13 ms·

Ubuntu Edge price dropped to $695

320 points by davidjgraph 13y ago

simias 13y ago
Mmh, 14 days remaining and only 27% funded, it doesn't bode well. I wonder if they'll be able to build momentum this late in the campaign. Maybe this kind of expensive, high volume devices shows the limits of crowdfunding? Have there been similar projects crowdfunded already (similar price/target)?
- Shivetya 13y ago
  I saw that as well, its not very realistic to expect them suddenly make up the difference. Perhaps having people dedicated to spamming popular tech and related sites might get them a bump. Specs today promised for 2014 don't mean much to me, its a seven hundred dollar bet against what other smart phone makers are doing. Considering the speed at which that segment moves its not a bet I am willing to make.
  - sspiff 13y ago
    I backed this campaign, and I don't really care much about the specs. It will be good enough, and the promise of a more open mobile platform is enough to convince me of paying the premium and making the bet. I also believe in their vision of converging different device classes in the software space, although I'm not sure they'll be the ones succeeding in it.
    - 3825 13y ago
      >promise of a more open mobile platform In light of JBQ's quitting AOSP[1], how open is open enough? Will we be happy if we get "free check" license to use the binary blobs? Will we be happy if we can see the code but not be able to copy it? Do we require them to publish drivers and their source code in a permissive license? Many people will think it is a "shades of gray" issue. I kind of want more convenience than rms promises but on the surface it seems silly to think we can have the freedom and openness from Canonical where a bigger (financially) Google has so miserably failed. Perhaps our interests are more aligned with Canonical than with Google? Thoughts? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6174514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6174514
      - sspiff 13y ago
        I've spent some time thinking about this, and for me (and a lot of other people I've talked with) the line in the sand is "enough for us to be able to build newer or versions of the userland and kernel." This does not require that we're able to modify every bit of code. For instance, the Raspberry Pi has a binary blob of firmware that contains a lot of the code for using with the graphics hardware. While we can't modify or recompile this part, the (minimalistic) interface to this firmware is an open source kernel module. This allows you to build newer or modified kernels, and build other distributions for the RPi and still have access to the graphics acceleration. I consider this "open enough." While Android is fairly open, there is a large part of it still that is closed source. This includes the front-ends of Google's own services (I consider back ends out of scope), binary drivers (graphics), binary firmware (radio) and binary libraries (OpenGL implementations, closely linked to graphics drivers). The goal of Canonical's project is also to make the drivers and OpenGL part open source, but I've not seen anything about the radio bits.
  - lrem 13y ago
    This is why this is not considered "buying a new cool phone" but "supporting a new cool idea". However, I personally find the 700$ too much to put into that idea, even if the phone itself is worth something around this.
    - spyder 13y ago
      If you want to just "support a new cool idea" and don't pay that much then you can pledge the lower ones ($20, $30, $50)
- bad_user 13y ago
  The campaign started on Jul 22, we're on Aug 8 and they have until now 8.5 million raised funds. That's pretty impressive in my opinion and meeting the deadline is hard, but it can still happen.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rorrr2 13y ago
    No, it can't. Most of that money was raised in the first five days when the hype stared. The contribution rate actually slowed down and nothing short of a miracle will change that. http://s.4pda.to/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ubuntu-edge.png http://s.4pda.to/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ubuntu-edge.png
    - Osiris 13y ago
      It looks like that miracle they are expecting is for more corporate sponsors to come in and snatch up large batches. But I agree, it's looking highly unlikely that they'll meet the goal unless the timeframe is extended.
    - Brakenshire 13y ago
      That's very misleading, the contribution rate was always dependent on price, not on early hype. Look how quickly the increase fell off when the price went up, and then took off again when the price was dropped, in the first couple of days: http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total
      - rorrr2 13y ago
        Hey, I would love to be proven wrong on this. I love the concept. I just don't see it happening. They won't even hit the half.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
- coffeeaddicted 13y ago
  Most funded project on Indiegogo seems to be Scanadu Scout with $1,664,176 while Kickstarter has some watch called the Pebble with $10,266,845 and OUYA got around the same amount of pledges which the Ubuntu Edge has so far.
  - simias 13y ago
    Looking at those projects doesn't really seem encouraging for the Edge: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-medical-tricorder http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-me... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-... - They all add significant rewards (i.e., not shirts) at lower tiers (you got an ouya for $100, pebble for $110 and scanadu for $270). - They add much lower targets (the ouya had the highest at $950 000) - Even the pebble, most successful of the three, "only" raised $10 millions. The Edge wants more than three times that for something that's arguably less innovative (yet another smartphone) and wants us to bet no less than $700 on it (the lower tiers are basically charity).
- rtkwe 13y ago
  If they manage (somehow) to hit their 30m goal it will have raised 9.4% of the entire 2012 total pledges on Kickstarter and the entire year pledged amount for Technology projects. So it may blow anything that Kickstarter has had out of the water. All these numbers are for Kickstarter because I couldn't find a convenient list of numbers for Indiegogo. source: http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category ps: There's a lack of a good verb tense for something that could happen but it is unlikely, there's no good pessimistic subjunctive future.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > ps: There's a lack of a good verb tense for something that could happen but it is unlikely, there's no good pessimistic subjunctive future. "Were it to happen ...." ?
    - rtkwe 13y ago
      That's decent, it fits a little awkwardly in to the middle of sentences though. Just something I kept noticing when I was typing that. out.
- nish1500 13y ago
  It's a downward spiral. A lot of people would not invest because they know that the target amount won't be reached. I think the collection rate will slow down further.
- vonskippy 13y ago
  "Maybe this kind of expensive, high volume devices shows the limits of crowdfunding?" Maybe having a billionaire with his hand out holding a tin cup shows that people aren't such big suckers as Shuttleworth anticipated?
pavs 13y ago
Despite what they say about getting lower price deals on components, it looks very preplanned "strategy". Either way the next couple of days will be make or break, if this last price change doesn't get any significant contribution in short time, I don't think they can reach the target anymore.
- eterm 13y ago
