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Having a Terminal application will make the Phone more appealing to coders and old school Linux users. I fail to see how this will make the Ubuntu Phone more appealing to the average user.

EDIT: Apparently saying something that goes against the current on HN will start a shit storm (downvotes, obviously).

7 comments

I upvoted you, because I think you raise a valid question.

IMO, to build a successful smartphone that is appealing to the average user, that smartphone will require a base of desirable applications.

I see basically two routes to attempt to achieve this:

1) Build a phone that is so desirable to average users that app developers will find it profitable to develop for it (eg, iPhone).

2) Build a phone that is so desirable to developers that many will pick it up regardless of the profitability of the market. Then hope that these apps are of sufficient quality/desirability that they become part of making the phone desirable to average users.

#1 is incredibly difficult to achieve right now due to the maturity of the market, with two major players. Even Microsoft is having a tremendous amount of difficulty with this route. For Canonical, I believe it would be effectively impossible.

With #2, getting to step 1 (modest developer adoption) is easy. Where it often breaks down, is in getting the developers to build apps that aren't just appealing to them (eg, more terminal apps, more ssh apps, more special purpose tools that appeal to geeks, etc). But modest developer adoption is better than no adoption at all, perhaps?

I honestly don't see Canonical having much success with this at all, but I don't think avoiding apps that are appealing to coders will help in their case.

Not everything has to be for the benefit of the "average user" whoever they are.

Agree, my point was that this will remain a niche phone.

Wait, so including features that don't immediately appeal to the average user necessarily means there will be nothing that appeals to the average user?

Your logic is broken there somewhere.

I think it's pretty clear the OP's point was only in reference to the Terminal app, not Ubuntu in general. It's a valid point and doesn't really deserve the snark in your last sentence.

I think it's pretty clear that the OPs point was that there was a terminal app on the phone and therefore it was a geek phone that's never going to take off, and that my snark was absolutely appropriate.

In fact he specifically said "I fail to see how this will make the Ubuntu Phone more appealing to the average user." shortly followed by "my point was that this will remain a niche phone."

-Edit to remove somewhat unnecessary snark-

I don't think 'your logic is broken there somewhere' is all that snarky in the grand scheme of things, in fact it's a pretty clear statement of fact. The two things "terminal apps are not appealing to average users" and "this phone will remain niche" are absolutely not logically connected.

I would argue that a good terminal app can help make something easier to use for both technical and average users alike.

Since you can assume that the terminal will be never or very rarely used by average users you can make the advanced functionality available as command line applications and leave the most basic/common options in the GUI.

A naive user is far more likely to check a box and click apply by accident than they are to type "rm -rf /".

A good example is a modern version of Windows, the control panel is full of options,tabs,checkboxes etc that can do weird stuff to your system and consequently make it harder to use because (until recently with powershell) windows has never had a useful commandline.

I see possibility that I (as geek) will choose it over cheap slow Android phones for my mother or younger sisters.

>Having a Terminal application will make the Phone more appealing to coders and old school Linux users. I fail to see how this will make the Ubuntu Phone more appealing to the average user.

Step 1: Get coders to use your device.

Step 2: Coders want their own apps to run on their own device, so they port them.

Result: Now your device has lots of apps and you've removed one of the most significant barriers to normal people using it.

But a general purpose device like a phone should be able to cater to different audiences. There is no problem to include applications that will be used by only a subset of the audience. Plus, installing and removing applications is easy, I suppose.

Not really. We already have several different platforms out there catering to "average Joe". I think it's time hackers actually get something tailored to their use instead of having to suffer compromises on other platforms.

I agree with you. I want Ubuntu and Linux to succeed in having at least a significant part of the market, but I don't think it's possible, or not as fast as I would hope, if they keep prioritizing stuff for developers and stuff, when Linux is still considered confusing and hard to use by many "normal" people.

So they should really prioritize that part. Leave the developer/geeky stuff for later.

Yeah you're probably right... but...

If these really just acted like little linux boxes wouldn't that be a huge plus for corporate support? Being able to SSH into these phones to install VPN or other default applications instead of forcing the users/ui to see them? What about being able to 'flash' a corporate phone to a default install or manage permissions?

shrug just a thought

u fail to see this isn't an announcement from ubuntu on declaring their strategy on getting average users and so fail to see that on HN, mostly hackers usually like to hack their device.