DISQUS

#comments: What’s the point of smartphone OS’s on Netbooks?

  • howie · 7 months ago
    My netbook came with a perfectly capable copy of Ubuntu pre-installed on it. To me, it might as well have been a smartphone OS. The icons were big and few, it had a pre-installed solution for all my basic needs, it didnt run anything i already owned.

    If the hardware is capable of running it, i think people will want the interface they are used to that runs the applications they already have and that their cousin can fix over the phone. The iPhone was so successful as a software platform because no one really knew or loved their previous smartphone OS.
  • felix · 7 months ago
    I agree, although if that interface really expects a much larger screen it may be inappropriate. I think, to some degree that's why WinMob suffers so much, it doesn't do enough to customize the desktop experience for the smaller interface. I think that for netbooks, though, that it's closer to a laptop then a smartphone and so, as you say, the more familiar experience will win out.