another android preference poll (anonymous)

Do you want Android as an option in addition to a Linux distrobution on the Pandora successor?

  • yes

    Votes: 21 35.0%
  • no

    Votes: 12 20.0%
  • don't care either way

    Votes: 27 45.0%

  • Total voters
    60

HW costs on a per unit basis as does amortized ongoing SW support 

To me it's about what does it add generally. Does it make the Pandora more appealing. IMO it does for the reasons I have mentioned before in this thread.

If we are to just produce a P2 with a better SOC etc, than that's all we have, a device that runs the same emu's the P1 does happily now,   I would just stick with a P1.  

So unless the P2 added something new in this area (ie  Android), a P2 would be a no from me.
 
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If I could pay $5 (4000 x $5 = $20k) for each additional OS I would in a heartbeat. Say I could get ubuntu, chrome, debian and android for $20 it would be worth it. Distributed cost makes the price worth it. But if 100 people had to gather enough for $20k that's like $200 a person, that's a harder sell for just one OS.
 
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If we are to just produce a P2 with a better SOC etc, than that's all we have, a device that runs the same emu's the P1 does happily now,   I would just stick with a P1.  
Of course the successor will be more powerful and you will see emulators run way faster as well. You may get proper PSP emulation this time around, and other emulators will benefit from added effects, post processing on screen. Plus you'll be able to use it as a portable desktop computer, and play HD videos and so on. That's already tons of more feature versus the current Pandora, you don't need Android to attract people. 

If I could pay $5 (4000 x $5 = $20k) for each additional OS I would in a heartbeat. Say I could get ubuntu, chrome, debian and android for $20 it would be worth it. Distributed cost makes the price worth it. But if 100 people had to gather enough for $20k that's like $200 a person, that's a harder sell for just one OS.
Well it doesn't look like the poll results show a wide support for Android right from the start. Asking everyone to pay for it while 65% of Poll users show that they either don't want it or don't care is quite clear: you are not in the majority, and you would be offloading the cost onto people who are not interested. 
 
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^ Any new emu's will take years to be developed if at all, day one it won't be a heck of lot that will entice me over the current P1.  Remembering of course that a number have invested heavily in the P1, if you're happy with the Emu's it can run know and lets face it , it runs a number at full speed already -  Then there isn't much really compelling you to fork out another $600 for a P2. 

As for HD movies on a 5" screen , for me, no thanks. Not the device for it.  That's a tablet job
 
Well it doesn't look like the poll results show a wide support for Android right from the start.
That's why I did the poll, see if the support for which idea was the strongest, still would like to see more people add their opinion. I'm not expecting it to change much but to isolate the vocal minorities like me and you. ;) if the public had their way it would be left to the dev community that has proven they don't want to support it, so same boat we are currently in (minus the will be incompatible gingerbread pnd) unless ED at least acknowledges the subject and says one way or the other.
 
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unless ED at least acknowledges the subject and says one way or the other.
In the end ED will make his own decision anyway. I don't think he will be massively influenced by what we have to say here. Maybe he will go for what you want (full Android support), in which case I'll find it to be a regrettable decision (that would mean somebody like notaz (but not notaz), asked to fully support that and that would be time NOT spent on the Linux distro, which is a shame), but that won't prevent me from getting the successor. 
 
You really don't want any effort spent whatsoever on something other than what you specifically want. That's just amazing way of thinking. I'm not even asking for resources be shifted away from the main goal of having a finished product out the door, only new resources be generated and focused toward an additional optional feature. But whatever, your right ED decision and his alone. Although I've noticed he does often end up going along with the popular opinion and puts his own little twist on it.
 
I'm not even asking for resources be shifted away from the main goal of havin
You don't understand.

It's not : "oh we only need 1 person to work on the Successor firmware, so let's hire 1 more person to do work for Android and we'll carry over the cost on the price of the device"

It's: "There's so much to do on the firmware that we'll need as many people as we can. Even on the Pandora, the resources spent on the firmware are too limited and it's not sufficient. Putting full resources on Android is certainly going to slow down how fast we work on the firmware/ main OS for Pandora, we could use these resources!"

We're not talking about Sony making a product here. It's ED with a small team of people, who are already struggling to work on .next, in case you didn't notice. 
 
What makes you think it would take more than one person and a couple months of work?
 
 
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What makes you think it would take more than one person and a couple months of work?
Because Android versions pop up like rabbits from one year to another. It's not something you "stop working on". 

