Advice And Help Needed On Pandora

[Esn]

One possibility that I didn't see in the previous pages is calling it a pockettop (pocket-top? pocket top? PocketTop?). It's got a pretty good ring to it, and is a nice parallel to laptop.

But it doesn't make sense. You put a laptop on top of your lap, but you wouldn't put a "pockettop" on top of your pocket.

 

[fischju2000]

One possibility that I didn't see in the previous pages is calling it a pockettop (pocket-top? pocket top? PocketTop?). It's got a pretty good ring to it, and is a nice parallel to laptop.

But it doesn't make sense. You put a laptop on top of your lap, but you wouldn't put a "pockettop" on top of your pocket.

*reiterates 'palmtop'*

 

[Awakening]

One possibility that I didn't see in the previous pages is calling it a pockettop (pocket-top? pocket top? PocketTop?). It's got a pretty good ring to it, and is a nice parallel to laptop.

Just like a MiniBook sounds like a small NetBook, a PocketTop sounds like a LapTop that fits in your pocket. I like it because to me the Pandora is a laptop replacement that fits in my pocket. However, it sounds really weird to say it out loud, I would rather call it a PocketPC.

 

[craigix]

The more I think about it, does anyone *really* care about windows these days? How many phones run windows?

We need to sell this as a sort of PocketPC for the iPhone generation. 'Yes it can do all your Phone stuff and more'.

 

[r00tw00t]

I think the Iphone generation only cares if there is an apple on the product

 

[mali]

A philosophical question:
Does a PC cease to exist if you format c: and install Ubuntu?

 

[ashdjones]

One possibility that I didn't see in the previous pages is calling it a pockettop (pocket-top? pocket top? PocketTop?). It's got a pretty good ring to it, and is a nice parallel to laptop.

But it doesn't make sense. You put a laptop on top of your lap, but you wouldn't put a "pockettop" on top of your pocket.

*reiterates 'palmtop'*

+1

Palmtop is the lost monikor you guys are looking for.

 

[Dead1nside]

Windows' eventual loss of any sort of OS war is inevitable in my biased opinion. The largest growing sector is the embedded market and things like netbooks. Windows is nowhere in the embedded field for a number of reasons, cost, lack of flexibility and lack of power to name a few. With netbooks they started off much in the same position as the embedded market, running Linux seemed natural and they did at first, that is until Microsoft start dictating specs and lowering prices on such things as Windows XP Starter. As such netbooks are now larger, ~10' probably to accommodate Windows' necessary minimum specs as well as usability improvements.

 

[bzar]

Pandora PC, where P = {Personal, Pocket, Portable, Powerful, Play} and C = {Computer, Console, Companion}

Feel free to add meanings. I can already imagine ads using this theme

 

[zhasha]

How many phones run windows?

My phone runs Windows... I've regretted that purchase ever since.

 

[hobbyman II]

My phone attempts to run Windows... I've regretted that purchase ever since.

corrected that for you (sorry...but I always wanted to say that, and couldn't hold it in any more )

seriously, MS are getting to the tipping point, before long, portable devices WILL have the user interfaces and WILL be able to run MS OS's h34r: the only hope humanity has is that some open source team create a fully functioning AI, at that point every OS maker on the planet can hang up their keyboards and go home ("computer...find me a list of cheap, nice cars in my neighbourhood", "computer, create a virtual world for me to play fps in, space based with eight types of weapons and five upgrades", "computer, feed the cat, [system error: unable to feed object "cat" : reason: no limbs available]" ) you get the idea, when AI becomes possible and commonplace, you no longer need any other OS (and the AI's can upgrade themselves, understand and block spam messages, know that's a viral/hack attempt on port xxx etc, etc)

 

[absolofdoom]

I feel that 'running windows' is turning in to 'running the internet, google, facebook, twitter'.

If we could show them that, then they might be more comfortable.

The more I think about it, does anyone *really* care about windows these days? How many phones run windows?

We need to sell this as a sort of PocketPC for the iPhone generation. 'Yes it can do all your Phone stuff and more'.

Those are good points, though I'd have to caution you about the phone part. The pandora doesn't have a cellular card (or whatever they call em, I don't feel like hitting wikipedia up for this one), so for most people no internet without wifi. And that's a really big deal. You still have tethering with a phone or a 3g dongle, though, perhaps advertise how to do those? Oh and youtube. That's also a big deal. Hopefully gnash or something can make that work at some point.

I'd still prefer we didn't label it, but I'm not going to complain if it happens. I know it's just how things go most of the time.

 

[Pleng]

I feel that 'running windows' is turning in to 'running the internet, google, facebook, twitter'.

If we could show them that, then they might be more comfortable.

I don't know about that. Most standard Linux distros can do that and people still don't go for linux based computers.

It's strange that people (general internetty and officy type people here, not gamers, audiophiles or any other specialist computerist) are happy to have phones and media players that don't use Windows, but are frightened off by computers that don't have Windows.

Or is it? The trouble with Windows mobile is that it's interface is clunky and unintuitive. Which seems strange considering how right M$ got it on the desktop. Apples i-pod and i-phone took off because they intuitive and easy to use (or so says everybody who has one. I can't get along with them but I'm well aware that I'm in the minority). And that's where linux based devices tend to fail. M$ spend god only knows how much money on researching how users interact with computers. And every Linux distro I've tried to date fails to provide the ease of use and asthetic consistency of even an XP system, let alone Windows 7.

I'm sure many people on this forum would disagree, but we are generally *computer* people. We either know how something works, or we like to tinker and find out how things work. And Linux desktops are clearly designed by computer people who simply cannot see the system from a casual users point of view.

