Android 2.0: Still ‘Linuxy’

I may have mentioned before that I’m really quite impressed by the new Android-powered phone available in the UK on Vodafone, the HTC Magic. The UI is still a little ‘Linuxy’, the touch response isn’t bad but without the sort of visual feedback you expect from something designed to rival the iPhone. The camera, although … Continue reading “Android 2.0: Still ‘Linuxy’”

I may have mentioned before that I’m really quite impressed by the new Android-powered phone available in the UK on Vodafone, the HTC Magic. The UI is still a little ‘Linuxy’, the touch response isn’t bad but without the sort of visual feedback you expect from something designed to rival the iPhone. The camera, although small and without flash, does have an optical zoom and photos taken look crisp and text is readable. It’s not a bad phone.

UnWiredBlog has an article on Android 2.0 and new devices from Samsung which will work with the new OS. They’re not unattractive and apart from the lack of onboard storage space for the most part, they’re not bad in the specifications department.

But. Here’s (two) screenshots from the device, unhelpfully stitched together.

samsung-spica-interface-touchwiz

It’s my opinion that somewhere between Android and Samsung, they need to hire some designers.

Related posts:

  1. iPhone vs Android: software lock-in and halo effect
  2. Google: I don’t trust them.
  3. Ruminating on Android Engagement
  4. Samsung vs Apple is good for the consumer.

0 thoughts on “Android 2.0: Still ‘Linuxy’”

  1. Hey, at least Linuxy is miles better than Windowsy.

    I like OS X because it doesn’t go out of its way to preventing me from getting at its UNIXy internals. When it comes to upgrade my phone, and as much as I love the iPhone interface, I may have to go for an Android device as a compromise. (Plus I’m a big fan of tactile feedback, and there’s no way Apple are going to make an iPhone with a physical keyboard, though I’m hoping they’ll go haptic at some point.) This makes me a sad panda.

  2. Don’t get me wrong OSX is a far superior OS to windows, but I’m not so sure it “go[es] out of it’s way to prevent me from getting at its UNIXy internals”

    Missing things like /proc really hinder you.
    From a developer’s point of view Linux is the OS to go with. You get access to absolutely everything. OSX certainly spoon-feeds in this regard. Not to mention the aqua window manager is very closed source and hard to implement new features for.

    I use OSX daily, and it is my OS of choice. You literally cannot beat TextMate as a developers text editor, but all too often I am writing in textmate for a VM with Linux or Win to get the job done.

  3. I’m a bit sceptical on the use of ‘/proc’ as a ‘hindrance’. I’ve never seen any compelling case for it. End of the day, OSX is a consumer OS 🙂

  4. TextMate? Dude. Real programmers use Vim. It has a learning curve, but goodness me, once you commit the keystrokes to muscle-memory, you literally fly through files. (I heard some people also use Emacs. You may enjoy this approach, seeing as you don’t seen to mind virtualising an OS instance to run a text editor.)

    Srsly. What proportion of developers need access to the kernel internals? Oh yes, I forgot. You spend all your time patching the system up. Also: Linux is not UNIX. Darwin at least has some UNIX heritage.

    And what a consumer whore I am. I’ve been coding for fun and profit for more than 15 years, have used GNU/Linux for almost as long, pretty much exclusively for a decade before I got a PowerBook G4…

    I bloody well love OS X. I love running GNU on top of Darwin. I like my MacBook being a solid chunk of aluminium. I like not having to waste my time faffing with drivers and config files and figuring out the most efficient way to set up my UI. The Aqua WM has its minor annoyances, but it’s more than Good Enough(TM).

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