  If it is planned it's a very cynical way of meeting a target by effectively lowering mid-campaign. Having thousands donate at $800 and the refunding the difference down to $695 means that the "target" is met but the actual net amount is lowered by that amount that needs to be refunded. It doesn't actually help them meet the lowered target either, it simply lowers the target while getting them no closer to the target by lowering their effective amount raised at the same time. That's why I don't think it was planned. It feels to me less planned and more reacting to not meeting their target but reacting in a not so clever way. The thing is, if they can't keep steady during the fund-raising part I don't trust them to deliver on the hard part of building the hardware. Either way I also don't believe this is in any way really connected to lower component price deals, this is marketing but in my opinion it's not clever marketing.
  - achiang 13y ago
    > Either way I also don't believe this is in any way really connected to lower component price deals You don't have to believe it, but it is true.
  - ErikHuisman 13y ago
    I think you're right. If they'd truly wanted to build the best speced phone possible they would've used the savings to build an even better phone. I can imagine this scenario going on: They got a bit scared to loose the project altogether. Brainstormed ways to inject some buzz into the fundraiser. A pricedrop was one of the possibilities (it also lowers the barrier to pledge). Conveniently it was also somewhat true because early indications from suppliers. They lowered their expectations from "We want to build the best fucking phone possible" to "We want to build the best phone with great hardware" Nothing wrong with that but dropping the price is still marketing ;)
nonchalance 13y ago
Given that they used indiegogo, do they keep the funds in case the target is not hit?
- tylermac1 13y ago
  They chose a fixed campaign so they don't get to keep the funds. All or nothing.
- mythealias 13y ago
  From the webpage: This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by its deadline. Funding duration: July 22, 2013 - August 21, 2013 (11:59pm PT)
- gtmtg 13y ago
  No -- it looks like they set it up as Fixed Funding (as opposed to Flexible Funding) and won't get the money unless they reach the goal.
  - glennsayers 13y ago
    What's the advantage of going with Fixed Funding as opposed to Flexible? Wouldn't receiving the $8 million (or whatever it ends up at) be better than nothing?
    - eterm 13y ago
      Arguably the whole attraction of these things is that there's a model where you pledge an amount and only have to pay up if there's enough money to get it off the ground. No one wants to be the guy who stuck $700 down for something that will never exist because they were the only ones to pledge. If it weren't for the fixed model, they would struggle to get even a fraction of the money they've raised so far.
    - kryptiskt 13y ago
      There are significant fixed costs in building a smart phone, for example in design, certifications and tooling. Building something like 50K of them is already on the low end. It would be a disaster for them if they got into a position were they had costs of $1500 per phone and had to choose between bailing out or eat the losses.
madmaze 13y ago
I keep wondering whether they still have something up their sleeve, but judging by them dropping the price, its not the case. This is the pinnacle of Mark Shuttleworth's "convergence" dream, I wonder whether he will carry the rest of this campaign if it looks like it will not get funded in the end? Also if it does fail, it is going to look mighty bad for Canonical.
- sspiff 13y ago
  > Also if it does fail, it is going to look mighty bad for Canonical. I also thought about this, but I'm not sure that's the case. At the very least, they managed to collect close to $10 million in a a two week period, without much of an advertising budget and only some vague on-paper specs and a few renders. I think that gives them some leverage when negotiating with manufacturers to show that there is at least some demand for high-priced smartphones running their software stack.
  - madmaze 13y ago
    point taken.
- mikegioia 13y ago
  Why is it going to look mighty bad for Canonical if it fails? For one, this was a self-claimed experiment. And two, these phones are priced the same as a decent laptop. If anything it proves people aren't willing to shell out $800 for a phone 9 months from now. However, I think it also shows that people do in fact want an Ubuntu phone.
tehwalrus 13y ago
If I had the money, I'd be ordering one now. A high-spec android phone that can also dock into a full desktop ubuntu machine? I'd love to be able to have a development setup in my pocket whereever I go.
sspiff 13y ago
As much as I like this project (or pipe dream, depending on your point of view), I think $695 is a much more realistic price for this device. I sincerely hope they succeed.
Zigurd 13y ago
The whole thing was ill-advised. Even if they reached $32M it would be the equivalent of a pre-order for a few tens of thousands of phones. That's not enough to launch a viable handset business. They should have gone to an ODM or lower-tier OEM and piggybacked on an the unit volume for some other customer. They could have launched with 20k units pre-sold.. They also could have had a far shorter lead time, so the risk in pledging would be much lower. If they think they can change the world with hardware, they've got that wrong. The interesting thing about an Ubuntu phone is Ubuntu.
- __alexs 13y ago
  > Even if they reached $32M it would be the equivalent of a pre-order for a few tens of thousands of phones. That's not enough to launch a viable handset business. I don't think they are looking to launch a viable handset business. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba4x69 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut... "But we'll stick to the concept-car side of things leaving mainstream production to our partners in the industry who do it very well." - Mark Shuttleworth
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    That doesn't make Edge any more rational. Who makes designs their own "flagship" phone and makes a run of, say 100k units?
    - sbarre 13y ago
      I think the approach they are taking is that of sports cars.. You design a concept device, do a limited run with early adopters and premium buyers, and then the advances and concept-validations that happen trickle down to the mass-market devices and everybody wins..
  - thedrbrian 13y ago
    Concept cars are awful things. Non working dials , pie in the sky features , crappy engines hidden under plastic promises, most of the time they are vapourware. Not the best thing to comparing your product to Or is it?
cleis 13y ago
The Edge is going to be the most successful unsuccessful crowdfunding project ever
- Joeboy 13y ago
  In terms of funds pledged, it will probably be more successful than the most successful successful crowdfunded projects ever.
adam12 13y ago
Sadly, it is still too expensive for me.
- antidaily 13y ago
  If it makes you feel better, I ended up giving away my Pebble watch. They'll be plenty available on the cheap a couple months after/if it comes out.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
jt2190 13y ago
Hey commenters: 1. Backing this project is using your dollars to "vote" for this device to exist. It's not as unimaginative as "buying a phone", it's about helping to establish a new mobile device os as a real alternative. 2. This type of fundraising rarely follows a linear growth curve, so there's nothing to infer about the ultimate success of the project by projecting that way. I have not backed the project, and I'm not sure if I will, but I really appreciate that others are trying to make this happen.
