diligentcircle
Well-Known Member
I figured, but it looks to me like he's talking about just about the same thing. All I see different is describing it as an "appstore" instead of a package manager.
Target customers?
- Thread starter Binky
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I figured, but it looks to me like he's talking about just about the same thing. All I see different is describing it as an "appstore" instead of a package manager.
Caine
Hardcore Member
I think that you have lost many non-technical users at this point already ("I can't find root").
Maybe I should take a look at a simple SD-card preparation tool and an installer application which can be associated with PND files.
touché Caine...touché
Neelix
Insecticidal Maniac
I agree with this, but I have some hope that Panorama will provide an answer. Obviously it doesn't have the feature set needed to replace XFCE yet but in concept, it would allow for the flexibility of presenting a simple user-friendly UI for noobs and those that only care about the gaming with the option of complete customisability if desired....
-Neelix
Mr_Loon
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The fact is that at its current price point of approx $500 delivered the Pandora is never going to find mass market appeal. What we have is a niche product for a niche market.
As far as I can tell the Pandora has no direct competitors, so we should look at potential customers who would like a hand held mini computer with hardware keyboard and built in gaming controls.
If software were improved in certain areas then the niche could be broadened, for example I bet the Pandora would appeal to a lot of musicians if there was more dedicated software in that area.
Another angle I'd like to see followed up would be to make different versions of the Pandora available, such as a desktop version with no screen, keyboard or controls but with VGA out and an inbuilt USB hub. Another slightly off the wall idea would be to look at the possibility of producing a ruggedised version of the hardware.
As far as I can tell the Pandora has no direct competitors, so we should look at potential customers who would like a hand held mini computer with hardware keyboard and built in gaming controls.
If software were improved in certain areas then the niche could be broadened, for example I bet the Pandora would appeal to a lot of musicians if there was more dedicated software in that area.
Another angle I'd like to see followed up would be to make different versions of the Pandora available, such as a desktop version with no screen, keyboard or controls but with VGA out and an inbuilt USB hub. Another slightly off the wall idea would be to look at the possibility of producing a ruggedised version of the hardware.
diligentcircle
Well-Known Member
I have a question:
Who would need that?
I mean, you can get a relatively low-end full-size desktop PC for around the same price, with more power and more software compatibility (since it's an x86 processor). Since our desktop PCs were getting old, my dad bought a couple low-end desktop PCs a while ago... new, mind you... and both are 64-bit quad-cores with Windows 7 installed and HD monitors included. Costed something between $400-600 each. What use would the Pandora be without portability, especially if that's what it's competing with in the low-end desktop market?
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Mr_Loon
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It would hopefully be a lot cheaper to produce a desktop version of the Pandora. So it might appeal to anyone who wanted a low power (in terms of wattage) silent Computer. It would not suddenly gain mass market appeal but if the price could be brought down to say approx $250 delivered then I reckon that it would generate a fair bit of interest.
Such a system would make a pretty good media player / home server / torrent grabber etc. Although the price may still look a little high compared to a desktop machine anyone who wanted an always on system would save a quite considerable sum on energy bills compared to a desktop system.
maxxdoutvdub
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couldnt agree more
I don't think the Pandora would stand a chance against other existing devices as a home server for that price. Take the Pandaboard, it has a dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM and can play 1080p videos fluently. And it costs only 174$.
Or take an Arduino with Ethernet shield, that's a small server for less than 100$ that can do lots of other cool things and really doesn't take a lot of power.
And besides that it would be a completely different product that barely has anything to do with the original Pandora idea. We can think about such things in a couple years, but for now we have other problems to solve.
