I would recommend checking whether it is well-thought in the area you do care about.
I was surprised to find out that you cannot easily save PDF from a webpage to reliably keep it on the phone forever; it will be subject to cache retention policy. There are more obvious limitations, of course. Nobody is free of mistakes, so check what is obviously important for you in the specific device you are going to use.
I was surprised to find out that you cannot easily save PDF from a webpage to reliably keep it on the phone forever; it will be subject to cache retention policy.
Really? If you were referring to the iPhone, my experience is this. PDF links open by default in the browser, which copy only exists as a temporary cache. However, the window includes an “Open in iBooks” button, and using it saves a permanent copy to iBooks. iBooks is an Apple app that comes with the phone. There’s also an “Open in...” button letting you save it to any app that has indicated it is able to handle a PDF—I also have GoodReader.
Yes, it was on iPhone (specifically iPhone 1) and the owner said that he is disappointed by the situation and knows no solution. Maybe Apple fixed this problem later among some others like copy-paste.
Unfortunately for Apple, I already own an n810, and my expectations of the device willing to work in a sane-from-my-POV way, not “just work somehow” are heightened well beyond anything an Apple product can ever provide.
Clarification: I know, what I call sanity is a minority wish, and I am simply not using any devices that actively work against it.
My original point was that it is not like excellence is the driving idea of iPhone; releasing right-hand-only iPhone4 has shown that not much has changed.
Also, a device with a more-than-400MHz-CPU, more-than-128MB-RAM and more-than-1GB-storage that cannot run OpenOffice/LibreOffice without fighting what manufacturer did doesn’t “just work”.
Is this using Safari? The iCab mobile browser is a couple bucks, but infinitely more functional, including durable saving and adjustable ssd cache. There are also lots of good reader and filer apps.
As usual, there is an app for that. Dropbox, another product on this list, has an excellent iPhone app, which (among many other things) lets you save your PDF in permanent storage, and automatically sync to your computer with no extra effort.
I’ve been disappointed in minor ways with my iPhone, but nothing was significant enough to withhold a very strong recommendation from me. (Android is another story. Android devices are still very useful, but the difference in quality of experience between an Android device and an iPhone is like night and day.)
(Android is another story. Android devices are still very useful, but the difference in quality of experience between an Android device and an iPhone is like night and day.)
There is quite a bit of variance in quality among Android devices. Personally, I would take a Samsung Galaxy Nexus over an Apple iPhone.
I was pretty late on the smartphone bandwagon. The only reason I got it was to be able to use Anki on the go. Now I use about a dozen apps and get an enormous amount of value out of it.
Well, as for me, when I had a chance to hold iPhone for a few minutes, it lowered my perception of Apple from “high-quality, somewhat restrictive, expensive” to “overpriced, unpredictable quality”. What their browser did with saving PDFs was one of the things.
I do use a PDA, though—n810 from Nokia (custom GNU/Linux distribution by Nokia inside), I use bluetooth integration with two different (different operators) phones, in many things PDA helps a lot—but iPhone specifically striked me as an overall poor product.
Given that Apple doesn’t allow apps to fix every quirk, even “there is an app for that” doesn’t help. Why would I want a device that doesn’t run OpenOffice/LibreOffice?
Since OpenOffice has not been adapted and is poorly suited for touch screens, your mentioning it (twice) in a conversation about smartphones is more confusing than helpful.
Also, the n810 (which you’ve mentioned twice) is part of a product line that was discontinued about 2 years ago and never sold in large quantities.
(I know about OpenOffice and the n810 because I used Linux for my desktop platform for 17 years.)
Would you please limit your comments from now on to information that can realistically be expected to be useful to the general reader rather than only to people who have already invested heavily in very unusual hardware or software choices? For example, the vast majority of LWers who will buy a smartphone will (for excellent reasons, particularly “network effects”) buy one with a touch interface.
OpenOffice on touch-only device has two goals: first, check that you can actually get complex software (not really optimized for the platform) working without too much hassle; second, just view the files in non-trivial formats with minimal if any editing (well, sorting and searching are not too bad on medium-size devices).
N810 is EOLed, but N9 lacks only keyboard. From the platform side of things it is quite close.
I am not mentioning N810 in top-level comments (because you cannot obtain it with warranty) or first-level replies (because mentions there are seen as related recommendations) - I am only using this to explain my experience and what baseline I compare Apple products to. The post you are answering to is a reply to the claim that “iPhone just works” (which is true not for everyone’s definition of “works”).
On easily rootable Qwerty Android phones (there are some), you can get chroot + vncviewer + vnc server in chroot (and so, whatever software you need from Debian/ARM) without giving up “using Android phone” and access to the popular apps. I am not naming a specific Android Qwerty phone because I haven’t compared currently available such phones to each other and don’t currently use one. (I do know from experience that setting up the system that I described it not hard).
As for network effects.. if you buy a product with network effect being a strong factor, you have found about it not from this post’s comments.
Choosing to use PDF to distribute text (or text-and-images) on the Web today does seem like a pretty silly idea. PDF favors exact reproduction of a paper-based layout over readability on the user’s device; and that’s the opposite of what’s useful if you’re trying to get a message across to many users.
But, given that PDF is out there, it’s pretty useful for a mobile device to be able to deal with it competently.
Sorry? The problem equally applies to HTML and to everything you can read online. Also, PDF is well thought-out as a format with specific purpose. If you want to know exactly an for sure what the reader will see, you could use PDF and succeed or use HTML and make the existing problems of Web worse.
PDF is well thought-out as a format with specific purpose
I really wish I could agree with you, but I’ve read parts of the specification of the pdf file format. Perhaps the goal was well-thought-out, but certainly the format itself is not.
