* Posts by RSmith

6 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Jun 2010

What's Android Silver? Samsung preps Tizen mobes 'for Russia, India'

RSmith

Samsung isn't the problem with updates. All the Note 3s have gotten Kit Kat a long time ago except mine, which is on Verizon. Verizon seems to be holding it up for some reason or another.

RSmith
WTF?

Re: I can't imagine Tizen being successful

Why shouldn't they create a revenue stream for Google? It's like saying the recording artist shouldn't be allowed getting revenue for the songs they record and the radio plays - that the record company should keep it all. Google created and maintains the OS they use. Google's payoff is the revenue stream it creates using their services. Samsung taps into a popular OS with a great ecosystem for free to sell some phones. Explain to me how Google should be pushed out of this picture?

RSmith
Meh

Ummm... Yes and no.

I don't quite agree. Samsung apps are a mixed bag. I have a Note 3 and several apps are night and day above Google's like S Planner. Several apps, unfortunately, are half baked and almost seem pointless that they tried to go their own route, such as S Voice. Google has great services, but S Planner, for instance, taps right into the Google Calendar, making transfer pretty easy.

Samsung recently made a pact with Google, and its predicted that it will no longer shove its apps down the throats of users in upcoming models, and you'll be able to get those apps from Play, instead of the Samsung app store, which also seems stupid.

As for Tizen, I think its a fail. You just don't have the infrustructure to get the users and its just too late in the game. Besides, Google stands in the way of Samsung and the carriers from having complete control over Android, which keeps it somewhat in tact from phone to phone. Tizen, on the other had, will be a wild west show with drastic differences between brands by the time they get done. Samsung and the carriers will be able to do as they please, just as the others will if they came on board, and we'll see the difference between using a Sony phone and a Samsung phone like going from OpenSuse to Ubuntu. They are just extremely different in so many ways...

Ubuntu team questions Distrowatch share slide figures

RSmith
Thumb Up

enigmatix said: '"The rich-man's-charity model has led to too many bad decisions" and far too much pious simpering from the believers.'

Absolutely. Shuttleworth has said all along it's a for-profit company, despite not making any profit at all since inception. I'm sure his Unity UI is how he wants to tackle slates/tablets, hoping to gain a foothold and finally make a profit.

Microsoft should starve on radical penguin diet

RSmith
Linux

Windows Linux

I've always said that if Microsoft was truly savvy, it would develop the next version of Windows as a Linux distro with proprietary Windows API's on top of it. The said distro would be able to run both Windows and Linux apps natively. That would all but shut down Linux and improve Windows greatly. This is similar to what Apple did with the release of OS X. However, they'd be eating crow and admitting Linux is superior than Windows by doing so, and Ballmer is too stubborn to admit that!

The Reg guide to Linux, part 1: Picking a distro

RSmith
Linux

My $0.02

Here's what I always suggest: If a user is new, I steer them to PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, or Linux Mint. Take your pick. All 3 are excellent newbie distros, each with their own unique take on Linux. After that, I recommend that people explore other distros until they find "their" distro. Lots of choices, all valid...