doughnut

I asked because I wanted to ask. What is so hard to understand here? Also, my wants and intentions are off this particular topic

A mere fact that I asked a question doesn't mean you should be answering it

Didn't read your whole post - too long; however, this caught my eye: who cares about flexible options when you must keep an eye on the touch screen at all times instead of watching the model? Touch screens lack haptic feedback. You are entitled to your opinion, and so I am to mine. I like PF better.

So I checked again, and turns out Bricklink has two items for motors, one cheap and one expensive. For example the XL motor: cheap link and expensive link. I'm not sure what to make of it. Those cheap motors - are they genuine LEGO? How can they be sold for such low price, where do those people get them? Can anyone (with some knowledge in software development) keep their APK under half a gigabyte? Why wasn't that anyone hired by TLG then for their C+? Rhetorical question.

Most of the prices I see on Bricklink are close to the TLG's price. Or do you mean some other aftermarket? Well then there's no guarantee the software will be maintained, is there? But even if LEGO actually had a software engineering department - I'm not sure how much that would help really. Corporate strategies change. The question is not whether it's complex, but whether they can do it. And let's wait until it's open source first. Anyways, I am personally not excited about the new system being so tied to third party devices and so expensive, so I don't plan to be getting it in the foreseeable future.

This fate awaits PU motors as well. But they will cost even more than PF, as they already do. And how "third-party software" will get paid for their labor? The software side also worries me, tbh. TLG is not a software company, they are a toy company. I mean, C+'s APK was, like, 500Ms lol - I hope they fixed that now. Will they have enough resources and knowledge to maintain their software? Yes, they had Mindstorms, and pretty successfully, but they seem to be greatly expanding their software scale with PU. All the firmware for the smart hubs... And it's likely the mobile apps will need constant maintenance. I'm really curious to see how PU pans out.

news? Is it available for desktop, or for mobile only? If no desktop app, which mobile devices are supported then? Which iOS/Android versions? How convenient really is it, to program something on a touch screen? These are all rhetorical questions. Personally, I wouldn't hurry to label PU as "progress". Yes, it's a new corporate strategy, and PU is better for TLG for their reasons - it doesn't necessarily mean it's better for us, because we have our own reasons and definitions of "better", don't we?

Thanks for the review! The turquoise of the new Mindstorms is elusive to the cameras, so to make sure: is this "dark turquoise" the same color or different?

Thanks for the review! Finally they started making beams with holes in both planes - I hope there will be more of them

I doubt they have sales figures on a mechanical calculator - they never made it, did they? Anyways, we're going into off-topic now, although I am intensely curious about how TLG makes sets (the process), so if you have any recommendations on book/documentaries/websites - feel free to drop them to me!

How do they know?

I really wonder why can't we have at least one mechanical calculator or drawing automaton. You can do so many fun things with clockwork 42055 is a mining machine, not a construction vehicle

One girl? Lol don't you think you're over-generalizing a bit? How can you judge 50% of the world population - ~4 billion of people - based on one decision at one point of life of one girl, seriously?

...and vice versa, I hope? I'm hopeful for the second wave then - I'm not at all excited about cars.

It's one thing to think something, and completely different thing to have statistics. As for RI being "more attractive to boys and girls" - I personally don't see how that is. You mean, painting something teal instead of red and making screen show smileys and emojis instead of information makes it more attractive to girls? Seems very strange to me. Or just because the marketing is different? The marketing for Mindstorms has been becoming less and less skewed towards boys indeed. The toy itself, it seems, has stayed the same (with the exception of generational hardware changes). However, given that it's not as much children themselves choosing as culture and parents/school imposing their views on children what should and shouldn't be attractive for them, if the new Mindstorms design/marketing would make the set seem to parents like more appropriate for their girl and they will be actually inspired to buy the set for their daughter - I'm ok with that. On PF motors, the wires typically break where it connects to the motor. I'm not sure if PU motors are different in that spot - I'm not into PU too much.