VisorCentral.com - Screenshots of Symbian OS for Quartz

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VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
- Off Topic (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/forumdisplay.php?forumid=6)
-- Screenshots of Symbian OS for Quartz (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/showthread.php?threadid=9356)

Posted by Gameboy70 on 11-11-2000 05:32 PM:

Well, it's starting to look like the Quartz may not be vaporware after all. Check out these terrific screenshots of Symbian's OS for the Quartz. Very impressive. Not only does the resolution approach PPC territory (240 x 320), but it looks like the interface is actually usable. If the Quartz does indeed support wireless voice and data out of the box like Symbian claims (not a foregone conclusion, as Sony has demonstrated), and the price is reasonable, Palm and Handspring may actally have a real competitor for the first time.

Posted by D ev R ay 4Real on 11-11-2000 08:45 PM:

Spiffy

Is it a smart phone, or an actual PDA? The article was sorta unclear.

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Posted by D ev R ay 4Real on 11-11-2000 08:46 PM:

ooops nm, i reread the article, just ignore me.

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Posted by foo fighter on 11-12-2000 04:35 AM:

lookin good!

It's nice to see that Symbian understands how small portable interfaces should be designed. Unlike the rather clueless Linux developers who seem resolved to either copy old WinCE or forklift KDE and Gnome onto a handheld....a recipe for failure. But then again, what do you expect from an open source project where everyone is working volunteer w/o making any money.

I've never quite understood this part of the open source movement. I mean, I would NEVER build a web site for client at no cost. How would I survive? Screw that! What's wrong with being compensated for your skills?

Anyway, Quartz looks promising. Now, if they can push it into a good form factor such as a Sony Clie, they've got my vote.

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Posted by Gameboy70 on 11-12-2000 09:34 AM:

Re: lookin good!

quote:
Originally posted by foo fighter
It's nice to see that Symbian understands how small portable interfaces should be designed. Unlike the rather clueless Linux developers who seem resolved to either copy old WinCE or forklift KDE and Gnome onto a handheld....a recipe for failure.

Actually, Henzai is doing some excellent Gnome-based GUI work for StrongARM PDAs. Check out the screenshots on their site (I posted them in another thread, but they slowed down the thread, so I removed them). The Yopy had a pretty terrible UI which, like CE, was modeled too closely after a desktop interface. But the interfaces for the Henzai User Environment and the Agenda look much more focused for handheld use. When HUE is released, I'll get an iPaq.

quote:
But then again, what do you expect from an open source project where everyone is working volunteer w/o making any money.

In the case of handhelds, at least, Linux developers aren't volunteers. They're all getting paychecks from their respective companies. Linus Torvalds, for instance, is paid by Transmeta to develop Mobile Linux.

quote:
I've never quite understood this part of the open source movement. I mean, I would NEVER build a web site for client at no cost. How would I survive? Screw that! What's wrong with being compensated for your skills?

Free software/OSS is about freedom, not price. In the immortal words of Richard Stallman regarding free software, "Think of 'free speech,' not 'free beer.'" You can charge for free software. For instance, I just paid $129 for Linux Mandrake Professional 7.1, which is about $40 more than I would have paid for WinME. I could've downloaded the ISO images for free, but I like the convenience of the shrink wrapped product (like the convenience of paying for bottled water), as well as having printed documentation. I also paid to compensate the programmers. You don't tip waiters because you're legally obligated to, but because it's the right thing to do.

Of course, there are programmers who write code without compensation. Most of them are already making a healthy living from their IT day jobs. Unfortunately, most professional programmers don't have the luxury of getting paid to write whatever software they want; they're usually stuck with some boring project. So when they get home, they work on a project they're actually interested in. If your project only involves a few hundred lines of code, you can do it yourself, but otherwise it's better to enlist the help of anyone you can get. Hence the open source development model.

Incidentally, even if Linux were as bad as CE, there's still the licensing issue for OEMs. I remember reading that Palm gets something like $15-25 per unit from OEMs on the Palm OS, and MS gets $10-15. An OEM can increase its profit margins by using an OS without licensing fees.

quote:
Anyway, Quartz looks promising. Now, if they can push it into a good form factor such as a Sony Clie, they've got my vote.

The mock-ups I saw were closer to a Palm III form factor -- nothing spectacular. But maybe Psion's managed to miniaturize the hardware design in the last few months.

Posted by JimOLJr on 11-12-2000 03:05 PM:

I hope Palm can make an interface like this! It is wonderful!

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Posted by BudPritchard on 11-13-2000 02:05 AM:

Re: Re: lookin good!

quote:

Of course, there are programmers who write code without compensation. Most of them are already making a healthy living from their IT day jobs. Unfortunately, most professional programmers don't have the luxury of getting paid to write whatever software they want; they're usually stuck with some boring project. So when they get home, they work on a project they're actually interested in. If your project only involves a few hundred lines of code, you can do it yourself, but otherwise it's better to enlist the help of anyone you can get. Hence the open source development model. ]

Agree, I like to write code in my some of my spare time and share it with others. Also having someone else look at your code helps improve it. New ideas,.....etc.

quote:
Anyway, Quartz looks promising. Now, if they can push it into a good form factor such as a Sony Clie, they've got my vote.

Visor with springboards still the best for the future. (Minus the wireless controversy). My next purchase of a Visor will be color whenever Handspring ups the resolution(they may have to dump Palm OS to another. Not CE.)

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