Maybe 'running windows' is turning in to 'running the internet, google, facebook, twitter in an easy to use environment'



Anyway +1 for Palmtop.

 

[absolofdoom]

I feel that 'running windows' is turning in to 'running the internet, google, facebook, twitter'.

If we could show them that, then they might be more comfortable.

I don't know about that. Most standard Linux distros can do that and people still don't go for linux based computers.

It's strange that people (general internetty and officy type people here, not gamers, audiophiles or any other specialist computerist) are happy to have phones and media players that don't use Windows, but are frightened off by computers that don't have Windows.

Or is it? The trouble with Windows mobile is that it's interface is clunky and unintuitive. Which seems strange considering how right M$ got it on the desktop. Apples i-pod and i-phone took off because they intuitive and easy to use (or so says everybody who has one. I can't get along with them but I'm well aware that I'm in the minority). And that's where linux based devices tend to fail. M$ spend god only knows how much money on researching how users interact with computers. And every Linux distro I've tried to date fails to provide the ease of use and asthetic consistency of even an XP system, let alone Windows 7.

I'm sure many people on this forum would disagree, but we are generally *computer* people. We either know how something works, or we like to tinker and find out how things work. And Linux desktops are clearly designed by computer people who simply cannot see the system from a casual users point of view.

Maybe 'running windows' is turning in to 'running the internet, google, facebook, twitter in an easy to use environment'



Anyway +1 for Palmtop.

People don't go for linux because: (a) they don't know that it exists, ( b ) they don't know what it is (often misinformation), ( c ) they're too lazy. Or a combination. (EDIT: This is to say that they don't TRY it for these reasons, not that they don't use it for these reasons. I know there are perfectly legit reasons not to use linux.) My parents have been using linux for two years now, and what it took was this: when they had windows on the computer, I put an icon that said Internet Explorer and had a pic of the IE logo, but ran an instance of firefox instead. Then I made firefox look exactly like IE, with themes etc. Then after a bit I told them it was different, installed an ad blocker, and they liked it better. A year later when their install of windows died, I installed linux, pointed them at firefox, and all was well. Essentially, left to their own devices, many people are just too lazy to try something new. But if they're forced to for some reason they realize it's actually not all that bad.

Building on this, the only reason Windows is "easier" for people is because it's all they've used/what they started with, and they're used to all of it's idiosyncrasies. I would liken this to the English language. For all intents and purposes, it makes no freaking sense, follows pretty much none of its rules. However, if you learn it as a first language (as did I); it seems easy.

 

[Awakening]

Which seems strange considering how right M$ got it on the desktop.

I would say there's a lack of competition on the desktop market. Haven't tried 7 yet but one would assume they get better with trial and error, although they seem to screw up every other version (ME and Vista).

 

[Tom`]

In my experience, the number-one reason people who have heard of Linux don't use it is that it won't run the Windows apps that they need or want. Whether it's gamers, students who need MS Office for school (yeah, OpenOffice is almost perfect, I haven't had any issues with Writer, but Calc has some fairly serious issues with some complicated Excel files), or users who need Quickbooks or Turbotax or Filemaker or whatever, they almost always eventually go back to Windows instead of trying to split their time between two OSes on the same PC. Of course, Virtualbox can solve a lot of these problems, but it's still no good for games (I tried out the 3D acceleration support a few weeks ago - it ran Sauerbraten without too many serious issues IIRC, but UT2004 was too slow and buggy to be playable. I suspect the gamer audience is why we get so many people here asking about Windows.

This is one reason why Linux is good for portable devices - people don't have the expectation that they'll be able to run desktop software on it, and so it comes (will come, I hope) as a pleasant surprise to many people to find that they can in fact perform a lot of the same tasks as on a regular PC.

 

[Monk]

'Yes it can do all your Phone stuff and more'.

Well, apart from actually making calls, or 3G style mobile broadband, or any hadrware/brand-specific stuff. but yeah, uh, everything else?

 

[VRAndy]

Those are good points, though I'd have to caution you about the phone part. The pandora doesn't have a cellular card (or whatever they call em, I don't feel like hitting wikipedia up for this one), so for most people no internet without wifi. And that's a really big deal. You still have tethering with a phone or a 3g dongle, though, perhaps advertise how to do those? Oh and youtube. That's also a big deal. Hopefully gnash or something can make that work at some point.

News or videos of Pandora successfully connecting to a 3g internet provider would be awesome. Preferably on its own with a 3g usb dongle, but tethering with a phone would be cool too.

 

[absolofdoom]

In my experience, the number-one reason people who have heard of Linux don't use it is that it won't run the Windows apps that they need or want. Whether it's gamers, students who need MS Office for school (yeah, OpenOffice is almost perfect, I haven't had any issues with Writer, but Calc has some fairly serious issues with some complicated Excel files), or users who need Quickbooks or Turbotax or Filemaker or whatever, they almost always eventually go back to Windows instead of trying to split their time between two OSes on the same PC. Of course, Virtualbox can solve a lot of these problems, but it's still no good for games (I tried out the 3D acceleration support a few weeks ago - it ran Sauerbraten without too many serious issues IIRC, but UT2004 was too slow and buggy to be playable. I suspect the gamer audience is why we get so many people here asking about Windows.

This is one reason why Linux is good for portable devices - people don't have the expectation that they'll be able to run desktop software on it, and so it comes (will come, I hope) as a pleasant surprise to many people to find that they can in fact perform a lot of the same tasks as on a regular PC.

Hm, I have to admit I forgot about that. I always run vmware or virtualbox on my machines, so if there's any program that won't run native, I can still run it. And I don't play PC games at all. Complete oversight on my part.