Alex Reich

No, I didn't trade my Tilt for an iPhone. But I did notice a lot of people in line here in LA on Day 2 were 'upgrading' from their AT&T Tilt (aka the ATT TILT TyTN II HTC 8925) into the iPhone 3G.

It's not just the name that is simpler either; the apps are very simple and easy to operate. However, when I hear that the new phone is more powerful than my trusty Tilt (w/a weak tilt), I think of all the wealth of applications that can't yet be run on it as well as the very simple but critical role of tethering I use with my phone all the time. Still, I have to wonder when Silverlight Mobile will ever see the light of day.
What kind of processor will we need to get that cool vector processing? An atom in a cell phone, no doubt. Otherwise, those grandiose creations that work so well on the desktop won’t translate onto the mobile experience. What about ANSI art?

So will Android kick everyone’s butt when it comes out?

Will the oPhone ever really become a reality? (outside of a reference to an object, that is)

Will the iPhone bring an end to teenage no-look texting?

And BTW: If you noticed a removed post, I am under agreements not to comment on certain APIs – Thanks.

Yes, the title is correct. And why should they not? Perhaps not a moment too soon.

Really, as hobbyists know, all the interesting work is done on the fringes, and is often as a result of the work developed by others. Giving away a legacy OS w/no support, but still compatible w/modern operating systems (save for a few ancient DOS apps) would be a nice gesture. As Vista progresses (Dreamscape is cool, btw), people running a free copy of Windows 3.1, or Windows 95 may be content w/such a machine.

But that is the crux of the problem. The main competition to Windows in the last few years has not been Linux or OS X. It has been 'good enough' implementations of whatever technologies companies had invested in, mainly Windows 2000. And despite many arguments to the contrary, as an intranet business desktop, it (Windows 2000) goes a long way.

So where does that leave Ubuntu, the supposed new golden child versus a free but older copy of Windows? It makes for an interesting matchup. Even the mainstream Ubuntu Mr. Shuttleworth is giving away is really geared towards modern hardware. The tie breaker will go to whether Wine 1.0 will run those great legacy games as fast as the operating systems they were designed for: early 16-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows.

So how about it? Let's call it Windows Community Edition w/ads for Vista but also create a Windows Classic for hobbyists and in some community license. These make for some interesting options.

And as for older hardware sticking around longer in such a scenario, until and if a truly green pc is available, tinkering with what's at hand is a lot easier to justify versus investing in new hardware when gas is +$4.