Re:Do We Really Need Another Smartphone OS?
by slurry on Sunday January 06, 2013 @12:21PM
(#5016854)
> I don't know what to think about web-apps based operating systems like Firefox OS yet,
I think it is a mistake. A modern operating system, particularly on mobile where power management and security are concerns, needs a mature well-optimized managed code environment to write middleware and more complicated applications in - hence Objective-C with automatic reference counting on iOS and Java/Dalvik on Android.
HTML5 for all uses under the sun is going to either underperform users' expectations or drain power, or both; and letting unmanaged C applications in is a recipe for disaster.
I would like to be excited about this, but I do not think the architecture as presented makes any sense.
Re:Do We Really Need Another Smartphone OS?
by gtufano on Sunday January 06, 2013 @02:28PM
(#5017378)
Objective-C is not "managed". iOS apps are sandboxed, but obj-c is very near to C (and most of the Foundation API are pure C). Also, ARC is not mandatory and there is no garbage collector on iOS.
Re:Do We Really Need Another Smartphone OS?
by slurry on Sunday January 06, 2013 @02:49PM
(#5017463)
Nonsense. If my Objective-C app is sandboxed, it is "managed". Saying ARC "is not mandatory" is another way of saying it is "enabled by default". There is little formal computational difference between ARC and a conservative garbage collector.
Fact: Objective-C is "managed".
I don't care as much about Tizen and Sailfish, but I'd rather see strong open source competitors standing up against Android and iOS, than more closed ones like WP8 and BB10.
I think, if not Samsung, at least more desperate companies like HTC, LG and Sony should definitely give Ubuntu a fair try. Asus might do it anyway, as they are already making Ubuntu laptops, and they have that whole Padfone thing going on, but they haven't been very successful in smartphones yet.