- mcbed00 13y ago
  But are you sure it's a good alternative? It runs a slow and ugly UI, comes with built-in Amazon ads and privacy concerns, and will drain battery rapidly when using as a desktop, so you won't be able to make a call when your car breaks down on the way home. If this is the future, count me out.
  - Shorel 13y ago
    Still much faster than Android/Java apps.
  - zipppy 13y ago
    Typically when being run as a desktop, it would be plugged in. Maybe not always, but I don't see people expecting to regularly use a desktop computer off of battery power. The built-in Amazon ads are enough for me to not use it, however.
  - smithzvk 13y ago
    Shouldn't it be charging when you are using it as a desktop?
  - ihsw 13y ago
    This is what's keeping me from buying into it, I just cannot in good conscience support Canonical's approach to Ubuntu. They're authoritarian and secretive in their feature development, and that runs directly contrary to any notion of hacker ethics or FLOSS philosophy. I used to subscribe to the linux sub-reddit but left because of all the Canonical apologists, "But they're nowhere near as bad as Microsoft/Apple/Google" and "They've got to make money somehow, what's wrong with anonymous search statistics being sent to Amazon?" etc etc.
jlengrand 13y ago
Am I the only one that sees this as some kind of lean startup applied to industry? I mean. With nothing but a few renders, they have reached more than 8 millions in backup. This is a HUGE point in terms of marketing, and more than a lot of free advertisment. All of that for free.
knocte 13y ago
For the mere mortals that don't follow this every day: what was the previous price?
- henrikgs 13y ago
  $830 with a limited $600 early bird option. Later they added several tiers ranging from $625 to $820 with limited slots in each. I think $625 and $675 sold out.
weisser 13y ago
I backed the project at $600. Here are some thoughts: 1. It's getting wishy-washy. I don't know any campaigns that have changed around rewards this much (both pricing and what you get) and for many people that may be a turn off. Why would someone get the phone at $695 when it could go down more? Obviously the said the price won't go down but they had said that previously when they were above $700. 2. $695 immediately withdrawn from your PayPal account prior to tha campaign succeeding is a hard pill to swallow for many even if you are refunded 100% if (when?) the goal is not reached. 3. May 2014 is a pretty long time from now and I bet the wait will end up being longer (I waited almost 1.25 years for my Leap Motion and they had significant VC backing). Too many people may not be able to think this far ahead. Why did I back the project? Well, I liked the idea of making a custom hardware device and thought crowdfunding the creation was interesting. I've never actually used Ubuntu (or Android for that matter) but the scale of the goal and the precedent it could set for people doing very capital-intensive projects with crowdfunding was what motivated me to back it.
- aroman 13y ago
  I agree strongly about #1. I can totally see where they were coming from (and frankly they are truly in uncharted waters with this funding campaign -- nobody has really ever attempted a crowd funding initiative quite like this one), but you're absolutely right. $600-800 is a lot of money for most people, and the constant fluctuation and uncertainty about pricing and the fundraising effort is definitely hurting their cause, I believe. What they should have done, perhaps, was go to Bloomberg et al before going public with this. Starting out with $500k in the pot and strong corporate backing locking the price (or at least making the tiers predictable) would have gone a long way.
  - niemeyer 13y ago
    Please note that the support both from Bloomberg and the industry (in terms of the price drop) are based on hindsight of how supporters and the press have been covering the case. It's also hard to predict what having an initial perk of $500 would have meant to the campaign. The very strong reaction in the first day is also a result of supporters observing that there was a gap of $230 for the next price level. It's not easy to really tell what an entirely different price structure would have meant.
lnanek2 13y ago
They sure are getting a lot of attention by having time sensitive prices and changing prices. To some degree eyeballs equals cash. What they need is a lot of orders, though, to make the funding goal and get any money at all. They really need to drop that price down to be competitive with Google's Nexus 4, Nexus 7, etc.. I know OEMs that dropped device projects at the Edge's price point when those came out and it was smart.
transfire 13y ago
A 64GB model at $595 from the start probably would have gone a long way toward boosting the numbers. And a $32 million funding goal is really pushing the envelop regardless. I would love to have one but $700 upfront? For a phone? That's pushing the envelop too.
asgard1024 13y ago
I like the idea, and the hardware seems good, and I could afford it, but the real turn-off for me is that it's just a one-time thing. If I am going to commit myself to another mobile platform (although I use Xubuntu on the PC), I want it to have some future. If the thing breaks after 3 years, what I am going to do? I will have to change the platform again when I buy a new device. I actually question what the Canonical is doing when it comes to this. I bought Asus EEE with preinstalled Ubuntu 12.04 recently, and it's great. However, you cannot upgrade to 12.10 because the proprietary video driver for X is missing. So what they're thinking? If they want people to switch to Ubuntu (and I would love that, that's why I bought this netbook), then they have to commit to it as a long term goal. It seems that everybody is so impatient nowadays that if success doesn't happen in one year, they kill the project.
ibudiallo 13y ago
At this point I have convinced myself that the goal won't be reached. But I know for certain every phone company is back to the drawing board, because we are looking right at the future.
null_ptr 13y ago
I want to know one thing about this phone that the page did not mention. Can I `gcc-arm -o MyApp main.c` on my PC and run MyApp on any Ubuntu Edge phone, without having to unlock them or enable them for dev or any other nonsense? Or is development restricted to QML and HTML5?
- niemeyer 13y ago
  Behind the interface you have a normal Linux distribution, with packaging, apt-get, and all, so yes you can.
  - null_ptr 13y ago
    Will such a program be a first-class citizen though? In other words, will the user have a harder time using it than using a QML/HTML5 app? I could see that be if only QML/HTML5 integrate well with the phone interface.
    - niemeyer 13y ago
      If you mean first-class as in look like an app like came with the phone, then there's no way around using a toolkit that has a familiar theme and behavior. The story is no different than a Linux desktop.
- justincormack 13y ago
  (side issue it is not clear if it will be ARM, it might be Intel)
- dharma1 13y ago
  you can use C++ for most things in your app and QML for UI only. or you can use C++ for everything. You're not required to use QML and HTML5 for your app, but in most cases (though not all) doing the UI in QML will be a good choice
gregpilling 13y ago
Can anyone explain why there is no open hardware phone at this point? During a recent trip to Shenzhen, it was clear that all the components are readily available. I have had one person suggest that it was the cost of FCC approval that was the holdup and not the technology. Any company that could afford the approval process would not want to open their design. I am not technically versed enough to know if this is correct, however. Does anyone else have a clear perspective on the issue?
