1x58: Nappy Hue Year

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7

Hello

Thanks for this wonderful show. I really enjoyed it!

I liked the predictions, but I strongly disagree with the predictions on Canonical. Especially, the Ubuntu Phone part. I will really go so far as to say that I feel like you guys “Stuart (@sil) and Bryan (@bryanlunduke)” are a little biased against Canonical.
Now that all sounds very harsh, but it’s just a feeling I have when listening to your shows.

Before you ask, no I don’t work for Canonical.

Bryan always talks about Ubuntu Phone like he somehow wants it to fail or loves to dismiss it. Again, this is a feeling I have when listening to the show. It’s very likely that I’m wrong.
I suspect it has something to do with Unity in particular. Of course it’s all taste. But one can’t just scrap Ubuntu off the list, just because he or she doesn’t like Unity. Actually, I think a lot of people like Unity and WILL try Ubuntu Phone because off Unity 8 (and convergence).
I don’t understand why one would get the notion that Canonical will abandon Ubuntu Phone. Are these predictions just fun guesses or are they based upon ‘evidence’, because Canonical might be starting the year showing off a new piece of hardware:

To come back to the Unity thing… For me, a desktop manager should match the following points:

  • It has to put as much focus, on the program I’m using, as possible.
  • It has to be User friendly (I want to be able to find my way without using keyboard shortcuts)
  • It has to look pretty

I use Unity for programming and it’s currently the only Manager that does al the above points correctly. Of course, I have to admit that Unity still suffers from bugs and glitches, but those aren’t a big deal really.
First off, all the apps are full screen, thanks to the integrated menu’s and the hidden sidebar. I don’t need a separate title and menu bar, It’s just unnecessary. I just don’t want to waste an inch of my screen to information I don’t need. Put the focus on the software I’m currently using!
Secondly, Unity is user friendly. YES the dash is a mess in a few places, but I use it quite a lot. The dash has all the features I need, unlike the other application menu’s in the Linux world. I’m always able to find my documents and programs via the search engine, it’s easy to search and install new applications, It shows me recent documents and programs, etc…
Other than that, the lenses (not talking about the home and application lens) and 3 year old bugs are garbage, but it doesn’t outweigh the positive features.
Also the hud is awesome and very handy in applications like gimp and inkscape.
To end my rant… Unity just looks good. I know a few parts of the Unity 7 desktop look like they were designed in the year 2000… But take a look at Unity 8, it looks simply gorgeous. I find the different colors, when an application is active in the task bar, to be very distinctive (unlike Windows 10, where I have to refocus my eyes to see which programs are active).

Please, I’m only describing my personal experience with the Linux desktop (I also tried other distro’s and Desktop managers). So don’t take it personal yourself!

BRYAN YOU ARE THE REASON WHY I STARTED WATCHING BAD VOLTAGE, so I definitely have nothing against you! :wink: I look forward to you next Linux Sucks video. You may have noticed the million views I gave you on the previous one.
The reason why I keep on listening to Bad Voltage, is because I love funny but educated hosts like Bryan and Stuart who are very opinionated and have an entertaining way in sharing their opinions!

Also, good day to Jono and Jermey. Keep up the good work guys!

I’m probably wrong on everything I just said! Beye.

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I was pretty excited about this when I saw the kickstarter and signed right up. I dont think I’ve had a single successful transaction with it though. So now it sits in my wallet along side all my other cards. So George Costanza wallet mode still enabled.

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Can’t speak for the Duke, but for myself, I’ve published three of the top 100 apps on Ubuntu phone and I own three such phones, which I don’t think counts as being biased against it. Thinking it’s not gonna work is not necessarily bias :slight_smile:

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10

On the predictions, there kind of already exists a bendable phone. It bends only a little, but the LG G flex (2) does bend… So does this count as a prediction?

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I myself am personally of the opinion that a “flexible” display (and a “flexible” phone) can be bent in half. Being able to tweak it three degrees away from the vertical is not flexibility. The Empire State Building moves more than that in high winds. So anyone attempting to claim that that validates the prediction will be mercilessly mocked. :slight_smile:

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Fair enough, in that sense it is a rather risky prediction, which is brave enough. I like most of these predictions, makes me look forward to the rest of this year.

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Wow, yeah… You are right and I’ll have to apologize! That does not sound as ‘biased against’ at all. :slight_smile:

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I usually listen to the show while commuting, and often laugh out loud to the curious and/or annoyed stares of commuters around me.

Today while listening to the segment on Coin I wanted to yell out loud at not only @jonobacon but @sil too!

