about Ubuntu mobile itself with android & ubuntu desktop as extras? I hope this doesn't sound like hating. I actually want this to succeed. It's cool. Crowd funding a major player in the OS/mobile space is even cooler. Lots of potential spinoffs down the road (like the iOS laptop I've wanted to get my dad for years). That said... Can anyone explain this to me? What are they trying to do here?
- btian 13y agoIt's somewhere in between, I'd say more towards the latter. At around ~60k units it's hardly a "major" commercial product considering even Microsoft sells millions of their Surface RT tablets in a quarter. I think it's a very cool idea (dual boot and everything). Hardware specs look top notch.
- lettergram 13y agoI think the idea is that it is both a PC and a phone. This allows you to plug in your phone as your PC (like those cheap micro desktops), and have a working cell phone. One thing I find really interesting is that for a galaxy 4S or iPhone5 the cost is somewhere between $650-$800 for a uncontracted phone. That being said, this Ubuntu phone would be both a Cheap micro desktop as well as a presumably good phone running either android or Ubuntu mobile and both for roughly the same price as the other "nice" phones out there. Beyond this specific phone, I am guessing their real purpose is to break into the mobile OS industry using this Ubuntu phone because it would make headlines and in turn give a nice PR campaign. Not to mention it would prove that there is a sizable market for higher end phones which can support the Ubuntu desktop/cell phone idea and push the technology forward quicker.
- rufugee 13y agoI mean, if you have a keyboard & monitor handy, how hard is it to have a PC too? If your phone supports use as a full computer, then the need for a PC is obviated. In my case, I have roughly 3500 employees, of which approximately 2000 have computers. Almost all of them carry smart phones. I envision a future state where those smart phones are also their PCs...they become more mobile and can easily access their data at any of our locations and I've just cut 2000 computers out of my budget. Sure, an Ubuntu desktop won't work for all, but it would work for many of our staff...70% of what we do is web-based already.
- dysoco 13y agoThat's quite cheap, given that you can easily pay $1,500 for a Galaxy S4 here.
- sspiff 13y agoSelling out all the "limited" tiers still lands them $7 million short. I hope they make it (I backed the $600 tier), but I'm still doubtful.
- lightbritefight 13y agoI'd hope shuttleworth would step in and lay that 7 million down as a contingency action.
- reactor 13y agoNope, I don't think that will ever happen, there is no incentive for him doing that. Mass production of 40-45K phones really need capital, and if he put 7 million, how he is going to avoid a loss, let alone profit.
- ximeng 13y ago625 is sold out already. Any idea what the likely BOM cost to Ubuntu would be for this? http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/Samsung-Galaxy-S4-Carries-236-Bill-of-Materials-IHS-iSuppli-Virtual-Teardown-Reveals.aspx http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/News/Pages/Samsung-Galaxy-S... Suggests 400$ is achievable, which should leave them plenty of room for profit at 600 USD. Given the dropoff when the price goes up to 675 from 625 here: http://vertior.com:9000/ http://vertior.com:9000/ and the lack of marketing / distribution costs you'd think they'd do better just to leave the price low.
- achiang 13y agoWe will not profit at all on this campaign.
- option_greek 13y agoWith such low handset numbers (<50000), I would be surprised if they don't lose money.
- achiang 13y agoThe cost of my team's engineering time over the next multiple months is not covered by the $32M. I do not think you will be surprised.
- avar 13y agoIs there any information on whether the drivers on the phone will be open source as well? I'm on the fence, but the main thing stopping me is that I'm not very keen on buying yet another phone powered by a bunch of proprietary binary blobs. I'd like to hack on the software, build my own, try to install Debian on it instead etc. All that is going to be much harder if I have to use whatever kernel version their binary blobs target.
- achiang 13y agoWe plan on an unlocked phone, with an unlocked bootloader. Unfortunately, for the planned volume, we won't have much influence with the SoC vendor, and therefore, it is highly doubtful you will see open graphics / radio firmware. Sorry, it's not our preference either.
- ansible 13y agoJust for everyone's edification... You're unlikely to see an open-source firmware for the 3G/4G cellular radio, the WiFi, or the low level Bluetooth stack (up to the HCI layer). Ever. The reason? This stuff costs a lot to develop, and the major chip vendors don't want to give any help to their competition. As for graphics... I had heard an announcement by one SoC vendor who was just putting in more general-purpose processor cores, and they had planned to do all the video decoding (such as for H.264) and OpenGL graphics in software (using Mesa?). This was allegedly going to be possible with a power budget not too much larger than the typical hardware implementations of these blocks. What ever happened to them?
