My ideas for changes to the way apps work.

[EvilDragon]

Why are you getting angry at each other? I do not understand.. please explain why it is so frustrating that Craig makes his own "app manager".

As I've said, if Craig were just any other person making his own thing I don't think there'd be any problem. He'd make his thing and people would be free to use it or not as they see fit.


Craig isn't just any other person, though: he is the face and voice of OpenPandora. Whatever he comes up with will no doubt be implemented into the official App Store that he's been trying to promote. It will be the default repository that new users will be presented with. If it's not at least comparable to what the rest of the community comes up with to solve the same problem, these new users will be missing out.

Why? As he said, his will be optional, the stuff from the devs will stay.


And I plan to include PNDStore with HF6 into the OS. His solution will also be included when it's ready, so users will always have a choice.

 

[WizardStan]

Why?

Because it already is


Granted openhandhelds is on there as well, but you can't officially sanction every website that comes along to host applications, right? From a business perspective, you're going to have to pick just one to be official, the one place that new users are directed first: it's part of Craig's vision, a single location that is easy to navigate and download from for the new users that are used to an Apple type app store. If PNDStore becomes that official method of downloading, then it's even more important that Craig either work with the community in implementing the repo spec, or blow the entire thing completely out of the way with how awesome it is.

 

[thatgui]

Why?

Because it costs craig time, motivation and energy to build something like that from the ground up. Even if he is a mad hacker he will be very busy for months. But there are still so much other problems which will be abandoned then - for what ?


As wizardstan said if craig would be a nobody everone would have welcomed his approach, but he is the man, and this whole thing won't do any good to the project.

 

[Mr_Loon]

Unfortunately I think you're right, some people here would have us go tits up rather than actually allowing huge changes to the way the Pandora works.


Although I keep saying that it's an open system and they DON'T HAVE TO USE MY GUI they just keep repeating the same old moaning.


Yet it is me that has to make this work AS A BUSINESS, and when people start sending their Pandora back because they can't understand the software on it things have to change very very quickly.


For some reason some people just cannot think outside their devbox, here is an idea, give your Pandora to your Gran, ask her to try to use it.


See what happens.


Now speak to her and ask her the things it could have done to help the experience along.


Now you're starting to get somewhere.


(note that she won't be mentioning repo specs)


This whole thread is a perfect example of why open source will never defeat Apple, MS etc. your priorities with software are in the wrong place.

Craig, what you posted above is revelatory and slightly worrying if I've understood it correctly.


When asked how many Pandoras you'd like to sell you replied 12,000 - 16,000 units. I don't think you'll need to sell them to grannies to achieve that.


The last thing anyone wants to see here is OP Ltd go tits up, however if OP is in financial difficulty unless it gains mass market levels of sales then something pretty major has changed.


As for defeating Apple MS etc. how is this for a scenario :


1) OP Ltd sells 50,000 units to dedicated geeks/devs/gadgetophiles/retrogamers.


2) OP Ltd allows/supports/encourages the community to the community to provide the software side of things whilst concentrating on the hardware side of things, tv out cables, break out boxes / game grip, pandora cube etc.


3) The community steadily improves the usability and general quality of the software, these efforts accelerate as the user base increases.


4) 4 Years down the line OP Ltd Release Pandora2 and sell a million.


@ Everyone : Lets keep this civil, whatever your thoughts about Craig and his way of doing things you've got to totally respect the fact that he's here talking this over with us.


@ Craig, if you were a little more open about what exactly has to be done for the project to succeed then that might help.

 

[hakmanplayer]

I have one more thing to say and I am out.


If you owned a company and made a machine and that machine was being sent back from a great # buyers complaining that it was too difficult to use, wouldn't you want to alter the machine?? Wouldn't this upset you very much ?? Especially ,if your intentions were never to have this happen. Or perhaps you never saw this as a potential problem?


Plain and simple logic here from what I gather.


I do not know the man from ADAM but my heart goes out to Craigix.


There done.

 

[EvilDragon]

Why?

Because it already is


Granted openhandhelds is on there as well, but you can't officially sanction every website that comes along to host applications, right?