First of all, the world is not starting to use chip & PIN (or EMV) - the world has been using chip & PIN for at least 10 years now! Only the USA is now starting to use it. There’s a delightful Wikipedia article on the subject.

The Coin product is clearly targeting the American market, where mag-stripe is still the prevalent card reader technology. Just like Samsung’s wallet is irrelevant outside the USA.

Second of all, check-out the Stocard app on your phone. It holds all your loyalty cards, and for quite a few it can show you your points balance.

In fact, I should probably have been yelling at @jeremy since I expected him to jump in put an end to this non-sense but he never did!!! It was like that show when he was absent and those other three jokers could say what ever they wanted.

Thanks, that was cathartic.

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There is no way there will be any screen you can fold in half released in 2016 and that was not my prediction. The Flex is a phone that is slightly curved and will not break when you, well, flex it a bit. The spirit of my prediction is somewhere in the middle of those two and if the Flex is the most bendable device of 2016 then my prediction will be a fail.

–jeremy

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I worked for two years for a company creating an electronic wallet you can install on your smartphone and use NFC to pay with, and I can tell you there is a tremendous amount of problems to have this kind of project going mainstream:

  1. Too many security options: when you want to store a credit card on a smartphone, there are different ways of doing it: using a special SIM card that contains a secure element, using an external secure element (e.g. a special micro SD card), using Google’s HCE, …
  2. Too many phones: the customer wants your solution to work on every phone. Fine. But Apple forbids you from accessing a secure element, Google’s HCE works, well, only on Google devices (and only ones enabled with a specific version of Android), etc.
  3. @jonobacon mentioned it during the segment, and a lot of potential customers (me included) said it before: if I had a wallet, I would like to be able to store all my coupon cards, as well as my transportation cards and, yes, my bank cards. Personally, I think to get a techno like this started, people should feel comfortable using it for little things such as coupon cards (or the cards you can get in shops such as fill 10 stamps and get 1 item free). Unfortunately, all the customers we’ve had while I was in that company were obsessed by the bank side of the thing only. And the problem is…
  4. Working with banks is hard. It’s very hard. It’s a bunch of old specifications, old technologies you have to interact with, old stuff that takes forever to validate or respond whereas the end user is expecting an immediate feedback.
  5. Too many partners, too complicated for the end user: in our case, if an end user wanted to install the wallet on his phone, he had to:
  • have an account in the right bank
  • have one of the few compatible Android devices
  • be a customer in a specific Telco
  • have a special SIM card from that Telco
    As a user, would you really endure so much pain to have the beta version of an app that only works with one type of card from one bank? (back then, there was no other coupon cards or things like that)
  1. A lot of end users feel insecure using a smartphone as their bank card(s). In France for instance, people are freaking out just with the Paypass/Paywave debit cards (the cards with an antenna you can use to pay by tapping it on a point of sale), so imagine for them paying using a device that is connected to the Internet all the time!

In the end, I think the mix of technical complexity and partners that are unable to all go in the same direction for the sake of the project make the whole thing very unlikely to success for the time being.

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You hear that, Stu-Stu? We’re funny and educated! Look at us be all fancypants!

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18

Yeah, I don’t think either Stuart or I are biased against Ubuntu as a phone platform. Speaking for myself, I tend to be rather hard on it because I see so much potential that every misstep and missed opportunity gets me all cranky.

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19

Mark just finished his keynote at scale and it doesn’t sound like Canonical is planning on scaling back on mobile.

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Were we listening to the same keynote? He didn’t mention phones at all! All snappy and juju.

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21

Not being there I can’t sense the tone, but IME that’ s a pretty goods sign of quietly forgetting the stuff that’s not going so well and concentrating on the New Hotness (or in Juju’s case the not so new hotness).

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Episode verdict: too much Brian. Best in measured doses. The Jorge Castro interview wasn’t very interesting (hey, I’m sure the project is awesome at what it does, it’s just that what it does is not very interesting) and Brian being rude to the guy didn’t make it any funnier.

I only say this as it’s an unusual departure from your normal high standard :slight_smile: Love you guys. Really.

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Does it have the same side effects as excessive magnesium? :smile:

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Exactly the same effects.

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It’s not looking great for that Ubuntu Phone prediction: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/02/17/meizu-pro-5-ubuntu-edition-launches-globally/

My flexible display prediction (which was admittedly a reach) may have been a bit optimistic, but this is still impressive: http://gizmodo.com/this-flexible-prototype-is-a-glimpse-at-your-future-pho-1759592057

–jeremy

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I’m trying to remember, was the prediction that there would not be an Ubuntu phone this year?