- yafujifide 13y ago
  Can you give more information on the FCC approval process? What requires approval exactly? If people designed open-source hardware plans, then made the hardware, then shipped it, at what point is FCC approval necessary?
  - pjc50 13y ago
    I don't believe FCC approval alone is the big bottleneck. You need to test its radio emissions in defined conditions, and that requires some expensive test gear (base station simulator ~= $100k), but realistically you need one of those anyway to debug the device you're developing. A more serious problem is trying to get all the relevant firmware and radio software stack without tripping over IP that is (a) patented and (b) will only be licensed to you under NDA. Qualcomm are particularly bad at this. So you need to choose a suitable SoC with favourable IP licensing. Writing your own "baseband" is a substantial piece of work; some people have embarked on it at http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ Canonical's approach is sound here and their costs are realistic. Getting it done for free by people working in their spare time is very unlikely to happen.
- ajb 13y ago
  The components may be available, but that doesn't mean they are actually open. Low end phone makers just get their software from the SOC OEM, and they just want to ship a phone, not provide a platform for developers, so they don't need liberal licensing conditions.
- skeletonjelly 13y ago
burke 13y ago
The one thing that's bothering me about this is their choice to use sapphire crystal for the screen. Sapphire is definitely more scratch-resistant than the Gorilla Glass used by iPhones and high end Andriod phones, but my understanding is that sapphire is much easier to shatter by applying pressure. That seems to me a more important factor than scratch-resistance. (Disclaimer: I'm no materials engineer and the above info was sourced from google searching, so take that for what it's worth)
- mtgx 13y ago
  I don't know about that. It does seem like a pretty exciting material, but I agree a 2014 release date of a "full sapphire phone" might be a little too early. I'm also not sure if it's the best material we can use in the future for smartphones. I do hope we'll stop using plastic, and aluminum is not perfect either, and has some major flaws. Glass is terrible, too. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512411/your-next-smartphone-screen-may-be-made-of-sapphire/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512411/your-next-smartp...
  - bri3d 13y ago
    Vertu have been using sapphire for phone displays for quite some time now (at least since 2011). Of course those are low volume, luxury handsets and if one shatters they probably just replace it, but I don't think 2014 is "too early" for a more widespread sapphire display by any means.
mtgx 13y ago
The only way I can see this succeeding now is by getting some carriers or OEM's or something to back the project, and put the rest of the money into the project. I maintain that this could've succeeded if it was priced at $600 from the beginning, and work their way from that regarding the specs. That's exactly what Ford did, too. He started with a price in mind, and then forced the engineers to come up with a product that fits that price. Canonical repeated Motorola's Xoom mistake, by starting with the specs, and then selling for whatever price it all added up to.
vishvananda 13y ago
I predict that this will lead to a spike in backers from all of the people who wanted to back it but thought $800 was too expensive, but it will quickly level off. Why? Dan Ariely did some studies[1] showing that people are much more likely to pick something when there is a strictly worse option available. $830 vs. $600 for the exact same thing is just easier for our irrational minds to compare than $695 for a phone next year vs. phones today. I think this was a major motivator for people to "buy" in the early stages of the project, especially since it was a time limited option. I personally backed at the $600 level, and while I have a lot of reasons for why it was a good idea, I suspect that I was influenced my own irrational behavior and I am just good at justifying my decisions. [1] http://realityswipe.wordpress.com/tag/dan-ariely/ http://realityswipe.wordpress.com/tag/dan-ariely/ P.S. If you haven't read any of Dan Ariely's stuff before, he does some fascinating studies showing how irrational humans are.
mariuolo 13y ago
Still a bit steep for a phone that doesn't exist, yet.
sarreph 13y ago
They need to make $20/sec from now on in order to reach their funding goal.
tytso 13y ago
The reason why I'm not jumping at the Ubuntu Edge is that it's vaporware. Things like "Fastest multi-core CPU" doesn't fill me with much (well, any) confidence. That says to me that they haven't done any of the thermal engineering, or the battery life calculations. And they don't know this information now, 9 months before launch? If they reach their funding goal, but then miss their delivery date, or the device has a pathetic battery life, or the device overheats in your hand and shuts down the moment you try to use the "fastest CPU", what then? Or if the CPU /GPU ends up being so slow (to prevent thermal meltdown) that you can't run interesting desktop-class applications, as opposed to using an OS and applications optimized for embedded/mobile hardware, as opposed to laptop class hardware, what then? Call me unconvinced.
- arjie 13y ago
  Half of your questions are answered in the indiegogo fundraiser page.
  - tytso 13y ago
    I see some excuses on the fundraiser page, e.g., "it's a journal", but that's about it. They don't say anything about what CPU (because they want the fastest), they don't say anything about the thermal engineering, and they don't say anything about the battery life (they say they want to use some bleeding edge battery technology, but they don't say anything at all about what this means vis-a-vis battery life.)
helloNSA_ 13y ago
This meta-phone is still too expensive. They marketed and priced it for high-end consumers...and then ask these same customers do something that none of them ever want to do...wait. Wait a long time for delivery. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Drop the price or up the delivery date. Better if they did both. I'd also have more faith if I could have seen a functional prototype not just a couple of Nexus4's running alpha software. I'm not paying 800 bucks for the free software...I'm paying for hardware which is still on the drawing board.
shurcooL 13y ago
Does anyone have any idea about whether we'll be able to write and execute Go (golang.org) code on the Ubuntu Edge? I assume I'll be able to both write and execute Go code under Ubuntu desktop mode. What about Ubuntu mobile OS? Will the device support WebGL? What about OpenGL|ES and regular OpenGL? Does switching between Ubuntu desktop mode and Ubuntu mobile OS involve a reboot with separate systems, or it is one environment with 2 different interfaces? Thank you!
progx 13y ago
And what happen if the goal is not reached? My money gone?
zakarum009 13y ago
I would only fund this on the last day if I knew it was going to make it.. $695 is a very steep price, especially for a college student. I would love to back the device, but to have that much booze money disappear would be a shame.
dscrd 13y ago
Of course, if you want a cool phone in 2013 that's built mostly on open-source software, there's Jolla. Wayland + systemd + pulseaudio + QT... they're working with the Linux community instead of against it.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Not to mention it's beautiful. They are starting with a billion euros of R&D that Nokia essentially threw out.

