Survey about the Touchscreen

Steve Mosher steve at openmoko.com
Mon Nov 24 01:36:31 CET 2008


Neil,

    We could not have said it better. In my view the surveys serve a 
good, albeit limited, purpose. They get ideas out in the open and expose 
potential shortcoming of various design decisions. In the end, design 
decisions are complex system dependent choices, choices made under 
constraint. Very rarely does anyone know or appreciate all of the 
constraints, especially when it comes to constraints such as cost,
schedule, reliability, sourcing, etc. In some cases, under certain 
design philosophies the decision process is simplified somewhat by a 
mantra such as "design to cost" wherein cost drives every decision. Been 
there; done that. We could also optimize designs for time to market. The 
path we are taking, as you note, is designing for openness. What does 
that mean? and how do we measure it? The designs are invitations to 
innovation, where the insanely great product is built outside our walls.
So one way to measure it is by the work the community does. Did they 
accept the invitation to innovate? and perhaps more importantly how far 
away from our vision did they wander? The farther the better. That 
approach strikes many as odd, but we view the open design as a 
decentralization of power, the hallmark of which is diversity, not 
homogeneity.  So for example, we might ask WRT touch screens, does this 
design choice limit innovation or promote it. That's a tough one. 
Thanks for "getting" what we are after in our approach.

Neil Jerram wrote:
> 2008/11/22 Anton Persson <don.juanton at gmail.com>:
>> He, actually you're right.. I withdraw that remark.. It's OK hardware,
>> but with an excellent aesthetic design, and an innovative UI. A UI that
>> would
>> not have been possible if the multi-touch hardware was not in place.
>>
>>     /Anton
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 12:35 PM, robert lazarski <robertlazarski at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Anton Persson <don.juanton at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> And note that Apple doesn't have it's reputation since they make
>>>> poor
>>>> hardware decisions, but the opposite.
>>> Converesely, one could argue that apple has very mediocre hardware and
>>> its strength is both UI and things just work. Not that use apple for
>>> anything. More clutter ;-( .
> 
> So what this illustrates is that arguing in isolation a question like
> what kind of touchscreen to use doesn't make sense.  It only makes
> sense in the context of what overall product or goal you're trying to
> achieve.  Apple are good at that - but then it's vastly easier for
> them because their vision is of a single monoculture everywhere, and
> they have no interest in encouraging other options.  It's much more
> difficult for Openmoko, because their very point is not to dictate the
> final product.
> 
>    Neil
> 
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