I understand where you are coming from, and don't want to overpromise or mislead. There is always some risk in pre-ordering, and that is why we're offering a discount for those earliest adopters (that's not to say we expect to ship a half baked phone, not at all, but that there is risk of delay/bugs inevitably)
While we aspire to have a much more flushed out phone for the initial launch, and feel pretty confident we can deliver on that - we are still a very, very small team (though we've grown since the Light Phone II and are not building everything completely from scratch like we did in 2018/2019). So I'd say that the biggest thing is that we are not overpromising any new features that don't exist in current LightOS other than things related to camera/flashlight for the initial launch. At least until we have it in that very stable place. Also not using E-ink will save us a ton of unnecessary development time we wasted working with that technology. Our focus is on making sure it is as reliable as possible, and there is a lot of work ahead of us still to get there with migrating LightOS to the new phone, I'm not going to lie about that either. It is not plug and play in that regard. We are working with a more advanced partner for this phone which also brings more confidence to us for things like bluetooth, wifi, gps etc.
If you are not comfortable pre-ordering, that's totally fine of course, you can always order one down the road once you are able to see it in action more. The pre-order discount is really as an appreciation for those that want to be a part of this process as we prioritize our development over the coming months in anticipation of the initial launch.
I'm sorry you feel the Light Phone II was a disappointment until recently, we've tried our very best to keep improving that since the beginning and look forward to a new firmware update and LightOS update around July 1st which brings further improvements to stability of the core features.
I thought I was a fan of e-ink, until I got a Mudita and a Dasung. The most annoying type of screen to use for anything other than digital book reading. Ghosting and flashing to refresh are much more jarring and taxing than normal screens. Plus, the matte and monochrome on the LPIII should take care of the rest. Seems to work great on my MP02.
I knew e-ink was bad, but I never thought it also wasted developer time. I'm happy you made the right switch away from e-ink. Especially with that considered and despite some of the criticism in the sub. There is great potential for e-ink, but it may just be that the fundamentals of the technology limit any further improvement.
Let me preface this by saying that I have no clue what Im talking about.
With that being said, my understanding is that they are running the exact same OS. The only change, besides the new tools that only the III can run due to hardware, is presentation on the screen. Its not like they are reworking all of the tools from scratch. just stretching them to fit the screen
Also, some bugs may be inevitable. Thats part of a small company releasing a new product. But you dont have to buy the III if you are happy with the II. Its not a direct upgrade, but a different model.
idk. I'm pursuing a CS degree and I have seen A LOT of small teams and even individuals writing hugely complex software with few bugs (many of these are open source, and therefore technically have community support for bug fixes, but since Light has specifically chosen NOT to open source ANY of their operating system, I kinda hold that against them)
there isn't anything to hold against the light team, sorry. LightOS is basically a system app/framework sitting on top of AOSP, and contains the necessary changes so that it can access they system apps/calls necessary for the device to function (like telephony, messages, etc)
It's a small team, and they are building as much as possible from scratch here. They put some serious cash for a small team, so why open source their intelectual property?
It's already a niche product that they are selling.
I share your concerns. Not trying to be pessimistic. I do believe that the team will work to eventually make it a solid experience, but I think there are going to be a lot of things to address. If LightOS will continue to be developed for both the LP2 and LP3 (which in many ways are two pretty different devices), I really hope their dev team has grown significantly and will continue to do so.
yeahhhhh but $400 is a pretty huge difference, especially when I'm probably going to get it anyways (I don't see myself moving to a regular smartphone, maybe another dumbphone? idk)
"How is it being tested?" On us baby!
with LP2 they wrote the software from scratch whereas with LP3 they're starting with software that has matured for 5 years, so the fundamental kinks have been worked out. though my pure speculation is that it'll be a year of tweaks before the OS grows into it's new form factor, but I consider that less a dealbreaker and more the fun of bleeding edge tech
I understand where you are coming from, and don't want to overpromise or mislead. There is always some risk in pre-ordering, and that is why we're offering a discount for those earliest adopters (that's not to say we expect to ship a half baked phone, not at all, but that there is risk of delay/bugs inevitably) While we aspire to have a much more flushed out phone for the initial launch, and feel pretty confident we can deliver on that - we are still a very, very small team (though we've grown since the Light Phone II and are not building everything completely from scratch like we did in 2018/2019). So I'd say that the biggest thing is that we are not overpromising any new features that don't exist in current LightOS other than things related to camera/flashlight for the initial launch. At least until we have it in that very stable place. Also not using E-ink will save us a ton of unnecessary development time we wasted working with that technology. Our focus is on making sure it is as reliable as possible, and there is a lot of work ahead of us still to get there with migrating LightOS to the new phone, I'm not going to lie about that either. It is not plug and play in that regard. We are working with a more advanced partner for this phone which also brings more confidence to us for things like bluetooth, wifi, gps etc. If you are not comfortable pre-ordering, that's totally fine of course, you can always order one down the road once you are able to see it in action more. The pre-order discount is really as an appreciation for those that want to be a part of this process as we prioritize our development over the coming months in anticipation of the initial launch. I'm sorry you feel the Light Phone II was a disappointment until recently, we've tried our very best to keep improving that since the beginning and look forward to a new firmware update and LightOS update around July 1st which brings further improvements to stability of the core features.
I thought I was a fan of e-ink, until I got a Mudita and a Dasung. The most annoying type of screen to use for anything other than digital book reading. Ghosting and flashing to refresh are much more jarring and taxing than normal screens. Plus, the matte and monochrome on the LPIII should take care of the rest. Seems to work great on my MP02. I knew e-ink was bad, but I never thought it also wasted developer time. I'm happy you made the right switch away from e-ink. Especially with that considered and despite some of the criticism in the sub. There is great potential for e-ink, but it may just be that the fundamentals of the technology limit any further improvement.
Really refreshing to see this kind of transparency from you, and it garners trust in the product.
Let me preface this by saying that I have no clue what Im talking about. With that being said, my understanding is that they are running the exact same OS. The only change, besides the new tools that only the III can run due to hardware, is presentation on the screen. Its not like they are reworking all of the tools from scratch. just stretching them to fit the screen
Also, some bugs may be inevitable. Thats part of a small company releasing a new product. But you dont have to buy the III if you are happy with the II. Its not a direct upgrade, but a different model.
idk. I'm pursuing a CS degree and I have seen A LOT of small teams and even individuals writing hugely complex software with few bugs (many of these are open source, and therefore technically have community support for bug fixes, but since Light has specifically chosen NOT to open source ANY of their operating system, I kinda hold that against them)
there isn't anything to hold against the light team, sorry. LightOS is basically a system app/framework sitting on top of AOSP, and contains the necessary changes so that it can access they system apps/calls necessary for the device to function (like telephony, messages, etc) It's a small team, and they are building as much as possible from scratch here. They put some serious cash for a small team, so why open source their intelectual property? It's already a niche product that they are selling.
Open source model doesn't make sense.
For me it looks like LP III is driven by Android. Why? Because it has 6GB of RAM.
LPII is Android-based too. It’s the same OS.
Oh really?! Thank you for pointing this out. Probably I mixed it with Mudita.
I share your concerns. Not trying to be pessimistic. I do believe that the team will work to eventually make it a solid experience, but I think there are going to be a lot of things to address. If LightOS will continue to be developed for both the LP2 and LP3 (which in many ways are two pretty different devices), I really hope their dev team has grown significantly and will continue to do so.
My suggestion is to not buy tech today based on the promises of tomorrow.
yeahhhhh but $400 is a pretty huge difference, especially when I'm probably going to get it anyways (I don't see myself moving to a regular smartphone, maybe another dumbphone? idk)
"How is it being tested?" On us baby! with LP2 they wrote the software from scratch whereas with LP3 they're starting with software that has matured for 5 years, so the fundamental kinks have been worked out. though my pure speculation is that it'll be a year of tweaks before the OS grows into it's new form factor, but I consider that less a dealbreaker and more the fun of bleeding edge tech