320 points by davidjgraph 13y ago

Mmh, 14 days remaining and only 27% funded, it doesn't bode well. I wonder if they'll be able to build momentum this late in the campaign. Maybe this kind of expensive, high volume devices shows the limits of crowdfunding? Have there been similar projects crowdfunded already (similar price/target)?

Shivetya 13y ago
I saw that as well, its not very realistic to expect them suddenly make up the difference. Perhaps having people dedicated to spamming popular tech and related sites might get them a bump. Specs today promised for 2014 don't mean much to me, its a seven hundred dollar bet against what other smart phone makers are doing. Considering the speed at which that segment moves its not a bet I am willing to make.
- sspiff 13y ago
  I backed this campaign, and I don't really care much about the specs. It will be good enough, and the promise of a more open mobile platform is enough to convince me of paying the premium and making the bet. I also believe in their vision of converging different device classes in the software space, although I'm not sure they'll be the ones succeeding in it.
  - 3825 13y ago
    >promise of a more open mobile platform In light of JBQ's quitting AOSP[1], how open is open enough? Will we be happy if we get "free check" license to use the binary blobs? Will we be happy if we can see the code but not be able to copy it? Do we require them to publish drivers and their source code in a permissive license? Many people will think it is a "shades of gray" issue. I kind of want more convenience than rms promises but on the surface it seems silly to think we can have the freedom and openness from Canonical where a bigger (financially) Google has so miserably failed. Perhaps our interests are more aligned with Canonical than with Google? Thoughts? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6174514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6174514
    - sspiff 13y ago
      I've spent some time thinking about this, and for me (and a lot of other people I've talked with) the line in the sand is "enough for us to be able to build newer or versions of the userland and kernel." This does not require that we're able to modify every bit of code. For instance, the Raspberry Pi has a binary blob of firmware that contains a lot of the code for using with the graphics hardware. While we can't modify or recompile this part, the (minimalistic) interface to this firmware is an open source kernel module. This allows you to build newer or modified kernels, and build other distributions for the RPi and still have access to the graphics acceleration. I consider this "open enough." While Android is fairly open, there is a large part of it still that is closed source. This includes the front-ends of Google's own services (I consider back ends out of scope), binary drivers (graphics), binary firmware (radio) and binary libraries (OpenGL implementations, closely linked to graphics drivers). The goal of Canonical's project is also to make the drivers and OpenGL part open source, but I've not seen anything about the radio bits.
- lrem 13y ago
  This is why this is not considered "buying a new cool phone" but "supporting a new cool idea". However, I personally find the 700$ too much to put into that idea, even if the phone itself is worth something around this.
  - spyder 13y ago
    If you want to just "support a new cool idea" and don't pay that much then you can pledge the lower ones ($20, $30, $50)
bad_user 13y ago
The campaign started on Jul 22, we're on Aug 8 and they have until now 8.5 million raised funds. That's pretty impressive in my opinion and meeting the deadline is hard, but it can still happen.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rorrr2 13y ago
  No, it can't. Most of that money was raised in the first five days when the hype stared. The contribution rate actually slowed down and nothing short of a miracle will change that. http://s.4pda.to/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ubuntu-edge.png http://s.4pda.to/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/ubuntu-edge.png
  - Osiris 13y ago
    It looks like that miracle they are expecting is for more corporate sponsors to come in and snatch up large batches. But I agree, it's looking highly unlikely that they'll meet the goal unless the timeframe is extended.
  - Brakenshire 13y ago
    That's very misleading, the contribution rate was always dependent on price, not on early hype. Look how quickly the increase fell off when the price went up, and then took off again when the price was dropped, in the first couple of days: http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total http://ubuntu-edge.info/#total
    - rorrr2 13y ago
      Hey, I would love to be proven wrong on this. I love the concept. I just don't see it happening. They won't even hit the half.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
coffeeaddicted 13y ago
Most funded project on Indiegogo seems to be Scanadu Scout with $1,664,176 while Kickstarter has some watch called the Pebble with $10,266,845 and OUYA got around the same amount of pledges which the Ubuntu Edge has so far.
- simias 13y ago
  Looking at those projects doesn't really seem encouraging for the Edge: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-medical-tricorder http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scanadu-scout-the-first-me... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper... http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-video-game-console http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ouya/ouya-a-new-kind-of-... - They all add significant rewards (i.e., not shirts) at lower tiers (you got an ouya for $100, pebble for $110 and scanadu for $270). - They add much lower targets (the ouya had the highest at $950 000) - Even the pebble, most successful of the three, "only" raised $10 millions. The Edge wants more than three times that for something that's arguably less innovative (yet another smartphone) and wants us to bet no less than $700 on it (the lower tiers are basically charity).
rtkwe 13y ago
If they manage (somehow) to hit their 30m goal it will have raised 9.4% of the entire 2012 total pledges on Kickstarter and the entire year pledged amount for Technology projects. So it may blow anything that Kickstarter has had out of the water. All these numbers are for Kickstarter because I couldn't find a convenient list of numbers for Indiegogo. source: http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012#category ps: There's a lack of a good verb tense for something that could happen but it is unlikely, there's no good pessimistic subjunctive future.
- davidw 13y ago
  > ps: There's a lack of a good verb tense for something that could happen but it is unlikely, there's no good pessimistic subjunctive future. "Were it to happen ...." ?
  - rtkwe 13y ago
    That's decent, it fits a little awkwardly in to the middle of sentences though. Just something I kept noticing when I was typing that. out.
nish1500 13y ago
It's a downward spiral. A lot of people would not invest because they know that the target amount won't be reached. I think the collection rate will slow down further.
vonskippy 13y ago
"Maybe this kind of expensive, high volume devices shows the limits of crowdfunding?" Maybe having a billionaire with his hand out holding a tin cup shows that people aren't such big suckers as Shuttleworth anticipated?

pavs 13y ago

Despite what they say about getting lower price deals on components, it looks very preplanned "strategy". Either way the next couple of days will be make or break, if this last price change doesn't get any significant contribution in short time, I don't think they can reach the target anymore.

