[GRLUG] Android PDA

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2010-05-04 at 11:24 -0400, Michael Mol wrote:
> (This isn't pointed directly at Ron; it's just a growing trend I've
> only noticed in the last few days.)
> Wow...I'm getting a little worried; the Android fan base is beginning
> to sound like Apple's. 

"fan" bases always sound the same.  They make a loud senseless whirring
sound.  And when connected to the Internet they create floods of
reference-free banal BLOG posts some of which masquerade as articles in
trade rags.  [Witness: Ubuntu,  an awesome distro where according to one
article you can color code the output of ls!  Oh my!  Take that Redhat
and SuSE users!].

> Yes, I'll very specifically acknowledge that
> Android isn't walled off the way the iPhone is, it's open source, and
> you've got a lot of control over it.  I'll note, though, that the
> Google devs didn't do a very good job adapting the Linux kernel to
> their hardware in a way that allows the changes to be integrated back
> to mainline,

One could level the same charge at Xen developers, and others.  This
causes me little to no concern [I use both Android and Xen (via
Linnode)].   I've little to no doubt these issues will be resolved, or
simple become irrelevant.

<aside>This is my position even though I put Google on the same page as
Apple and Microsoft when it comes to advocating very-closed
absolutely-vendor-lockedin solutions.</aside>

>  *and* I've only been hearing about apps that "run on
> Android", not apps that "also run on Android."

Of course, the cross-platform mobile application is a persistent
delusion.  No such things have existed or do exist or are likely to
exist.  Between the phone (resource-constrained [screen size]) and the
desktop the interface model are too vastly different.  And between
mobile apps you'd need to *precisely* match the UI elements of the
device.  Even apps sold for *both* Palm OS and WinCE [Agendus, etc...]
where [are?] entirely different apps with the same name and *similar*
functionality.  Just run a WinForms app in GNOME to know whey nobody
wants WebOS apps on their Android of vice versa; it'd be the same issue
on 10x worse.

> It's almost as though
> the Android fan base is effectively duplicating some of the software
> ecology they hate about the iPhone.

How so?  

If you mean the concept of a "repository" [call it a "marketplace" or
whatever] then they are duplicating the software ecology the iPhone
duplication from yum/apt/zypper which yum/apt/zypper duplication from
Red Carpet.

Otherwise I fail to see it.

Note that I can merrily install apps on the Android without going
through the marketplace - no rooting or anything required - just toggle
a check box.

> Here we are talking about and enjoying open source and
> interoperability, and I'm repeatedly amazed that nobody notices the
> lack (or lauds the presence) of app portability between Android, other
> Linux phones and Linux+netbook+phone radio.

Because , I believe, app portability makes no sense in this context.
What I want from Evolution is different than what I want from Contacts
on my phone - but I want them to share *data*.  And how I expect Address
book to behave on Palm OS is very different than how I expect it to
behave on iPhone or Android.   I don't think that multiple mobile
devices use the same kernel (Linux) means much of anything to app
developers who are using exposed APIs that are very device specific.