
Alternatives to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone - maudlinmau5
http://www.techhive.com/article/2031515/four-alternatives-to-android-ios-and-windows-phone.html
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JVIDEL
Yeah, no: I live in Argentina and nobody, NOBODY here is going to get a
FirefoxOS phone. The deal with emerging markets is that people here still
cares about personal image which is the only reason why iPhones are still
being sold despite being several times the price of Android phones due to
import taxes. Couple that with Chinese Android phones that are getting better
and cheaper every month and why would anyone get a phone that due to volume
won't be cheaper and that will have only a fraction of the support?

UP's achilles heel is the lack of proprietary hardware, 99% of the users out
there can't even root their phones let alone install a completely different OS
on it. Couple that with the innability to run Android apps and the horrible UX
that is unity and you have a package nobody wants.

Sailfish has no chance at all of growing beyond a very small niche of people.
Tizen is basically Samsung's attempt at getting Google out of the picture now
that is the biggest fish in the phone sea.

BB10 is a better option than most of these OS', even WebOS should be in this
list and yet for some reason it was left aside.

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npsimons
Glad to see Tizen and Sailfish mentioned. As an N900 owner, I'm currently torn
between them; I've always loved the sleek shininess of Enlightenment, but
Sailfish is the obvious upgrade path. Or maybe I should just roll my own:
<https://wiki.debian.org/pkg-n900>

Ah, so many fun options, so little time :)

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networked
Don't forget about Open webOS [1]. At the very least the progress of its
Galaxy Nexus port is curious to watch [2], though I wonder how the recent
acquisition of rights to webOS by LG might influence the project.

[1] <http://www.openwebosproject.org/>.

[2] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XelmomAq91o>

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Zigurd
I believe LG's licensing WebOS will have as much impact as their licensing of
SavaJe had at the time.

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Zigurd
Of these, Sailfish has the most serious and experienced team behind it. It
won't leave the shop unfinished. It is do or die for Jolla. For everyone else
phone OSs are a hobby.

Everyone else is learning by doing. Even Samsung. Samsung's feature phones run
RTOSs licensed by Samsung, and, of course, while Samsung has made some
impressive modifications to Android, that's far from showing they can make a
complete modern phone OS.

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fingerprinter
I don't know if/how you can say that Ubuntu Touch is a "hobby". And outside of
Apple and MS, there is literally no other company as experience at creating an
operating system as Canonical and the Ubuntu community.

Based on the early revs, Ubuntu is by far the most polished.

Canonical is also led by someone with a driving vision, very deep pockets and
an absolute want to make a mark on mobile.

So, Ubuntu has the most experienced team, the most polished early rev product
and a focused founder. No way that Ubuntu Touch isn't the front runner here.
Frankly, it isn't even close (or fair) to compare the rest to Ubuntu.

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MatthewPhillips
I agree with the grandparent. This matters more to Jolla; it's literally their
company. If Sailfish doesn't catch on they will go out of business. I'd feel
better if I knew in advance that everything they are working on is open
source.

While Ubuntu has experience bundle's open source software and to a smaller
extent creating their own, they don't have any experience in mobile, which is
a different ball game entirely. Early progress is impressive though, I will
agree.

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dholowiski
I'm not sure how these are actually alternatives, if you can't actually get a
phone with any of these OS's on them.

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josteink
Both Ubuntu Touch [1] and Firefox OS currently has ports to numerous models of
phones which you can flash if you unlock it (albeit most highly unofficial).

Usually these are Android-phones, already open-source friendly and easy to
build for. You will find all the relevant details in the appropriate sub-
forums on XDA. If you want to try them today, you can.

This should definitely not be confused for vapourware.

[1] <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices#Work_in_progress>

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melling
Blackberry? How do the new models rate? From the couple of reviews that I
read, their new products seem good.

~~~
HorizonXP
I've been using a device for several months, and have been developing on
BlackBerry 10 for even longer. It's a joy to use and develop for.

I write most of my apps in Python, and they work beautifully. I'm able to
rapidly prototype and make changes as needed. Having done a lot of Android
development, I can say the BlackBerry development tools and methods are
actually easier and better to use. I think iOS dev is still more mature
though.

Sales for my app have been decent. I need to push out an update soon, and do
some more marketing to help it out though.

As a user, the device is great. I'm running the release OS on a Dev Alpha B,
but I'll be getting a limited edition device once I ship this prototype back.
It's smooth, fast, and works the way I expect it too. Again, having several
Android devices, I can say that that OS never worked quite the way I did.

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candl
Could you give more details as to how you develop with Python? Is it done via
PySide? My impression was that you could only use C++/Qt, HTML5/JavaScript or
Adobe AIR for BB10. I plan to get a Z10 soon with the intention to port an
application from Windows Phone along the way. I was mentally preparing for
C++, but if Python works good enough then I may skip C++ altogether (I did
some small PySide apps in the past, but this time I'd like to learn QML).

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shawn-butler
There are two approaches to using any interpreter. One is to using python
wrappers and existing python GUI toolikits simply by using the "official"
QNX/Python hook entry point into the app lifecycle. [0]

The other is to go deeper and integrate with cascades UI and process messages
between the QML/Qt framework and a python event loop. [1] Project going this
route can be found at <http://hg.microcode.ca/blackberry-py/src/>

Other "semi-supported" interpreters include Lua and Erlang. [2] I'm sure
someone has a ruby vm by now.

[0]: [http://peterhansen.ca/blog/bbx-python-direct-entry-
point.htm...](http://peterhansen.ca/blog/bbx-python-direct-entry-point.html)

[1]: <http://peterhansen.ca/blog/blackberry-tart-preview.html>

[2]: <https://github.com/blackberry>

~~~
HorizonXP
BlackBerry-Py is the project I'm currently using. More specifically, the Tart
branch.

(Disclosure: I'm one of the lead contributors.)

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apunic
You forgot BB OS 10

~~~
recoiledsnake
Interesting that if you count iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BB OS 10 as the
top four mobile OSes, they run four different kernels, BSD/XNU/Darwin, Linux,
WinNT and QNX. The four new competitors all seem to be using Linux (five if
you count WebOS).

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untog
I suspect that's a cost-saving measure as much as anything else. If you're a
scrappy small project, reusing the existing Linux kernel is probably a good
move.

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MatthewPhillips
And if you're an entrenched BigCo you carry a lot of NIH belief along ;)

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Guvante
Actually it is more leveraging your existing experience. I don't know about
Blackberry, but the common kernel between your desktop OS and the mobile OS is
a good thing.

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shawn-butler
One of the drivers in making the purchase of qnx for RIM apparently was the
integration play in the embedded space. Automotive for example.

Have seen not much fruit of that other than the QNX car project [0]. I
remember seeing a Porshce at CES a year or two ago that had the system in it
and it integrated with the Blackberry Playbook pretty well.

[0]: <http://www.qnx.com/products/qnxcar/>

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ryanSrich
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the sticking point for mobile the
availability of apps and not the actual hardware/OS?

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berntb
My plan is:

For my next phone, I'll leave iOS and get a garbage feature phone (Symbian, or
something). This will be when I get my next iPad, which will have 4G (I'll
also need a small iPod for music).

I will just suffer adding phone numbers and writing SMS the old fashioned way
-- along with the week of battery life...

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gurkendoktor
If you are on a Mac, you could check if the emitSMS dashboard widget still
works. That's what I used to do in the OS X 10.4 & Nokia dumbphone days :) -
write SMS from my Mac whenever I had it running.

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berntb
Thanks for the tip, but nothing will happen until at least the next iPad is
released, since my present iPad only has wifi.