Oh, well, I made that site before the repo existed, I should certainly add it


I don't see a problem adding more, because I doubt there will be many BIG repositories in the near future.

 

[WizardStan]

If you owned a company and made a machine and that machine was being sent back from a great # buyers complaining that it was too difficult to use, wouldn't you want to alter the machine?? Wouldn't this upset you very much ?? Especially ,if your intentions were never to have this happen. Or perhaps you never saw this as a potential problem?

You are still acting like there are people against change. No one is against change. The problem is that most of the problems that Craig wants to solve are very nearly already solved by the community, but he is rejecting the work the community has done insisting that he can come up with something better in a few months.


That's fine, if he wants to try and come up with something better. In the meantime, the community will go ahead and start using their solution which solves the problems. I don't understand why Craig wants to build something entirely from scratch with no input from the community when the community nearly has something that addresses many of his problems.


edit: Also what Alerino said. While Craig is busy whipping up this new idea which he has only shared glimpses of in this thread, other problems which the community absolutely can't solve, such as nub, LCD, and general quality issues, are getting less attention.


double edit:

Oh, well, I made that site before the repo existed, I should certainly add it


I don't see a problem adding more, because I doubt there will be many BIG repositories in the near future.

Fair enough. It's still niggling at the back of my brain that to meet Craig's vision of an Apple-esque user experience, he'll insist on one single entry point for new users, but I can ignore that niggle for a few months until he comes back with his solution. It would make almost my entire argument moot, which I would greatly love to happen.

 

[Linopoly]

Why are you getting angry at each other? I do not understand.. please explain why it is so frustrating that Craig makes his own "app manager".

As I've said, if Craig were just any other person making his own thing I don't think there'd be any problem. He'd make his thing and people would be free to use it or not as they see fit.


Craig isn't just any other person, though: he is the face and voice of OpenPandora. Whatever he comes up with will no doubt be implemented into the official App Store that he's been trying to promote. It will be the default repository that new users will be presented with. If it's not at least comparable to what the rest of the community comes up with to solve the same problem, these new users will be missing out.

Why? As he said, his will be optional, the stuff from the devs will stay.


And I plan to include PNDStore with HF6 into the OS. His solution will also be included when it's ready, so users will always have a choice.

EvilDragon, I hope that your recognition of the community efforts, and the fact that you have the final say on what goes into the default firmware, will be enough to reassure existing developers and potential contributors, and calm down this thread.

I won't be supporting the repo spec because I wrote and made a spec for updates over a year ago with Pandora apps. That's the one I'll be using as it's solid and works.


Almost all the messages in this thread are writting from a dev point of view. Take the dev hat off. Casual games don't care about your repo spec, they just want a way to download apps and have them work, ideally from a SINGLE repo, Pandora apps, which has been online and working for over a year.

People don't care about repos, either, they just want to tap something that lets them install software, browse or search, and then install things in one click. It just so happens that PNDStore and the repo spec are all about implementing that.


There's nothing wrong with you doing your own thing, but you appear to be rejecting good work without having made any attempt to understand or reuse it. It should be obvious from this thread that this is frustrating for people who've volunteered to work on improving the user experience, but it may not be obvious that other readers of this thread will decide it's actually not worth their time to get involved with user experience work, because it looks like you'll just reject it. For anyone actually concerned by this, see above.

I honestly don't believe Pandora will have a iDevice appeal being a linux based machine, not being able to fix recurring problems and not fulfilling 2008-2009 orders yet. I'll be glad and delighted if that happens. Once again, read my lips: Pandora is NICHE and always will be.

He wants Apple and Android, the community wants Linux and open source.

You seem to want to imply that Linux and FOSS somehow stand for unfriendly software, when the selling points are actually that they usually offer more flexibility. This doesn't prevent us from offering a good user experience at the same time.

tl;dr We should be using portage, and you know it!

We pretty much are. BitBake recipes are basically ebuilds. I haven't actually made any PNDs yet, but I assume it would be pretty straightforward for someone to write a couple dozen lines of code to allow recipes to output into PND format. I don't know if DJWillis or someone else has done this. I'm not sure what the uptake would be for existing developers, but it would probably make it a bit easier to port software to PNDs using existing Angstöm recipes.

