There are important differences in architecture and strategy.

We have a detailed compare/contrast that I will post here shortly.

This is where it is explained how it is different from Umbrel

First off, we try really hard to call them services, not apps, since the later concept collides with the little icons on your phone and laptop and causes confusion. But that's a side point. To answer your question...No, I don't think there has been any huge surprise in terms of which services are most popular. By design, we actually don't/can't have any concrete figures about service usage because we have no insight into these devices. But in polling our customers, the result have been roughly in line with expectations. Most popular services are Bitcoin and Vaultwarden (password management), followed by Lightning (mostly LND over CLN) and File Browser (Dropbox alternative)

Aside from base Linux/Debian/etc, I would argue that there are no other personal server operating system companies. If you are referring to the other plug and play node solutions, EmbassyOS is the only one I would really call an "operating system". I feel like that concept requires a minimum degree of functionality and control to the user, which none of them provide. They are more like "bundles of services" that you can view in a GUI. Almost ever action beyond simply installing ans starting a service requires SSH and command line usage. Only EmbassyOS affords users the ability to MANAGE their server over time, essentially turning an average person into a systems administrator or dev ops engineer.

With the 03x series and our revamped developer documentation, it is easier than ever to package a service for EmbassyOS. You can literally get a Hello World service stood up in minutes. Then, depending on the complexity of the service to be packaged and the skill of the developer, it can take a few hours or a few days to package something up.

I say all this because Start9 will not be determining the service roadmap for EmbassyOS. It will be almost entirely community driven. If a team wants their service on the Marketplace, they can package it up. If an individual wants something on the marketplace that was build by another team, they can package it too. We are already seeing significant community development, and we expect the number of services available for EmabssyOS to sky rocket in the coming months and years.

Check out this video by Dread as he demonstrates how to package a service for EmabssyOS. Also, to answer you question directly, I am VERY confident bitfeedlive will be available on EmbassyOS. It's awesome.

You nailed it. Email is very difficult to do in a sovereign way, because it has been so thoroughly co-opted. In a near-term release of EmabssyOS, your Embassy and services running on it will be able to send emails. This is useful for notifications, invitations, and certain auth-related actions within services. It will not be, however, able to receive emails or serve as an alternative client to things like Gmail. Later, after we introduce clearnet (.com etc) support, it will be possible to run a full blown email server on your Embassy and connect to it from open source clients. However, to function well, it is still necessary to "play ball" with the various DNS and email verification standards, or else all your mail might get black holed. Ultimately, we think email is probably un-salvagable and needs to be replaced. This will take time, given how entrenched email is in our digital infrastructure and culture, especially in business.

I specialize in middle distance (400m/800m). In high school I was our team captain, and we won the 5A state championship 3 years in a row. Individually I was 5th in state for the 800m and set a couple school and state records on various relay teams. I ran in college for Penn for a couple of years, but ultimately quite because I just wasn't it at the time. After college, I returned to my old high school and coached the middle distance for 7 years. During that time, I absorbed everything in sight regarding various training philosophies and tactics and coached multiple athletes to and relay teams to state championships of their own.

Today I continue to run half marathons, since the shorter stuff is just too hard on the body once you get over 30 haha. My best half so far is 1:17:58, so about 5:58 per mile.

First, I discovered Ron Paul, then through him Ayn Rand and Objectivism, then Bitcoin. So by the time I discovered Bitcoin, I was primed. In fact, I had been stacking gold from 2010-2015. I become obsessed with Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy. I have read everything she ever wrote, including fiction, non-fiction, even her personal journal. I think she is one of the most misunderstood figures in modern history and will (eventually) be remembered as providing the philosophic cornerstone for the next and most prosperous era of humanity's history.

When I say mesh networking, I mean networking without central control or points of failure, a truly decentralized Internet in which participants can bootstrap and participate without permission and with impunity. Such a system requires a grand proliferation of hardware devices adhering to the same protocols. In short, it requires everyone to run their own node and for those nodes to speak the same language. Start9 aims to lead this march through EmbassyOS. We can't possibly predict which protocols and services will emerge as standards, and so we are developing an operating system that runs on commodity hardware that enables users to seamlessly choose and switch between various options. Whatever happens and whatever is needed, we know that physical devices and an operating system to manage them are essential prerequisites to any scale viable protocol or network.

Patience. Rebuilding the global financial system and a new Internet is going to take time, especially in the face of fierce resistance from corporate and state actors. My prediction is it will take 60-70 years to fully realize the vision Bitcoin and sovereign computing promise.

At present, EmabssyOS only runs on a Pi 4. In the near future, it will run on x86 to accommodate the Pro.

It is VERY difficult to get right. Single stream recycling practices (ie putting all your recycleables in the same bin) was a critical blow to plastics recycling. Not only are the plastics intermingled with non-plastics, but the various polymers are intermingled with each other. And on top of that they are covered in contaminants such as food, labels, metal, glue, etc. People have no idea how little of their plastic actually gets recycled. It is a tiny fraction. The problems are (1) efficiently identifying polymer types, (2) sorting the plastics based on polymer type, (3) decontaminating, and (4) producing a ground or pelletized product that meets the specifications of downstream manufacturers. All of this aginst the backdrop of incompetent regulation that makes everything more combersome and expensive. The vast majority of plastic ends up in land fills or are sent to China, Viet Nam, etc where they are sorted manually for cheap. There is a multi billion dollar company waiting for anyone who figures out how to identify, sort, clean, and pelletize to spec a mixed 1-7 bale in a totally automated fashion.

We sell physical devices.

We went on the hunt for the best Linux-based computer company and were overjoyed to find Purism. They really are in a class of their own. Reliable software, great hardware they manufacture themselves, and an incredible team.

2 weeks tm

Our development priorities are almost entirely on EmbassyOS. As mentioned in another comment, service development will be almost entirely community lead, and we are very confident this will result in hundreds and eventually thousands of services available on the Marketplace. Regarding EOS development, our roadmap is a mile long, so many incredible things to build that will take many years to realize. At the moment, we are prioritizing full disk encryption, automated backups, clearnet support, and multi-tenancy.

Nothing but advantages in every way that really matters. As an individual, I operate from 1st principles and hold integrity as the top virtue. You can "get away" with things in the world, but you can never get away from yourself. Every day is judgement day when it comes to your own conscience and self-esteem. I build Start9 according to the same principle. Sure, we forego some short term opportunities to grow faster or gauge harder, but our primary goal is to create a more free and independent world for future generations, for my daughter and other future children. Only secondarily do we consider the business angle. We wan to make money and lots of it, of course, but only secondarily to building a great product that improves the lives of those who use it and society as a whole.

Always tough to just settle on 5, but here's off the top of my head.

Movies

Books (cheating with 10)

It has changed over the years, but I always find myself wanting to re-watch Matrix. Never gets old. See my other answer for a few more.

Nothing major. No hiccups so far, on track for Fall release. It's a game changer.