eterm 13y ago
If it is planned it's a very cynical way of meeting a target by effectively lowering mid-campaign. Having thousands donate at $800 and the refunding the difference down to $695 means that the "target" is met but the actual net amount is lowered by that amount that needs to be refunded. It doesn't actually help them meet the lowered target either, it simply lowers the target while getting them no closer to the target by lowering their effective amount raised at the same time. That's why I don't think it was planned. It feels to me less planned and more reacting to not meeting their target but reacting in a not so clever way. The thing is, if they can't keep steady during the fund-raising part I don't trust them to deliver on the hard part of building the hardware. Either way I also don't believe this is in any way really connected to lower component price deals, this is marketing but in my opinion it's not clever marketing.
- achiang 13y ago
  > Either way I also don't believe this is in any way really connected to lower component price deals You don't have to believe it, but it is true.
- ErikHuisman 13y ago
  I think you're right. If they'd truly wanted to build the best speced phone possible they would've used the savings to build an even better phone. I can imagine this scenario going on: They got a bit scared to loose the project altogether. Brainstormed ways to inject some buzz into the fundraiser. A pricedrop was one of the possibilities (it also lowers the barrier to pledge). Conveniently it was also somewhat true because early indications from suppliers. They lowered their expectations from "We want to build the best fucking phone possible" to "We want to build the best phone with great hardware" Nothing wrong with that but dropping the price is still marketing ;)

nonchalance 13y ago

Given that they used indiegogo, do they keep the funds in case the target is not hit?

tylermac1 13y ago
They chose a fixed campaign so they don't get to keep the funds. All or nothing.
mythealias 13y ago
From the webpage: This campaign will only receive funds if at least $32,000,000 is raised by its deadline. Funding duration: July 22, 2013 - August 21, 2013 (11:59pm PT)
gtmtg 13y ago
No -- it looks like they set it up as Fixed Funding (as opposed to Flexible Funding) and won't get the money unless they reach the goal.
- glennsayers 13y ago
  What's the advantage of going with Fixed Funding as opposed to Flexible? Wouldn't receiving the $8 million (or whatever it ends up at) be better than nothing?
  - eterm 13y ago
    Arguably the whole attraction of these things is that there's a model where you pledge an amount and only have to pay up if there's enough money to get it off the ground. No one wants to be the guy who stuck $700 down for something that will never exist because they were the only ones to pledge. If it weren't for the fixed model, they would struggle to get even a fraction of the money they've raised so far.
  - kryptiskt 13y ago
    There are significant fixed costs in building a smart phone, for example in design, certifications and tooling. Building something like 50K of them is already on the low end. It would be a disaster for them if they got into a position were they had costs of $1500 per phone and had to choose between bailing out or eat the losses.

madmaze 13y ago

I keep wondering whether they still have something up their sleeve, but judging by them dropping the price, its not the case. This is the pinnacle of Mark Shuttleworth's "convergence" dream, I wonder whether he will carry the rest of this campaign if it looks like it will not get funded in the end? Also if it does fail, it is going to look mighty bad for Canonical.

sspiff 13y ago
> Also if it does fail, it is going to look mighty bad for Canonical. I also thought about this, but I'm not sure that's the case. At the very least, they managed to collect close to $10 million in a a two week period, without much of an advertising budget and only some vague on-paper specs and a few renders. I think that gives them some leverage when negotiating with manufacturers to show that there is at least some demand for high-priced smartphones running their software stack.
- madmaze 13y ago
  point taken.
mikegioia 13y ago
Why is it going to look mighty bad for Canonical if it fails? For one, this was a self-claimed experiment. And two, these phones are priced the same as a decent laptop. If anything it proves people aren't willing to shell out $800 for a phone 9 months from now. However, I think it also shows that people do in fact want an Ubuntu phone.

tehwalrus 13y ago

If I had the money, I'd be ordering one now. A high-spec android phone that can also dock into a full desktop ubuntu machine? I'd love to be able to have a development setup in my pocket whereever I go.

sspiff 13y ago

As much as I like this project (or pipe dream, depending on your point of view), I think $695 is a much more realistic price for this device. I sincerely hope they succeed.

Zigurd 13y ago

The whole thing was ill-advised. Even if they reached $32M it would be the equivalent of a pre-order for a few tens of thousands of phones. That's not enough to launch a viable handset business. They should have gone to an ODM or lower-tier OEM and piggybacked on an the unit volume for some other customer. They could have launched with 20k units pre-sold.. They also could have had a far shorter lead time, so the risk in pledging would be much lower. If they think they can change the world with hardware, they've got that wrong. The interesting thing about an Ubuntu phone is Ubuntu.

__alexs 13y ago
> Even if they reached $32M it would be the equivalent of a pre-order for a few tens of thousands of phones. That's not enough to launch a viable handset business. I don't think they are looking to launch a viable handset business. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shuttleworth_founder_of_ubuntu/cba4x69 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j166z/hi_im_mark_shut... "But we'll stick to the concept-car side of things leaving mainstream production to our partners in the industry who do it very well." - Mark Shuttleworth
- Zigurd 13y ago
  That doesn't make Edge any more rational. Who makes designs their own "flagship" phone and makes a run of, say 100k units?
  - sbarre 13y ago
    I think the approach they are taking is that of sports cars.. You design a concept device, do a limited run with early adopters and premium buyers, and then the advances and concept-validations that happen trickle down to the mass-market devices and everybody wins..
- thedrbrian 13y ago
  Concept cars are awful things. Non working dials , pie in the sky features , crappy engines hidden under plastic promises, most of the time they are vapourware. Not the best thing to comparing your product to Or is it?

cleis 13y ago

The Edge is going to be the most successful unsuccessful crowdfunding project ever

Joeboy 13y ago
In terms of funds pledged, it will probably be more successful than the most successful successful crowdfunded projects ever.

adam12 13y ago

Sadly, it is still too expensive for me.

antidaily 13y ago
If it makes you feel better, I ended up giving away my Pebble watch. They'll be plenty available on the cheap a couple months after/if it comes out.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

jt2190 13y ago

Hey commenters: 1. Backing this project is using your dollars to "vote" for this device to exist. It's not as unimaginative as "buying a phone", it's about helping to establish a new mobile device os as a real alternative. 2. This type of fundraising rarely follows a linear growth curve, so there's nothing to infer about the ultimate success of the project by projecting that way. I have not backed the project, and I'm not sure if I will, but I really appreciate that others are trying to make this happen.