 

[wdt]

Craig, I hope this is not distracting you from finishing the last 1/3 of batch 1


Apps.openpandora does not tell firefox how big the download is, so firefox does not know


how long until the dl is done. After the 1st time this would not matter BUT


many of the inf pages do NOT say how big the pnd is


For example the java.pnd. Good thing fixefox has a pause button,


or the air would still be blue. On 56K internet, 34MB=3 hours dl


pot - kettle - black


dave


edit: cannot open any of the links (apps.openpandora) in a new tab, most annoying


My browser always has too many tabs open


Also is almost unuseable with Konqueror, my prefered browser

 

[notaz]

I won't be supporting the repo spec because I wrote and made a spec for updates over a year ago with Pandora apps. That's the one I'll be using as it's solid and works.

Oh yeah, the ultra-professional apps thing. I've spent months of my free time working on PCSX fork which I named "PCSX ReARMed". Now let's take a look at the apps site - it's called "PSX-ReARMed" in the list. Ohwell, maybe a typo *click on it's entry*. "PCSX4All by Notaz" is says. WTF? PCSX4All is entirely different and mostly unrelated project! I can only see this as an insult to all the work I put in that thing. And you wonder why devs get angry at you.


Craig, this is what the repo spec is for. It's rules for data to be entered by authors for their programs. And the authors know their programs best, don't you agree? It's not for kids, granmas or typical users - it's for devs of GUIs, repo sites, package managers and the likes. It has nothing to do with what user sees in the end, it's all hidden deep inside. Apple/Android stores have their specs too.


I don't know why you want to drop the information the apps themselves provide you using the repo spec and replace with inaccurate/false information in your own database, which you do awful job maintaining, as illustrated by example above.

 

[Bosbeetle]

oops didnt see the last 4 pages


As a computer noob I would like to say that on my pandora it is a lot easier to install and uninstall apps that on my win7 machine, and every time I try an apple I get completely lost.


When I hand it to my girlfriend who normally doesnt touch a pc outside of msn, she just points at a game and starts it, even with emulators, press gameboy press tetris. Not hard at all.


Setting up an emulator on an iphone is a lot harder (i dont know anything about iphones but this : http://www.ehow.com/how_7645472_snes-iphone.html sounds harder to me than download pnd put in folder)


BTW how do all these people that have no clue about emulation and pcs know how to rip their cartridges?

 

[hakmanplayer]

If you owned a company and made a machine and that machine was being sent back from a great # buyers complaining that it was too difficult to use

Do you believe this BS?


there has been tens and tens of RMAs, not because it's "difficult", but because of LCD, Wifi and Nubs.

It's not 'BS' as you describe. This is a real problem and in my opinion is the crux of the issue here.


Have you not read everything posted?


On another note...It is a shame that so many of you have your feelings hurt or egos battered.


However, feelings and egos are not going to put money in the bank!!!


Bottom Line. B)

 

[Caine]

Setting up an emulator on an iphone is a lot harder (i dont know anything about iphones but this : http://www.ehow.com/how_7645472_snes-iphone.html sounds harder to me than download pnd put in folder)

Regardless of the status quo on other platforms, improving usability is still a valid goal. I agree with you that it isn't particularly hard on the Pandora, but I frequently have a hard time placing myself in the shoes of computer illiterates. So I mostly leave usability judgement to others.

BTW how do all these people that have no clue about emulation and pcs know how to rip their cartridges?

You know the answer to that one, they don't. Regardless, even acquiring images through less legal channels is way harder than copying a file to a folder. A single text file with some SD-card setup instructions should solve a large part of the problems. Yet, this doesn't invalidate the case made by Craig to improve usability. Furthermore, there are corner cases (such as e.g. loading data files into appdata) which can be a bit trickier, though I don't see these solved by anything discussed here so far either.

 

[milkshake]

Oh, well, I made that site before the repo existed, I should certainly add it


I don't see a problem adding more, because I doubt there will be many BIG repositories in the near future.

add it

 

[milkshake]

It's not 'BS' as you describe. This is a real problem and in my opinion is the crux of the issue here.


