QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 - product management, features & assumptions

Ken Young rtm at cfa.harvard.edu
Tue Jun 10 20:59:05 CEST 2008


Stroller wrote:

> Reading these posts of the last few days it has just occurred to me
> that it's not Carsten we should be beating up on here.
> Who the heck asked for translucency and flashy animations?
>
> Management seem to be asking for this "alpha" bleeding rubbish, and
> it seems to me that we users need to be telling management that we
> don't care a heck for it.

Amen to that!

> Sure, I know the iPhone does this now, but that doesn't mean Openmoko
> has to do it. Do we really want Openmoko to be just another iPhone
> clone? I know we see a fair number of posts on here about the iPhone,
> but surely that's just a result of the current buzz - is UI animation
> really a *necessity* in the long-term (or medium-term) future of the
> mobile phone market?

This is especially true because if the GTA03 tries to be an iPhone
clone, it will be at best a half-assed iPhone clone.   The hardware just
isn't competitive with an iPhone's.   If the GTA03 has QVGA, will it have
fast 3G networking?   No.   Will it have a state-of-the-art SoC?   No.
That's not to say the GTA03 will be a bad device.   There's a lot
of very exciting things you can do with the Freerunner hardware.   But
it's just stupid to try to imitate the slick, largely useless, graphics
goodies found on high-end video feature phones.   It is also a little
alarming to hear that alpha blending is even being discussed by corporate
OM personnel, when you consider the state of the current OM software stack.

I don't think OM should target consumers who care about watching videos
and having slick graphics at all.   They should go after uses of Palm
and RIM products, who will be attracted to a rich ecosystem of useful
3rd party applications, and a phone geared towards letting professional
people get some work done.   There are not nearly so many of those
people as there are Apple fanboys, but they are willing to part with
serious money to get the best phone for their work and hobbies.

Think Differently!
               --

Ken Young





More information about the community mailing list