I would recommend checking whether it is well-thought in the area you do care about.
I was surprised to find out that you cannot easily save PDF from a webpage to reliably keep it on the phone forever; it will be subject to cache retention policy. There are more obvious limitations, of course. Nobody is free of mistakes, so check what is obviously important for you in the specific device you are going to use.
Really? If you were referring to the iPhone, my experience is this. PDF links open by default in the browser, which copy only exists as a temporary cache. However, the window includes an “Open in iBooks” button, and using it saves a permanent copy to iBooks. iBooks is an Apple app that comes with the phone. There’s also an “Open in...” button letting you save it to any app that has indicated it is able to handle a PDF—I also have GoodReader.
Yes, it was on iPhone (specifically iPhone 1) and the owner said that he is disappointed by the situation and knows no solution. Maybe Apple fixed this problem later among some others like copy-paste.
I started with the iPhone 4. So there’s the solution to his problem: upgrade, and experience wonderful new worlds of just-worksness!
Unfortunately for Apple, I already own an n810, and my expectations of the device willing to work in a sane-from-my-POV way, not “just work somehow” are heightened well beyond anything an Apple product can ever provide.
Clarification: I know, what I call sanity is a minority wish, and I am simply not using any devices that actively work against it.
My original point was that it is not like excellence is the driving idea of iPhone; releasing right-hand-only iPhone4 has shown that not much has changed.
Also, a device with a more-than-400MHz-CPU, more-than-128MB-RAM and more-than-1GB-storage that cannot run OpenOffice/LibreOffice without fighting what manufacturer did doesn’t “just work”.
Is this using Safari? The iCab mobile browser is a couple bucks, but infinitely more functional, including durable saving and adjustable ssd cache. There are also lots of good reader and filer apps.
As usual, there is an app for that. Dropbox, another product on this list, has an excellent iPhone app, which (among many other things) lets you save your PDF in permanent storage, and automatically sync to your computer with no extra effort.
I’ve been disappointed in minor ways with my iPhone, but nothing was significant enough to withhold a very strong recommendation from me. (Android is another story. Android devices are still very useful, but the difference in quality of experience between an Android device and an iPhone is like night and day.)
There is quite a bit of variance in quality among Android devices. Personally, I would take a Samsung Galaxy Nexus over an Apple iPhone.
I was pretty late on the smartphone bandwagon. The only reason I got it was to be able to use Anki on the go. Now I use about a dozen apps and get an enormous amount of value out of it.
Well, as for me, when I had a chance to hold iPhone for a few minutes, it lowered my perception of Apple from “high-quality, somewhat restrictive, expensive” to “overpriced, unpredictable quality”. What their browser did with saving PDFs was one of the things.
I do use a PDA, though—n810 from Nokia (custom GNU/Linux distribution by Nokia inside), I use bluetooth integration with two different (different operators) phones, in many things PDA helps a lot—but iPhone specifically striked me as an overall poor product.
Given that Apple doesn’t allow apps to fix every quirk, even “there is an app for that” doesn’t help. Why would I want a device that doesn’t run OpenOffice/LibreOffice?
Since OpenOffice has not been adapted and is poorly suited for touch screens, your mentioning it (twice) in a conversation about smartphones is more confusing than helpful.
Also, the n810 (which you’ve mentioned twice) is part of a product line that was discontinued about 2 years ago and never sold in large quantities.
(I know about OpenOffice and the n810 because I used Linux for my desktop platform for 17 years.)
Would you please limit your comments from now on to information that can realistically be expected to be useful to the general reader rather than only to people who have already invested heavily in very unusual hardware or software choices? For example, the vast majority of LWers who will buy a smartphone will (for excellent reasons, particularly “network effects”) buy one with a touch interface.
OpenOffice on touch-only device has two goals: first, check that you can actually get complex software (not really optimized for the platform) working without too much hassle; second, just view the files in non-trivial formats with minimal if any editing (well, sorting and searching are not too bad on medium-size devices).
N810 is EOLed, but N9 lacks only keyboard. From the platform side of things it is quite close.
I am not mentioning N810 in top-level comments (because you cannot obtain it with warranty) or first-level replies (because mentions there are seen as related recommendations) - I am only using this to explain my experience and what baseline I compare Apple products to. The post you are answering to is a reply to the claim that “iPhone just works” (which is true not for everyone’s definition of “works”).
On easily rootable Qwerty Android phones (there are some), you can get chroot + vncviewer + vnc server in chroot (and so, whatever software you need from Debian/ARM) without giving up “using Android phone” and access to the popular apps. I am not naming a specific Android Qwerty phone because I haven’t compared currently available such phones to each other and don’t currently use one. (I do know from experience that setting up the system that I described it not hard).
As for network effects.. if you buy a product with network effect being a strong factor, you have found about it not from this post’s comments.
Honestly, that’s because PDF is not well-thought-out.
Choosing to use PDF to distribute text (or text-and-images) on the Web today does seem like a pretty silly idea. PDF favors exact reproduction of a paper-based layout over readability on the user’s device; and that’s the opposite of what’s useful if you’re trying to get a message across to many users.
But, given that PDF is out there, it’s pretty useful for a mobile device to be able to deal with it competently.
Sorry? The problem equally applies to HTML and to everything you can read online. Also, PDF is well thought-out as a format with specific purpose. If you want to know exactly an for sure what the reader will see, you could use PDF and succeed or use HTML and make the existing problems of Web worse.
I really wish I could agree with you, but I’ve read parts of the specification of the pdf file format. Perhaps the goal was well-thought-out, but certainly the format itself is not.
Ignoring the barrier to entry involved in competing with a de facto standard like .pdf, are there any viable alternatives available?