A lot of people are seeing this. Phones now have a lot of computational power, but a 4-5 inch touch-screen and a hardware button or two constitute a piss-poor interface for using it all! You have an office suite that works on your phone. Big whoop. It still doesn't make them viable devices for serious work.
So, what's next? Do phones become our personal go-everywhere pocket computers, and will displays, keyboards, "vacuum" laptops etc. just become a way to improve the interface capabilities of our personal pocket-computers? Cloud computing, if the NSA doesn't manage to kill it completely, offers a way to at least have our documents follow us around (e.g. Dropbox). There's no reason why a lot more of our computing environment couldn't follow us around via the cloud too. It's easily doable to store everything about your current session on the cloud so that, when you leave work, your computer at home has everything waiting for you just the way it was at work. Having the exact same computer following us around without transmitting everything to Big Brother would have a certain amount of appeal if not for the greater danger of losing everything with our phone! So, what's next?
MS isn't as far behind as Cringely thinks. The surface pro is basically a desktop that's meant to follow you around. It's not quite phone sized, but MS is definitely showing a strong interest in unifying the mobile and desktop user experience. They've done more so far than Apple has, since Cringely's speculations on iOS are still entirely future tense. Still, I'm not entirely convinced the one-computer following you everywhere approach is going to beat the cloud. A little back-tracking by governments on their right to invade user privacy or a credible open-source secure-cloud environment actually taking off could lift cloud computing's chances. Yes, I'm aware it will largely be chance which one wins, and user privacy will likely be compromised no matter which approach wins, either by cloud-data storage or mobile-device backups.
No matter how it happens, things are evolving towards a world where we won't have separate, discrete devices, but just multiple ways of accessing the same persistent computing space. When it comes right down to it, new ways to interface with our computing environment are probably just as important as unifying our discrete computing spaces. Google's work on Glass indicates another possible way to change the game. Free both the user's hands and you have the potential to deliver richer user-input capability. Still, it's not entirely clear to me that this is Google's intention with glass. They may be getting too hung up on the idea of augmented reality when improving user input capability would bring far greater benefits. Augmented reality is nice, but if that's all Google sees in Glass they're going to get their butts handed to them.
Microsoft is ahead actually. It is painfull and execution is far from perfect, but they are innovating in this direction fast.
1. Like Apple, they have unified large parts of Windows on PC and Mobile, most importantly the UI. Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 also share a lot of technology; much more than OSX and iOS. For instance, they can easily support multimonitor setups, which iOS and Android cannot (afaik)
2. Microsoft has also built huge datacenters, and with Windows Azure, they now have a very complete cloud offering, including the possibility to run workstation class applications like Photoshop and Visual Studio virtualized on every device, including iOS (now that it supports a mouse) and Android.
3. Microsoft is far ahead in multi-user support, which is very important. From consumer accounts (with features such as Family Safety) to enterprise directories and cloud directories, Microsoft has all the infrastructure already in place. Settings are synced between all Windows 8+ devices, and it works very well.
4. Microsoft has a much better story toward organizations. Organizations centrally control security for their employees and they can determine how they run their systems. Azure enables hybrid cloud/on-premise solutions. Microsoft even pre-integrates their competitors OSses (several flavors of Linux) and services (Google Apps, Salesforce, and many others) in Windows Azure.
5. If Microsoft finally manages to come up with a workable Metro version of Office, the Windows desktop will become unnecessary for most users, and the new UI will start to make more sense: from phone consumption to desktop productivity to server administration: it will all work the same way. Apps may run remotely or locally without the user even knowing. Like Apple and Google, Microsoft will charge for an Office 365 subscription (for storage), and allow "free" installation of Office on any device, including iPad, iPhone and Android.
I agree with this. Microsoft has a good idea in W8, but their execution stinks. iOS & Android own the consumer market. It's unrealistic for MS to overcome their enormous lead in apps. But MS can enter the market from a position of strength: enterprise integration. If more businesses move employees to tablets, they will need enterprise features to extend their existing Windows environment to tablets/phones. They already want portable desktop environments, so this will be another bonus. Apple and Google are focused on consumers. Who is MS's competition in the enterprise space? The only thing preventing MS from succeeding is MS.