- superuser2 13y agoIsn't control of the radio necessary for the security and integrity of the cellular network/spectrum?
- reactor 13y agoI'd say its a good move (even if it is a fluke). Think this way, people saw 600$ and 830$ initially. So in our subconscious mind, 830$ IS THE price, rest will be played by psychology, anything less than 830 would be at a discount and most probably I'll be TEMPTED to buy it.
- hugh4life 13y agoI can't comment on their thing so I'll say something here hoping someone there reads it... They really ought to make their $20 founder level a lottery. And then after that was publicized, make two more tiers. $20 - 1 ticket $50 - 3 tickets $100 - 8 tickets And then throw in some of the $10,000 one of a kind prizes in the drawing.
- lifeformed 13y agoThat sounds possibly illegal, or at least against the TOS.
- calebegg 13y agoThis is most definitely illegal in the US. Lotteries have all kinds of rules associated with them, and online lotteries are specifically outlawed. That's why sweepstakes rules normally all begin with "NO PURCHASE NECESSARY" -- it's to legally distinguish the sweepstakes from a lottery.
- ANH 13y agoI'm all for an Ubuntu phone, almost to the point of shelling out, but I'm not sure I'd get a commensurate benefit from this phone. I would probably go for it if it weren't for remote desktop apps like iTeleport. Pull out whatever mobile device you've got (this morning it was my iPad), launch the app, and there's your home desktop (assuming you've got a cell or WiFi signal). It's laggy, but such things improve over time. Maybe I'm missing the point.
- PhasmaFelis 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Network_Computing It may take a bit more configuration than iTeleport (or not, I dunno), but it's worked fine on every major OS for years.
- tommi 13y ago"The last few days have been absolutely incredible -- over $3.5 million in the first 40 hours." This seems quite low. With thirty days they must achieve over a million dollars per day. I would assume that the first 40 hours brings way more money than the days 3-27 but that's only double than the required average income. I hope they reach the target, but I doubt it.
- reidmain 13y agoThey can still keep all the money they've raised if they don't hit their target. They just need to give IndieGoGo a large slice of what they have raised.
- ethanhunt_ 13y agoNo they cannot. It's a fixed funding campaign: "This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by Wed 21 Aug 11:59PM PT."
- reidmain 13y agoOh I did not realize there were two different types of campaigns. Thanks for pointing that out.
- grey-area 13y agoThey've now hit 5.2 million which is pretty good for 3 days, here's a graph which indicates they might be on track: http://doridian.de/edgegraph/ http://doridian.de/edgegraph/ I think with their new tiered offers they might just get there...
- math0ne 13y agoCrowd funding generally receives the bulk of it's funding in the last few days. Many projects succeed when they at < 50% funded a couple days prior to the end.
- mehwoot 13y ago
- venomsnake 13y agoFrom the funding graph slopes it is obvious that the market prices that device at 650$. So expect 626 and 666 (Devil badass edition) tiers soon.
- bhz 13y agoTheir goal of $32M seems impossible, unless I'm not understanding how indiegogo works. If all the pledge levels 'fill up' (Only $830 and $20 do not have caps) They hit about 11 or 12 million. That leaves about 20 million to be supplied by the $830, $20 levels - or just random goodwill givings. Is that correct? *edit, an illustration of what I was seeing: http://pastebin.com/8GfXRzbY http://pastebin.com/8GfXRzbY
- wmf 13y agoYou didn't count the $600 level and there is no cap at the $830 level. I have a feeling they'll keep finessing the levels throughout the campaign to keep the money coming in.
- stock_toaster 13y agothis graph is great http://movebits.net/2013/07/23/ubuntu-edge-funding-level/ http://movebits.net/2013/07/23/ubuntu-edge-funding-level/ you can really see how the new "deals" really helped it take off again.
- Jefff8 13y agoI'd like to see another reward level: I would pay $50 for an option to buy the phone at $650 at launch or soon afterwards. Say 2 months after launch to give the people who have paid outright up front an advantage. You'd get an indication of volume and free money. Not many companies get the chance to charge potential customers. Also, if this suggestion brings you more than $1m, I'd like a free phone please. Reader: if you'd like this option too, why not chime in here.