mcbed00 13y ago
But are you sure it's a good alternative? It runs a slow and ugly UI, comes with built-in Amazon ads and privacy concerns, and will drain battery rapidly when using as a desktop, so you won't be able to make a call when your car breaks down on the way home. If this is the future, count me out.
- Shorel 13y ago
  Still much faster than Android/Java apps.
- zipppy 13y ago
  Typically when being run as a desktop, it would be plugged in. Maybe not always, but I don't see people expecting to regularly use a desktop computer off of battery power. The built-in Amazon ads are enough for me to not use it, however.
- smithzvk 13y ago
  Shouldn't it be charging when you are using it as a desktop?
- ihsw 13y ago
  This is what's keeping me from buying into it, I just cannot in good conscience support Canonical's approach to Ubuntu. They're authoritarian and secretive in their feature development, and that runs directly contrary to any notion of hacker ethics or FLOSS philosophy. I used to subscribe to the linux sub-reddit but left because of all the Canonical apologists, "But they're nowhere near as bad as Microsoft/Apple/Google" and "They've got to make money somehow, what's wrong with anonymous search statistics being sent to Amazon?" etc etc.

jlengrand 13y ago

Am I the only one that sees this as some kind of lean startup applied to industry? I mean. With nothing but a few renders, they have reached more than 8 millions in backup. This is a HUGE point in terms of marketing, and more than a lot of free advertisment. All of that for free.

knocte 13y ago

For the mere mortals that don't follow this every day: what was the previous price?

henrikgs 13y ago
$830 with a limited $600 early bird option. Later they added several tiers ranging from $625 to $820 with limited slots in each. I think $625 and $675 sold out.

weisser 13y ago

I backed the project at $600. Here are some thoughts: 1. It's getting wishy-washy. I don't know any campaigns that have changed around rewards this much (both pricing and what you get) and for many people that may be a turn off. Why would someone get the phone at $695 when it could go down more? Obviously the said the price won't go down but they had said that previously when they were above $700. 2. $695 immediately withdrawn from your PayPal account prior to tha campaign succeeding is a hard pill to swallow for many even if you are refunded 100% if (when?) the goal is not reached. 3. May 2014 is a pretty long time from now and I bet the wait will end up being longer (I waited almost 1.25 years for my Leap Motion and they had significant VC backing). Too many people may not be able to think this far ahead. Why did I back the project? Well, I liked the idea of making a custom hardware device and thought crowdfunding the creation was interesting. I've never actually used Ubuntu (or Android for that matter) but the scale of the goal and the precedent it could set for people doing very capital-intensive projects with crowdfunding was what motivated me to back it.

aroman 13y ago
I agree strongly about #1. I can totally see where they were coming from (and frankly they are truly in uncharted waters with this funding campaign -- nobody has really ever attempted a crowd funding initiative quite like this one), but you're absolutely right. $600-800 is a lot of money for most people, and the constant fluctuation and uncertainty about pricing and the fundraising effort is definitely hurting their cause, I believe. What they should have done, perhaps, was go to Bloomberg et al before going public with this. Starting out with $500k in the pot and strong corporate backing locking the price (or at least making the tiers predictable) would have gone a long way.
- niemeyer 13y ago
  Please note that the support both from Bloomberg and the industry (in terms of the price drop) are based on hindsight of how supporters and the press have been covering the case. It's also hard to predict what having an initial perk of $500 would have meant to the campaign. The very strong reaction in the first day is also a result of supporters observing that there was a gap of $230 for the next price level. It's not easy to really tell what an entirely different price structure would have meant.

lnanek2 13y ago

They sure are getting a lot of attention by having time sensitive prices and changing prices. To some degree eyeballs equals cash. What they need is a lot of orders, though, to make the funding goal and get any money at all. They really need to drop that price down to be competitive with Google's Nexus 4, Nexus 7, etc.. I know OEMs that dropped device projects at the Edge's price point when those came out and it was smart.

transfire 13y ago

A 64GB model at $595 from the start probably would have gone a long way toward boosting the numbers. And a $32 million funding goal is really pushing the envelop regardless. I would love to have one but $700 upfront? For a phone? That's pushing the envelop too.

asgard1024 13y ago

I like the idea, and the hardware seems good, and I could afford it, but the real turn-off for me is that it's just a one-time thing. If I am going to commit myself to another mobile platform (although I use Xubuntu on the PC), I want it to have some future. If the thing breaks after 3 years, what I am going to do? I will have to change the platform again when I buy a new device. I actually question what the Canonical is doing when it comes to this. I bought Asus EEE with preinstalled Ubuntu 12.04 recently, and it's great. However, you cannot upgrade to 12.10 because the proprietary video driver for X is missing. So what they're thinking? If they want people to switch to Ubuntu (and I would love that, that's why I bought this netbook), then they have to commit to it as a long term goal. It seems that everybody is so impatient nowadays that if success doesn't happen in one year, they kill the project.

ibudiallo 13y ago

At this point I have convinced myself that the goal won't be reached. But I know for certain every phone company is back to the drawing board, because we are looking right at the future.

null_ptr 13y ago

I want to know one thing about this phone that the page did not mention. Can I `gcc-arm -o MyApp main.c` on my PC and run MyApp on any Ubuntu Edge phone, without having to unlock them or enable them for dev or any other nonsense? Or is development restricted to QML and HTML5?

niemeyer 13y ago
Behind the interface you have a normal Linux distribution, with packaging, apt-get, and all, so yes you can.
- null_ptr 13y ago
  Will such a program be a first-class citizen though? In other words, will the user have a harder time using it than using a QML/HTML5 app? I could see that be if only QML/HTML5 integrate well with the phone interface.
  - niemeyer 13y ago
    If you mean first-class as in look like an app like came with the phone, then there's no way around using a toolkit that has a familiar theme and behavior. The story is no different than a Linux desktop.
justincormack 13y ago
(side issue it is not clear if it will be ARM, it might be Intel)
dharma1 13y ago
you can use C++ for most things in your app and QML for UI only. or you can use C++ for everything. You're not required to use QML and HTML5 for your app, but in most cases (though not all) doing the UI in QML will be a good choice

gregpilling 13y ago

Can anyone explain why there is no open hardware phone at this point? During a recent trip to Shenzhen, it was clear that all the components are readily available. I have had one person suggest that it was the cost of FCC approval that was the holdup and not the technology. Any company that could afford the approval process would not want to open their design. I am not technically versed enough to know if this is correct, however. Does anyone else have a clear perspective on the issue?