Have you not read everything posted?


On another note...It is a shame that so many of you have your feelings hurt or egos battered.


However, feelings and egos are not going to put money in the bank!!!


Bottom Line. B)

its not about battered egos at all, and to be honest your comments rich for someone that doesn't really seem know all of the facts.


If you want something easy then go buy a Nintendo DS or PSP -> insert cartridge/UMD disc load game, DONE!! (i'm sure Craig has told people like you the same thing in the past... whats changed his mind now?)


maybe you shouldn't blindly jump into something you don't fully understand, most people here knew what they were getting into (at least they weren't expecting an i-Craig like you) and didn't start slagging the system off or telling other members of the contributing community that they cannot see past their ball sack, thats very polite of you.

 

[hakmanplayer]

It's not 'BS' as you describe. This is a real problem and in my opinion is the crux of the issue here.


Have you not read everything posted?


On another note...It is a shame that so many of you have your feelings hurt or egos battered.


However, feelings and egos are not going to put money in the bank!!!


Bottom Line. B)

its not about battered egos at all, and to be honest your comments rich for someone that doesn't really seem know all of the facts.


If you want something easy then go buy a Nintendo DS or PSP -> insert cartridge/UMD disc load game, DONE!! (i'm sure Craig has told people like you the same thing in the past... whats changed his mind now?)


maybe you shouldn't blindly jump into something you don't fully understand, most people here knew what they were getting into (at least they weren't expecting an i-Craig like you) and didn't start slagging the system off or telling other members of the contributing community that they cannot see past their ball sack, thats very polite of you.

Your statement is totally unfounded. Craigix or nobody ever told me that. You are the first. I worked very , very hard to get to the enjoyment level I am now with the Pandora. Believe me when I say it was very hard for me and at times I was ready to sell it or do a Keith Moon with it. But I never complained about the Pandora in these forums or to anyone because I saw the greatness in it. Long ago , I did post a very positive review in this Forum but i am sure you were too busy being an expert to read it.


That pompous reply does not surprise me. I already own a 3DS,PSP but I wanted to venture into something different ; so sue me milkdud,!!!


But that is the exact kind of response I am getting at. You milkdud, make a mountain out of a molehill and refuse to see the bottom line. This is larger in scope than you can conceive.


By the way , I was referring to YOUR ball sack if you even have one left.

 

[milkshake]

Your statement is totally unfounded. Craigix or nobody ever told me that. You are the first. I worked very , very hard to get to the enjoyment level I am now with the Pandora.


That pompous reply does not surprise me. I already own a 3DS,PSP but I wanted to venture into something different ; so sue me milkdud,!!!


But that is the exact kind of response I am getting at. You milkdud, make a mountain out of a molehill and refuse to see the bottom line. This is larger in scope than you can conceive.


By the way , I was referring to YOUR ball sack if you even have one left.

who is refusing to see the bottom line? i dont think anyone in here inclding me has said that the pandora shouldnt be more user friendly, in fact we all had this idea before craig even mentioned it, we started to implament it before craig decided to talk about it.


All we are trying to say is why are we not working toether to make this better, why start from scratch when the groundwork has already been laid? craig can tell us if there anything we could do beter instead of just running off to do it himself.


teamwork = win!


the end goal is the same sell more pandoras + improve ease of use > do so by improving user expeiance.


do you now see the bottom line?

 

[Caine]

Come on guys, keep it civil please.

 

[skeezix]

yes, name calling is unacceptable.


Also remember.. it is us who built the firmware, from scratch, in our spare time; milkshake has done more for pandora than most people (he built the repo), and WizStan is a big piece of whats going into HF6; don't forget that all the people arguing here are arguing because of their passion.