Add on top of that, driver bugs, issues with certain programs, and just fixing the bugs is going to be additional work that;s usually a lot more than just getting the first build out. Have you ever developed software? (honest question)
 
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What makes you think it would take more than one person and a couple months of work?
Because Android versions pop up like rabbits from one year to another. It's not something you "stop working on".
It could be, most of the changes can keep the same kernel version with small patches. Its the major jumps that require a major overhaul. Even if it gets backlogged its still fully functional. Gingerbread while ancient in terms of android is still relevant to run modern apps. I see it takes a day or 2 for a single person on XDA to upgrade from one official release of android to the next. I am running CM11 (KitKat) on my phone that is still officially on ICS from the manufacturer. It literally just came out.1 person, a couple days max to stay current on updates. Initial port will most likely come from the SoC vendor... It isn't much manpower, just need dedication and a bit of time and skill. Or hire a single person for a month or two and a couple days once or twice a year to stay current, that is if you even want to update it after the initial release, it will still work for years to come regardless.
 
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It literally just came out.1 person, a couple days max to stay current on updates. Initial port will most likely come from the SoC vendor... It isn't much manpower, just need dedication and a bit of time and skill. Or hire a single person for a month or two and a couple days once or twice a year to stay current.
I'd like to believe it were so simple. Again, you are missing the bug fixing part / support for issues and so on. You can't just do part time on these kind of things, especially if you claim you have "official support".

Again, I'd rely way more on what notaz says on this, since he's the one who made the gingerbread port. It didn't seem like it was "just a couple of days of work" - read the thread when it was released, and the follow ups after. There's also a reason why he stopped working on it .  
 
I voted "no", because the unadvanced Android.pnd back then already threatened to split the community and oddly enough in some way I am happy, that it does not work better.
 
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I don't want Android that's constantly updated... I don't even want to claim official support...

I just want a solid port with minimal bugs that runs most of my apps, and has the potential to run a lot more in the future.

Then frankly it can just stay that way for years. We aren't asking for the P2 to become a proper Android device... we just want a fairly recent version that's reasonably polished to be available for download and can be run in dual-boot mode.

That is all.

Honestly, what's wrong with that?

Pay someone competent to make the port, have a period of beta testing to iron out the major bugs, and then thank them for their troubles and suggest you may employ them to make another port in a year or two.

This ED can do and would be a beneficial move. It could be a stretch goal, or donation funded or whatever... but I believe he should seriously consider the benefits of doing so.

That is all we're asking for.
 
^ Then we should not add any new HW features that people want either, because each of those are only wanted by a percentage and not everyone. In the end , only some people are going to ever want any new feature, if you adopted your mentality , nothing would change, as you would never get a feature wanted by absolutely everyone.
I mostly agree. That's why i wrote it would be different if it were a best of breed selection between Android an Linux according to predetermined business goals or if the original business plan already included doing both (which I don't know, but let's just assume that it doesn't, because otherwise the discussion would be moot).


In this case ED has to estimate somehow whether adding an additional OS is feasible and can be amortized (e.g. by raising unit price or by spreading across a higher volume). My personal experience with project management (though software only) is that adding features not related to the core business is pretty much never worth the additional complexity. Even if the technology isn't that difficult you will have quite a lot of organisational baggage (mostly communication, unfortunately that in most cases doesn't increase linearily with project size, but rather quadratically; think of it as everybody having to synchronize with everybody else reguarly; sometimes you are lucky and you can really separate modules, but in this case having both OS ready prepackaged for release would be a problem).


But while it may not be a smart move of ED to make too many changes to his original plan just because of a poll on a board, it may make perfect business sense for somebody else. If Android on P2 demand actually is high and if the investment would be around only 20k, this somebody could make (some) money by selling it for 25$. Even if P2 sales were significantly lower due to not including Android prepackaged (though I see no evidence for that; to me it looks like the Android and P2 market a mostly non overlapping segments; I think otherwise the market share of phones with a keyboard and/or gaming controls would be much larger - it isn't always incompetent companies that prevent a concept you personally like from succeeding).
 
be amortized (e.g. by raising unit price
I don't care about android on pandora successor, why would I pay for that?If people want android on that device, either they pay people to do it, wait for devs to work on it or pray whatever god they have faith in…
 
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I don't care about android on pandora successor, why would I pay for that?
Isn't that a bit selfish ?I have no special interest in the superb audio quality of the Pandora, why should I pay for the extra amount of parts and work to implement that ?

And I guess I'm not the only Pandora user that thinks that it is a nice "iceing on the cake" but no essential feature.
 
I don't care about android on pandora successor, why would I pay for that?
Isn't that a bit selfish ?I have no special interest in the superb audio quality of the Pandora, why should I pay for the extra amount of parts and work to implement that ?

And I guess I'm not the only Pandora user that thinks that it is a nice "iceing on the cake" but no essential feature.
Android can be ported by anybody with enough time/motivation/knowledge since it's software, you're talking about hardware…Apples and oranges.
 
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