Has the pandora been released yet?

[Dauric]

Totally agree. It won't be a deal breaker for me since it *IS* a much more open system. But I do think UI will suffer a bit in Pandora due to using X Windows and not enforcing standardized UI elements and transitions appropriate for a mobile device. That's why I'm hoping that the Android platform, or possibly Maemo will grow in popularity on this system sometime down the road. I'm already thinking about and considering how much time it will take for me to modify the open source apps I wind up using most on the Pandora and modernizing/unifying the UI's.

Well if you do end up modernizing/unifying the Pandora's UI, remember to let the rest of us in on it.

 

[CCmachined]

not enforcing standardized UI elements and transitions appropriate for a mobile device. That's why I'm hoping that the Android platform, or possibly Maemo will grow in popularity on this system sometime down the road. I'm already thinking about and considering how much time it will take for me to modify the open source apps I wind up using most on the Pandora and modernizing/unifying the UI's.

What "transitions appropriate for a mobile device?" I want my Pandora to operate like a full-fledged computer like it deserves, not a Nokia on steroids.

Better to use GL acceleration and lose 1h of battery time

Really? Did the Linux mindset teach you nothing? Use lighter software. Even without GL ES the CPU is powerful enough to render any 2D menu system you can think of smoothly. Optimisation is minimal at the moment also, if you're looking at the current Pandora demonstration videos. Any sluggishness is probably down to loading from a slow SD card / quickly ported software / etc. Using the GPU constantly would be catastrophic for battery life, more than 1h. The ARM chipsets have power saving features all over the place. The GPU would likely "wake up" other chips and use power via those, too.

 

[dflemstr]

Better to use GL acceleration and lose 1h of battery time

Really? Did the Linux mindset teach you nothing? Use lighter software. Even without GL ES the CPU is powerful enough to render any 2D menu system you can think of smoothly. Optimisation is minimal at the moment also, if you're looking at the current Pandora demonstration videos. Any sluggishness is probably down to loading from a slow SD card / quickly ported software / etc.

Yes, yes, I know, that was an exaggeration; we can use Cairo or SDL or (if we actually want GL) Clutter or whatnot. I was just trying to make a point. And I know it's OGLES we're talking about; it's still GL though
btw: I'm using WindowMaker on Slackware on one of my laptops so I know what the meaning of efficiency is.

And we really should have some kind of GUI standard; I don't want to see 5px white barely readable fonts on a black background in a SDL window (as is oh so common in emulators and such things) if I can help it.

 

[TheRain]

What "transitions appropriate for a mobile device?" I want my Pandora to operate like a full-fledged computer like it deserves, not a Nokia on steroids.

The quote should have more accurately read "UI elements and transitions appropriate for a mobile device".

Well, if I defined what I really think about this a little more, fluid UI transitions are not what makes a mobile device more usable but having appropriately sized and functioning UI elements for a certain screen size/form factor would I believe. I just find the transitions aesthetically pleasing and more engaging and that's valuable enough to me to lose a bit of CPU/memory efficiency.

If you watch CraigX's video of the pandora prototype where he's running XMMS you might get an idea of what I mean. In my opinion the buttons there were almost too small to be very usable with the stylus, much less your finger. Also, XMMS is a great program, but personally I'd like to see as much re-use of some mobile device oriented UI elements as possible. I don't want a hodge podge of QT Apps originally intended for a full desktop along side some custom skinned XMMS also originally designed for a full desktop, alongside whatever other UI toolkit someone randomly decides to use.

Especially in a mobile device, I think UI uniformity is important because you might seriously be walking up the street using this thing!