We've all put thousands of hours into building this sucker


I'm hopeful Craig will see the wisdom of long inthe tooth developers, and carefully pick and choose what to keep, what to toss out, not just toss it all out ("baby with the bathwater") out of lack of understanding; he's not built the firmware, doesn't really know too well how unix and linux work nor how the many layers backend, frameworks and middleware and frontends work. (not his fault, he's busy assembling units, just as mjweston is the designer; everyone has their piece.) ED makes the SD cards for Craigs team to use for flashing new Pandoras.. Craigs not there yet. But Craig is one determined guy, so if he choses to do this, then he will do it; I think he _will_; hopefully it turns out as awesome as he likes, since that woudl be great He did pump out the appstore over a couple weeks.. it may have issues and whatnot, but can't deny it works.


ie: Just as Craig is not writign his own kernels, or his own Apache replacement for the appstore, you have to decide where on the line is your palce; did he write his own CGI module for perl, or use CGI.pm? He likes pnds, and I think he's using libpnd.


He's not really on top of libpnd probably, so does he know it can handle his button input for him, or is ghe going to try to reimplement the wheel there and introduce a larger footprint, a large surface area for bugs to creep in?


This is what we're talkin gabout.. the continuum from left to right.. how far back is he goign to go, and will he go 'too far'? (If he goes 'too far' for fun of the hack, all the power; but idfeally, minimisinfg the new work, to get the job done, is far more effidcient for his time, and getting to his goals.)


Consider -- the whole 'detect roms and move them to the right place' issue; coudl build up a whiole new infrastructure to do it ... or just add a script tot he existing mount-script (when a SD is put in, a script is run to do the mounting and put it into /media, etc.) Coudl just add a line there to invoke his own script, which in turn offers the user the chocie to relocate the files or to never ask again (for experienced users.) Then try to move them, or whatever it wants to do.


This could be done with the current system, and be done in an afternoon.. without redoing the whole world..


.. but thats just one piece of his vision I'm sure; he wants a nice simple interface, etc and so on. Good!


But you see my point.. we all build a very comprehensive system, that he can leverage; a toolbox if you will. But if he builds his own hammer, okay..


--


I build minimenu, for him; he asked me for it, a week befoer we thought we were shipping, so I built in, worked my tail off; I even made some choices of design for him (he wants Start button to start an app, so it does , and daveC designed a lot of the artwork and the way it works and wrestled like mad; but it was for Craig. I'll not be offended he now wants to write another interface, such is life.


--


We are, after all, professionals.


(this is what Hunter S Thomson said when he had an underling getting a tattoo, so he coudl write a news article about tatoo parlours


jeff

 

[Esn]

I won't be supporting the repo spec because I wrote and made a spec for updates over a year ago with Pandora apps. That's the one I'll be using as it's solid and works.

Hi Craig, any chance that your repo spec will be made public to the community? If not, is there a particular reason for why not? If it had been made public a year ago, maybe somebody would have already coded a PNDstore-type app for your own Appstore. Heck, if you make it public now, maybe someone will still do that.

I don't think a lot of you people want this machine to become popular and widespread because then you loose your self anointed importance!!!!

And I think you just like having enemies in life because it's easier than listening to the actual words that people are saying.

Almost all the messages in this thread are writting from a dev point of view. Take the dev hat off. Casual games don't care about your repo spec, they just want a way to download apps and have them work, ideally from a SINGLE repo, Pandora apps, which has been online and working for over a year.

I don't know the first thing about devving, so I was writing from a user perspective. I do agree with pretty much everything that WizardStan has said here, though. I think both the devs and you share roughly the same goals, but your refusal to compromise, share or work with anyone else is slowing everything down.


You're assuming that dev and user interests are entirely unconnected, and I don't share that assumption.


Plus, the existence of the Repo is indirectly helping your Appstore; see my post here.

Now I believe they need a beautiful apple-style GUI which does everything for them, and thus the Pandora 'just works'.

This may mean hacks to emulators and such, but I'm quite confident it can all be done neat and tidy.

Okay, good luck. The main issue is not that you have bad ideas, but that people think you're chasing unattainable pipe-dreams when your main efforts would be better spent on things that only you can do like building Pandoras as quickly as possible and working on TV-cables.


You're promising utopia, but ignoring hard questions and not giving any details when pressed about how it will work, and if it was so easy, why nobody has done it before. Can you fault people for being suspicious? We've all watched elections, and this sounds just like what politicians do.