I feel that Canonical is making the same mistake Apple did. Taking engineers off of OS X Leopard and putting them to work on iOS was such a bad move.
In Canonical's case, it's an even worse idea, isn't it? Why spend engineer resources targeting the tiny Android market rather than the huge desktop Linux market?
Obvious sarcasm aside, I'm really happy to see Ubuntu innovating here. If it was commercially available, I'd be plunking my money down now. But I'm already a Linux user so I'm an easy sale. Kudos to Ubuntu to try and market to people other than those like me.
Except that everybody always wanted an iOS device, so it was obviously an easy sell for Apple to do that.
Trying to sell people an Android phone that happens to have Ubuntu on it? How are you going to reach consumers? Are you going to get a carrier on board? Good fucking luck.
In 2005 & 2006 nobody wanted an iOS device because nobody outside of Apple knew about it. If investors had heard that Steve Jobs was stealing engineers from OS X to work on a phone they would have been slammed in the press for cannibalizing their core products to enter a market with a lot of well capitalized competitors.
And look how well that turned out! Apple made the right moves at the right time. Some of it was probably luck. But canabalising their Mac and iPod markets has made Apple one of the most successful companies ever.
Not sure Shuttleworth has a similar insight on the state of mobile computing but if they can create a great product, maybe they have something.
How are you going to sell Unix to people who don't know what Unix is (and don't care)? Apple did it pretty well, and even "got" it onto an incredibly successful smartphone ("got" in quotes because I don't know if iOS is POSIX or not, just that it's based off OSX).
Here's how it will be marketed: an Android phone that turns into a desktop. "Everyone" wants a single device with all their data already there (hence the success of Gmail, GDocs, Dropbox, etc). "Everyone" is in quotes because not everyone wanted a iOS device, just like not everyone wants a Android+Ubuntu device. The bet in the market is that enough people will want your device to make it a success.
writing two paragraphs that could be serious before saying "obvious sarcasm aside" is not making things better. People are confused for two paragraphs, then are trying to figure out what is and isn't "obvious sarcasm". None of it was obvious. The first two paragraphs are not obvious sarcasm. There are a whole bunch of people that would have written it and been dead serious.
sarcasm. Look, the word sarcasm is in my comment, which parts of it are sarcasm? Obvious sarcasm aside.
You missed my point. It was not obvious to me what was or wasn't sarcasm. I'll be it wasn't obvious to most people. Saying "obvious sarcasm aside" does not make it obvious.
Usually when someone says "-foo- aside", they're referring to the immediately previous text. Add in to this that the terms in the immediately previous sentence were exaggerated, and it should at least give a hint at where the sarcasm lay.
"Add in to this that the terms in the immediately previous sentence were exaggerated"
This isn't true, and that's my point. If you take out the last paragraph, it could easily be a serious statement from many people around here.
"In Canonical's case, it's an even worse idea, isn't it? Why spend engineer resources targeting the tiny Android market rather than the huge desktop ... market?"
What is exaggerated? Oh, maybe adding the word Linux makes it an exaggeration? I think my point holds that sarcasm doesn't come through well in text!
In Canonical's case, it's an even worse idea, isn't it? Why spend engineer resources targeting the tiny Android market rather than the huge desktop Linux market?
Obvious sarcasm aside, I'm really happy to see Ubuntu innovating here. If it was commercially available, I'd be plunking my money down now. But I'm already a Linux user so I'm an easy sale. Kudos to Ubuntu to try and market to people other than those like me.