I think something important on the way to a better user experience is things being more instantaneous and generally fluent. I don't want to wait 3 seconds for MiniMenu to load every time I close a program. It just makes the OS look bad because that's one of the things you notice immediately when you use the device. OK, this might be very Apple'ish, but this is a computer, it can do a couple million computations per second, so why do I have to wait half a second for that goddamn menu to appear? (That's also one of the reasons why I prefer CLIs over GUIs)
Anyways, this is a rather aesthetic improvement so it should be more at the bottom of the todo list, things like info about a PND in PNDStore is way more important.
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Not VGA, but DVI-D (HDMI sans audio) Just add a case: http://beagleboard.org/hardware
Beagleboards are very similar in hardware, DSP and such..
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Actually, hitting the market with a cutting edge pandora2, with top-end processors, and more special purpose hardware takes priority over a headless version by a long way IMO
People buy the Pandora because:
*Unless you're a Bad Person, in which case we don't like you!
People buy the Pandora because:
- There aren't a lot of UMPCs available (not tablets, not netbooks, not cleverphones)
- Its a great portable emulator aswell
- Created by enthusiastic humans, who will actually talk to you.
- Anything you do with a Pandora is officially encouraged*
*Unless you're a Bad Person, in which case we don't like you!
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Kaepora Gaebora
Member
Would lowering the number of mouseclicks or keystrokes to run an application be "dumbing it down"? It's not as though the steps to prepare an SD card for Pandora use are difficult, but they are steps that simply need to be learned by the user. It doesn't exactly "smarten" things up by designing a system that needs 'execute' to be typed in rather than an execute button being implemented. And even if aspects of the Pandora OS are "dumbed down", the Pandora is still open and you can do whatever you want on the device anyway.
Caine
Hardcore Member
I would say you're dumbing it down once you start removing options. Adding tools to make stuff easier is just improving usability.
I think good software has enough options for the pro, and is accessible enough for the newb to learn.
e.g. Blender has heaps of functionality but the obscure keystrokes etc make it a pain to start using.
A variety of commercial software works Sooo hard on being helpful that any real tasks are impossible.
Caine
Hardcore Member
Not saying that Blender is the prime example of a good user interface (although I actually like it). But the same problem holds for 3DS max and Maya as well. These kind of applications have an intrinsic complexity and I highly doubt they can be made iCrowd friendly at all.
Some expert tools will require training and/or documentation and it is unreasonable to assume that all applications can be used by any user out of the box. This is not an argument to do nothing on their usability either, but users tend to have unrealistic expectations about simplifying tasks.
An entire different issue is efficiency of interfaces. What is easy to learn is often highly inefficient. I easily dare to make the claim that emacs and vi both are more efficient tools for editing text than nano or notepad. However, neither of them is user friendly for beginners. This is not a reason to stop developing them, but a reason to have an alternative for those who do not need to be efficient.
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bagmouse7
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It seems like it should be pretty easy to write a script that kicks off when an SD card is inserted.
The script could look for the presence of the required directories (apps, appdata, etc.). If they are present, then do nothing and end the script. If they are not there the throw up a dialog box that says, "A new SD card has been inserted in slot X, do you want to prepare the card for Pandora use?". If the user chooses "Yes", create all the required directories.
This may not seem like a big deal, but it will make for a nicer experience if simple tasks like this are just taken care of for the users.
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Having got a grip on blender, I appreciate the way it works and that it makes use of the keyboard for a good reason.
It was just an example of what shouldn't face new buyers when they pick up a pandora.
Generic new user said:
Maybe some things should hide the advanced settings by default, but would remember if you used them last time.
Mr_Loon
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What you say makes sense, but it will take a couple of years from the initial planning to bringing this to market. A headless Pandora could theoretically be in production in 2 months
, or at least relatively quickly. Also, after reading your message to newbies, shouldn't you be holding off from posting about Pandora 2 until 2013? .@ TrashyMG : You're right, VGA would not be the best option, DVI-D would make a lot more sense as it can easily be converted to an HDMI or VGA signal if required.
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http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=bzar-panorama
c'mon people, get with the program. just make sure you read the additional info on there to set it up right