yafujifide 13y ago
Can you give more information on the FCC approval process? What requires approval exactly? If people designed open-source hardware plans, then made the hardware, then shipped it, at what point is FCC approval necessary?
- pjc50 13y ago
  I don't believe FCC approval alone is the big bottleneck. You need to test its radio emissions in defined conditions, and that requires some expensive test gear (base station simulator ~= $100k), but realistically you need one of those anyway to debug the device you're developing. A more serious problem is trying to get all the relevant firmware and radio software stack without tripping over IP that is (a) patented and (b) will only be licensed to you under NDA. Qualcomm are particularly bad at this. So you need to choose a suitable SoC with favourable IP licensing. Writing your own "baseband" is a substantial piece of work; some people have embarked on it at http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ Canonical's approach is sound here and their costs are realistic. Getting it done for free by people working in their spare time is very unlikely to happen.
ajb 13y ago
The components may be available, but that doesn't mean they are actually open. Low end phone makers just get their software from the SOC OEM, and they just want to ship a phone, not provide a platform for developers, so they don't need liberal licensing conditions.
skeletonjelly 13y ago

burke 13y ago

The one thing that's bothering me about this is their choice to use sapphire crystal for the screen. Sapphire is definitely more scratch-resistant than the Gorilla Glass used by iPhones and high end Andriod phones, but my understanding is that sapphire is much easier to shatter by applying pressure. That seems to me a more important factor than scratch-resistance. (Disclaimer: I'm no materials engineer and the above info was sourced from google searching, so take that for what it's worth)

mtgx 13y ago
I don't know about that. It does seem like a pretty exciting material, but I agree a 2014 release date of a "full sapphire phone" might be a little too early. I'm also not sure if it's the best material we can use in the future for smartphones. I do hope we'll stop using plastic, and aluminum is not perfect either, and has some major flaws. Glass is terrible, too. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512411/your-next-smartphone-screen-may-be-made-of-sapphire/ http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512411/your-next-smartp...
- bri3d 13y ago
  Vertu have been using sapphire for phone displays for quite some time now (at least since 2011). Of course those are low volume, luxury handsets and if one shatters they probably just replace it, but I don't think 2014 is "too early" for a more widespread sapphire display by any means.

mtgx 13y ago

The only way I can see this succeeding now is by getting some carriers or OEM's or something to back the project, and put the rest of the money into the project. I maintain that this could've succeeded if it was priced at $600 from the beginning, and work their way from that regarding the specs. That's exactly what Ford did, too. He started with a price in mind, and then forced the engineers to come up with a product that fits that price. Canonical repeated Motorola's Xoom mistake, by starting with the specs, and then selling for whatever price it all added up to.

vishvananda 13y ago

I predict that this will lead to a spike in backers from all of the people who wanted to back it but thought $800 was too expensive, but it will quickly level off. Why? Dan Ariely did some studies[1] showing that people are much more likely to pick something when there is a strictly worse option available. $830 vs. $600 for the exact same thing is just easier for our irrational minds to compare than $695 for a phone next year vs. phones today. I think this was a major motivator for people to "buy" in the early stages of the project, especially since it was a time limited option. I personally backed at the $600 level, and while I have a lot of reasons for why it was a good idea, I suspect that I was influenced my own irrational behavior and I am just good at justifying my decisions. [1] http://realityswipe.wordpress.com/tag/dan-ariely/ http://realityswipe.wordpress.com/tag/dan-ariely/ P.S. If you haven't read any of Dan Ariely's stuff before, he does some fascinating studies showing how irrational humans are.

mariuolo 13y ago

Still a bit steep for a phone that doesn't exist, yet.

sarreph 13y ago

They need to make $20/sec from now on in order to reach their funding goal.

tytso 13y ago

The reason why I'm not jumping at the Ubuntu Edge is that it's vaporware. Things like "Fastest multi-core CPU" doesn't fill me with much (well, any) confidence. That says to me that they haven't done any of the thermal engineering, or the battery life calculations. And they don't know this information now, 9 months before launch? If they reach their funding goal, but then miss their delivery date, or the device has a pathetic battery life, or the device overheats in your hand and shuts down the moment you try to use the "fastest CPU", what then? Or if the CPU /GPU ends up being so slow (to prevent thermal meltdown) that you can't run interesting desktop-class applications, as opposed to using an OS and applications optimized for embedded/mobile hardware, as opposed to laptop class hardware, what then? Call me unconvinced.

arjie 13y ago
Half of your questions are answered in the indiegogo fundraiser page.
- tytso 13y ago
  I see some excuses on the fundraiser page, e.g., "it's a journal", but that's about it. They don't say anything about what CPU (because they want the fastest), they don't say anything about the thermal engineering, and they don't say anything about the battery life (they say they want to use some bleeding edge battery technology, but they don't say anything at all about what this means vis-a-vis battery life.)

helloNSA_ 13y ago

This meta-phone is still too expensive. They marketed and priced it for high-end consumers...and then ask these same customers do something that none of them ever want to do...wait. Wait a long time for delivery. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Drop the price or up the delivery date. Better if they did both. I'd also have more faith if I could have seen a functional prototype not just a couple of Nexus4's running alpha software. I'm not paying 800 bucks for the free software...I'm paying for hardware which is still on the drawing board.

shurcooL 13y ago

Does anyone have any idea about whether we'll be able to write and execute Go (golang.org) code on the Ubuntu Edge? I assume I'll be able to both write and execute Go code under Ubuntu desktop mode. What about Ubuntu mobile OS? Will the device support WebGL? What about OpenGL|ES and regular OpenGL? Does switching between Ubuntu desktop mode and Ubuntu mobile OS involve a reboot with separate systems, or it is one environment with 2 different interfaces? Thank you!

progx 13y ago

And what happen if the goal is not reached? My money gone?

zakarum009 13y ago

I would only fund this on the last day if I knew it was going to make it.. $695 is a very steep price, especially for a college student. I would love to back the device, but to have that much booze money disappear would be a shame.

dscrd 13y ago

Of course, if you want a cool phone in 2013 that's built mostly on open-source software, there's Jolla. Wayland + systemd + pulseaudio + QT... they're working with the Linux community instead of against it.

sirkneeland 13y ago
Not to mention it's beautiful. They are starting with a billion euros of R&D that Nokia essentially threw out.