Remix OS | Hacker News Reader

Remix OS

jide.com

38 pointslcnmrn19 comments

I, for one, welcome this kind of approach. I'm fed up with laptops that try to be tablets (Windows 8) and tablets that barely tolerate keyboards (iPad). Something that is compatible enough to, say, run Office for Android, a VNC/RDP client (Jump Desktop works great on Android and iOS) and the occasional terminal window would be enough to do a _lot_ of my work.

(I'm actually typing this on an iPad mini, with Microsoft's RD Client and Panic's Prompt in the background...)

The only thing I'd _really_ like to see in this OS is the ability to split the screen vertically (like Modern does on the Surface).

If the build quality matches the looks, I will certainly take a look at one. $349 (quoted on Liliputing) seems pretty decent for a Surface "clone".

What do you hope for that the Surface already doesn't do?

Less noise, a simpler user experience, and running an OS I can develop for without having to wait an hour for the thing to install updates whenever I try to shut it down by close of business.

I hate the website. Looks pretty. Very little content. I found more details reading other articles.

I dont get it.

Looks like they created some apps that look good on a bigger screen. And they created nice big hardware. But for the most part you are stuck with the same old Android apps that everyone uses.

Lot of tablets have keyboards or at least you can buy keyboards for them. So that is not a big selling point.

Can someone clue me in here?

RemixOS is based on Android 4.4.2, but it is proprietary. Not sure how I feel about that.

Why not make the OS open source?

That ruins it for me.

Because it's mostly just to sell their Microsoft Surface clone: http://www.jide.com/en/desktop/ultra_tablet.html

I don't actually mind them selling their hardware, just make the OS freely downloadable and installable on any hardware, just like we do Linux distributions now.

Yeah it would be fine if they took the Cyanogen route. There are ton of Android distros that put their spin on things. But to have something closed-source and (from what I can see) is only available on their own hardware is a big no-no in this day and age.

I hate to be that guy ... but this seems to be a pretty blatant Windows 8 rip-off and money grab

Don't get me wrong, I think you should be able to be inspired by others designs. Saying that companies are copying "metro" just because they use "flat design" is probably overzealous.

I this case they seem to have directly copied design not because of any particular reasons but just because of lack of inspiration of their own. There are PLENTY of things that can be done better and/or different than Windows 8 but instead they just went with was already there.

The color scheme, the email client, the design as a whole is a blatant and shameless rip-off. And I'm not even talking about the Hardware design.

This is a sentence I never thought I would say but I almost hope Microsoft sues them. I say almost because I don't believe in patents and protecting design details, but this is pretty far over the line.

What we're they thinking?

> I this case they seem to have directly copied design not because of any particular reasons but just because of lack of inspiration of their own.

Like what everyone did with Xerox PARC's design, or Unix's design. I'm not saying that what Apple did was illegal, because it clearly wasn't, just that it wasn't very creative. Ditto all the people who grabbed elements of Unix (pipelines, the notion of subdirectories Unix has, device files) to put into, say, MS-DOS.

And then there are all the "n guys with drums, a guitar, and a bass" which sprung up once the Beatles hit the mainstream. Pop sounded fairly different before they got big.

You appear to be getting angry over standard practice, is what I'm saying.

Yeah but that's the point, at least Apple copied substantial and innovative features, which is worse from a copying standpoint but at least has some merit content-wise. I actually don't think you should be able to protect features like windows, pipes etc even though they have creative depth. Companies should compete on execution, not by ownership of ideas.

I guess copying of surface rather than substance to this extent does make me a little angry just because it's so lazy, unecessary and blatant. It's like someone ripping off a website design down to the mark-up, it's just ... slimy

It's not right only because everyone is doing it. Wouldn't be so bad if they improved something, for example the kickstand which could stand in every angle instead of only two. Or how about a splitting of the screen completely dynamic... Noone has to reinvent the wheel but just building it out of wood over and over doesn't get you anywhere (ok maybe it gets you somewhere, it's still a wheel.)

16:9 screens on tablets are the worst

I don't like how the keyboard appears stretched with really wide keys on large screens.

Could the keyboard perhaps zoom/stretch horizontally to the user's desired width and key-size?

It certainly looks like the tablet of my dreams. But I wish that FirefoxOS was under the hood, instead of Android.

Have you seen the Jolla tablet?

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jolla-tablet-world-s-firs...

>custom engineered for big screens

So graphic design is now a form of engineering, eh?

I bet they had to go through a lot of advanced maths and schooling to get that certification, no?

Often when designers specify something, say... I dont know, screen size, there is programming that needs to be done to meet those needs.

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