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Comment by hnriot | Hacker News Reader

The phone looks like Win8 Metro, and the presenter is trying to be Steve Jobs. With the cpu's in phones already being phenomenally fast I see little to no value in removing the java layer. Currently this is vaporware, but should it appear on a phone sometime soon, I just don't see it gaining any marketshare beyond some of the hardcore OSS fans. Real people like an app ecosystem with their latest Angry Birds games and don't much care about any of the technical details.

The "lock screen" is just weird, and the hyperbole spouted by the presenter was downright embarrassing.

It all comes down to the apps. If Google Maps/Gmail/Chrome/Youtube etc all run on it then it might stand a chance, but I don't see further phone market fragmentation as being in anyone's interest.

I do, however, use Ubuntu as my main desktop (2.6.38)

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Middlebrow dismissal.

Believe that all of us working in video games want program execution on mobile devices to be as fast as possible. My brand-new desktop PC is not fast enough for what I want to do, so an Android phone running a bytecode interpreter is that much further.

I also don't think you know what "vaporware" means. If it is actually running on physical hardware it's not vaporware; it is just not in consumer hands yet. (Since Engadget has played with it on a physical phone... it is known to be real.)

Don't all mobile OSes now allow C/C++ for games? I know Android 2.3+ does.

The difference appears to be that Android encourages Java for non-games while Ubuntu will use C++/Qt.

Yes, and QML (declarative syntax + Javascript logic) for UI-heavy parts or even complete apps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QML

Android doesn't use a bytecode interpreter in any modern version.

Minor point, but technically a JIT compiler doesn't replace an interpreter. The latter is still there (written in assembly nowadays), and the VM has to trace hotspots and balance the cost of run time compiling vs. the cost of normal interpretation. Of course a JIT code cache helps to avoid the compilation overhead.

To be even more nitpicky about it, a JIT compiler can replace an interpreter. There are compile-only JIT's, like Jikes RVM. But good point in this case, especially since Dalvik is a tracing JIT and relies on the interpreter more than a method JIT usually would.

How is it vaporware? There was a prototype on a phone already. There is code that Canonical said they would release soon (image for the Galaxy Nexus).

What is missing is a (smart) carrier picking it up and running with it. I for one hope someone like Samsung release a phone with it. I'd buy this in a heartbeat.

Is it significant that the "apps" you list are either a browser or 3 Google properties that are better known as web apps, and primarily ad supported?

I would have thought games would be the more difficult step since most people seem to use their "smart"phones as fashionable gameboys and you need a complicated system of in-app-purchases for getting kids to accidentally buy $100 dollars worth of "smurfberries" with their parents credit cards to finance the production of these games.

And games has, traditionally, been something that Ubuntu and Desktop Linux hasn't had much success with.

> Real people like an app ecosystem with their latest Angry Birds games

Since Dalvik is open-source, perhaps they could tweak a few things to make Android apps run on Ubuntu, albeit a little slower? Out of the box compatibility with existing Android apps would be a huge gain for a mobile OS that is just trying to enter the market.

If you're going to run Android apps, why not just use Android with a custom launcher and skin? Any sort of app compatibility layer is just an admission of defeat.

It might be an admission of defeat that leads to victory.

"DOS was popular because it had software from day one. And it had software because Tim Paterson had thought to include a CP/M compatibility feature in it . . ." (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html)

Edit: And, as someone else said in this discussion, "developers, developers, developers".

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