I also wonder about the wisdom of taking low-end hardware, where every bit of efficiency at the software level matters, and shackling it by not allowing third-party native code.
All of the early early reviews are confirming our suspicions. For example this one from the verge: "Lag is a major concern — apps took multiple seconds to load, to change toggles, and to make UI transitions"[1]
Or this one from CNET: "unresponsive screen makes typing a laborious process requiring painstaking precision. Every action from swiping to tapping onscreen controls takes a beat until you see results, so using the phone for a prolonged period steals minutes of your time... Lag carries into the camera, which is slow to launch, snap, and reset."[2]
This is why I'm looking forward to the Edge w/ its Ubuntu OS. It doesn't try to hide its Android heritage, even gives you the option to boot to AOSP. Also has a modern gesture based UI unlike Firefox's dated iOS rip off. And most importantly, on resource limited mobile device gives developers the option to write native apps.
yeah, 256MB of RAM is just not enough. The CPU speed is not relevant when you have so little memory to work with. I guess it's an OK deal for $79, but it's not going to do a good job running javascript apps with so little RAM. Even if it is only running one at a time. My GMail tab alone is using 237MB right now and every tab in my browser is > 50MB. That 256MB also has to hold the OS code.
> Deny them access to fast native apps on entry level hardware.
> I also wonder about the wisdom of taking low-end hardware, where every bit of efficiency at the software level matters, and shackling it by not allowing third-party native code.
This is what asm.js and OdinMonkey are for. You're right that forbidding developers from getting the control that native code buys you is a nonstarter, but asm.js gives you that control.
