GTA03 case should incorporate stylus holder

[Michael 'Mickey' Lauer]

On Thursday 05 June 2008 23:14:41 Stroller wrote:
> On 5 Jun 2008, at 18:46, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote:
> > On Thursday 05 June 2008 18:04:32 Stroller wrote:
> >> On 5 Jun 2008, at 15:38, Ron K. Jeffries wrote:
> >>> Can the revised case for GTA03 *please* be designed
> >>> to hold a stylus?
> >>
> >> Nooooooo!
> >>
> >> Stylii are EVIL!
> >>
> >> If I can't operate an app with my fingers, then there's no place for
> >> that app on my mobile phone!
> >
> > A stylus is inevitable given a certain combination of application
> > type and
> > physical display size.
> >
> > That doesn't mean that we will not write all our apps finger-
> > compatible (we
> > also hate stylii),
>
> I think what you're saying there is that 1st-party apps will be
> finger-compatible, but that "ported" applications are not sure to be
> optimised for finger use.

Yes, that's what I wanted to express with the double negation.

> > _but_ being an open device, we should not lock out people
> > who _need_ to have lots of tiny stuff on their screen hence need to
> > operate
> > with a stylus.
>
> If the Openmoko dream is a beautiful, consistent interface that
> doesn't need a stylus, then including a slot for one is kinda an
> admission of defeat.

Of course, we dream about beautiful consistent interfaces. The same dream that 
the Linux desktop world is dreaming, alas it didn't happen in the last couple 
of decades.

The Openmoko dream is also about emporing users to realize _their_ ideas of 
applications. If these require a stylus, not including a compartment for one 
is counterproductive.

> Surely most end-users are - in the long-term future of Openmoko -
> going to use mostly the preinstalled applications, or the "core
> distro" and only add one or two extra applications. Sure, developers
> of those additional apps are going to need stylii, as they compile
> Thunderbird   for ARM architecture and the buttons are really tiny,
> but the aim of applications coming-on-board to Openmoko should surely
> to be finger-capable.
>
> Including a stylus holder just allows developers to say, "oh, fingers
> don't matter".

I guess we just disagree here.

> Enable anyone to install extra apps
> on their phone, and *anyone* to use it. A fiddly stylus just makes
> the device less accessible.

Show me a finger-sized on-screen keyboard for a terminal application where you 
don't have to switch between dozens of layouts to get to the full set of 
characters. Then we can talk again.

:M: