Author Topic: TI buys Omnimaga (Read 22606 times)

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #30 on:** April 01, 2014, 04:40:18 pm »

Well, if they intended to control what we release, they would have done an appstore like Apple and only Flash apps that they allow in would be able to run on calcs, while counterfeit apps would have bad signatures.

Also, my Custer's Revenge 84+C thread would have been deleted faster than the speed of light earlier.

aeTIos · « **Reply #31 on:** April 01, 2014, 05:16:05 pm »

TI wants to be able to use our code tricks in their own software. I can imagine that thepenguin77 would be approached to help developing a new 84+ OS, for example.

alberthrocks · « **Reply #32 on:** April 01, 2014, 05:50:48 pm »

I just got off IRC with Eeems, and looks like it's legit:

aeTIos · « **Reply #33 on:** April 01, 2014, 06:04:49 pm »

Told you so!

Matrefeytontias · « **Reply #34 on:** April 01, 2014, 06:05:15 pm »

Still seems fake. TI buying Omnimaga = community content controlled by lucrative corporation = interests everwhere = no right to disagree = no going against them. Just imagine how happy they would be with Ndless that gives nearly full control on Nspire OSes as they desperately try to block it, or the hacked signature keys for apps and 3rd-party OSes (KnightOS for example). I'm also sure they would be happy with the disassembled TIOS source floating around here. So unless TI really changed its mentality in a very significant (and sudden) way, I'm hoping this is a classic April fool.

alberthrocks · « **Reply #35 on:** April 01, 2014, 06:15:16 pm »

Quote from: Matrefeytontias on April 01, 2014, 06:05:15 pm

Still seems fake. TI buying Omnimaga = community content controlled by lucrative corporation = interests everwhere = no right to disagree = no going against them. Just imagine how happy they would be with Ndless that gives nearly full control on Nspire OSes as they desperately try to block it, or the hacked signature keys for apps and 3rd-party OSes (KnightOS for example). I'm also sure they would be happy with the disassembled TIOS source floating around here. So unless TI really changed its mentality in a very significant (and sudden) way, I'm hoping this is a classic April fool.

This is just like Facebook buying Oculus. Seemed like a joke at the time (and even horrifying), before people accepted it as reality. And for Oculus, it's a good thing - they get a LOT more resources to further VR! (This came out of a recent interview with one of the Oculus' founders.)

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #36 on:** April 01, 2014, 07:41:47 pm »

On a side note, the Omni RPG website opened on April 9th 2004. Imagine if it opened 8 days earlier... maybe people would have thought it's a hoax and never bothered checking again, then Omnimaga would never have gotten any notoriety in the community ever (other than its name in the ROL3 RPG credits).

That said, regarding the topic, while I don't necessarily believe it, TI-France is still strongly affiliated with TI-Planet with some strong ties with TI Dallas in USA (Adriweb goes there every year IIRC), even though their archives includes a few TI-OSes that are no longer available on TI website. They seem pretty tolerant towards some files uploaded online (the only OS for which a takedown was requested is OS 1.1). If they bought a calculator website, while they could go as far as censoring any negative post about TI or create alternate accounts to post positive reviews about their products like certain companies do, they could also very well allow any content other than cheating tools, and even in the cheating tools case, they might still let them and just try harder at blocking Ndless. Of course we don't want cheating tools here but hopefully you get what I mean.

I'm thinking that TI still has a long way to go to gain our trusts regarding third-party dev, but there were improvements since 2010. In 2010, they tried in sneaky ways to slowly kill the Z80 line, discontinuing the TI-84+SE in many countries as a first step (then reconsidering doing so in certain of them after much backlash from the community) and I once read a quote on MoHPC saying that in 2007 the reason why TI-BASIC lacked input/output commands on the Nspire was exclusively to eliminate calculator gaming. Since it became clear that they wouldn't win the battle against gaming, they threw us two bones, one being called Lua and the other TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition. They still need improvements on many points, starting by stopping charging $150 for a 20-years old hardware to convince students to buy a calc instead of relying on a phone/tablet on which they can cheat even easier, but if TI still had their 2007-10 attitude today, then the TI-83+/84+/SE/89T/v200 lines would be gone long ago and the color 84+ would have never existed.

TIfanx1999 · « **Reply #37 on:** April 01, 2014, 09:49:40 pm »

Quote from: Aspiring on April 01, 2014, 04:38:19 pm

Hmmm you saw the papers.... I guess it is really then. To be honest though I am not sure how buying omnimaga correlates to them trying to have a better relationship with the programming community. Why would they want to buy omnimaga? If they wanted to make developers happy they could fix some of the bugs in their os's that have been around for years, they could fix their nspire os so that it can support third party compiled programs without giving them os prevelages (linux perhaps?). If they did that they would make a lot of developers happy. The only reason that I can think of for ti to buy omnimaga is to control what is released by the community. What do you guys think? Why would ti actually want to buy omnimaga?

They see it as a good PR move. It is also a good way to interact directly with your target audience and get feedback. It's much more direct than something like say TI-cares.

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #38 on:** April 01, 2014, 09:54:59 pm »

The only issue, though, is if they have to pay somebody to provide feedback directly on the forums because we don't want to do it as volunteers (other than whatever we already do as hobby), then maybe they will not want to spend an extra $10 an hour 40 hours a week to pay somebody to do it. For TI, every penny count.

Juju · « **Reply #39 on:** April 01, 2014, 10:15:15 pm »

I indeed heard plans of merging Omnimaga with TI-Cares, with would be a good move since most employees at TI-Cares barely know how to turn your calc on. You would reach experts who actually know their calc down to the most obscure feature.

Aspiring · « **Reply #40 on:** April 01, 2014, 10:50:55 pm »

Cannot believe I am saying this but I am now convinced that TI is merging with omnimaga. I hope that this will be for the best.

We shall see I suppose. I am really excited to see what will happen. I really hope that this isn't an April fools joke because this could be a sign that things will improve.

Hayleia · « **Reply #41 on:** April 02, 2014, 01:07:28 am »

Quote from: Matrefeytontias on April 01, 2014, 06:05:15 pm

Still seems fake. TI buying Omnimaga = community content controlled by lucrative corporation = interests everwhere = no right to disagree = no going against them. Just imagine how happy they would be with Ndless that gives nearly full control on Nspire OSes as they desperately try to block it, or the hacked signature keys for apps and 3rd-party OSes (KnightOS for example). I'm also sure they would be happy with the disassembled TIOS source floating around here. So unless TI really changed its mentality in a very significant (and sudden) way, I'm hoping this is a classic April fool.

They would indeed be happy with Ndless under their hand, but I don't think they care about KnightOS:

It is not finished
It is not compatible with the TI OS so using it means giving up every existing program at this day, so not a lot of people will use it
It doesn't do anything that TI doesn't want it to do

Quote from: alberthrocks on April 01, 2014, 06:15:16 pm

This is just like Facebook buying Oculus. Seemed like a joke at the time (and even horrifying), before people accepted it as reality. And for Oculus, it's a good thing - they get a LOT more resources to further VR! (This came out of a recent interview with one of the Oculus' founders.)

Well I think that Facebook buying Oculus Rift is more convincing. TI buying Omnimaga really sounds like Facebook buying Mojang.

aeTIos · « **Reply #42 on:** April 02, 2014, 01:16:46 am »

Ok, it's over. Happy (late) April's fools!

DJ Omnimaga · « **Reply #43 on:** April 02, 2014, 02:51:57 am »

So some of us including myself were playing around during that prank, but to be honest, I didn't believe it at all, since Omni often made fun of TI and all and we have Casio/HP stuff. However it was still fun nonetheless.

TIfanx1999 · « **Reply #44 on:** April 02, 2014, 07:29:47 am »

Happy April fools everyone!

Author Topic: TI buys Omnimaga (Read 22606 times)

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

aeTIos

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

alberthrocks

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

aeTIos

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

Matrefeytontias

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

alberthrocks

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

TIfanx1999

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

Juju

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

Aspiring

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

Hayleia

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

aeTIos

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

DJ Omnimaga

Re: TI buys Omnimaga

TIfanx1999

Re: TI buys Omnimaga