Thank you for saying most of what I felt, only so much more clearly!
I don't how anyone whose work depends on creating quality content - programmers, journalists, designers - can achieve even a fraction of their PC (I use that term loosely) productivity on a 'post-PC' device like a tablet.
I see people saying they have ditched PCs and laptops altogether in favour of tablets, and I wonder how. I'm not a Luddite, and I've owned the iPad and Nexus tablets for a while, but I still prefer my laptop for my work every. single. time!
I agree. Just a couple months ago I attempted to shift a lot of my programming work towards my tablet, just to try it out.
In short; it sucks. You need constant internet connection because you're always ssh'd in. The flow of productivity is interrupted every time you have to lift your hand to physically touch the screen, and even with a high-end keyboard the technology to quickly traverse a screen just isn't there yet.
I keep waiting for a phone vendor to really look at keyboards/touchpads/whatever on their phone and come up with a solid offering that does more than just copy Blackberry's approach.
Give me a slide-out keyboard, but don't stop there. Put a laptop-style trackpad on it or a trackball next to the keyboard in a way that emphasizes two-handed operation (like a gamepad). Put shoulder-buttons for shift and ctrl and the mouse-buttons - look at PSPs and gamepads for inspiration. Stick a scroll-wheel on the right shoulder. Our phones are getting huge but hardware keyboards are still thinking like Blackberry, and thinking like Blackberry obviously didn't work for blackberry.
Then focus on productivity. Port eclipse to the damned thing. Port your full development chain to the damned thing. Port some PC games - a trackball isn't a mouse, but it beats the heck out of a touchscreen for PC gaming.
Give us a phone that feels like a hand-held computer. Sure, it's thick as a brick and weighs more than a tablet, but it's a computer you can use comfortably without a desk.
Tablets and mobile devices are primarily consumption devices, and are ill-suited for creating anything. However, going by the 90/9/1 rule, there's a much bigger potential set of consumption consumers than creators.
your computer at home has everything waiting for you just the way it was at work.
Though not your phone (if you need to work at other times/places).
Historically, we've cycled between distributed and centralized computing. I'm not convinced the cloud is the one true way (though certainly we'll keep the option of being connected). Factors include: price of computing power; how much is actually needed; network bandwidth/latency.
Personally, the latency of webapps drives me up the wall. Makes me wonder if a resurgence in apps is coming. Native apps seem more popular on phones...
IMO, the cloud only makes sense for data that you need to share with others. Your private data should be stored as close to you as possible - in your phone, or preferrably within your own body (hello Johnny Mnemonic).
> Having the exact same computer following us around without transmitting everything to Big Brother would have a certain amount of appeal if not for the greater danger of losing everything with our phone! So, what's next?
Ever heard of Citrix, VDI etc.... that is exactly the concept you are explaining and its available now. I can hook the citrix receiver on my blackberry up to my citrix desktop then plug in the microHDMI cable and attach a bluetooth mouse/kb. Sorted, full screen enterprise class desktop applications in a secure container.
> Having the exact same computer following us around without transmitting everything to Big Brother would have a certain amount of appeal if not for the greater danger of losing everything with our phone! So, what's next?
Who said you can't do both? Phones and cloud data storage aren't mutually exclusive.
Exactly. There's this lose-lose idea for Apple and customers. Apple won't please business leaders till the business employees are able to work wherever they are, which the employees aren't necessarily asking for. As it's done for the CEOs (who use secretaries) the judge and users aren't the same.
So, what's next? Do phones become our personal go-everywhere pocket computers, and will displays, keyboards, "vacuum" laptops etc. just become a way to improve the interface capabilities of our personal pocket-computers? Cloud computing, if the NSA doesn't manage to kill it completely, offers a way to at least have our documents follow us around (e.g. Dropbox). There's no reason why a lot more of our computing environment couldn't follow us around via the cloud too. It's easily doable to store everything about your current session on the cloud so that, when you leave work, your computer at home has everything waiting for you just the way it was at work. Having the exact same computer following us around without transmitting everything to Big Brother would have a certain amount of appeal if not for the greater danger of losing everything with our phone! So, what's next?
MS isn't as far behind as Cringely thinks. The surface pro is basically a desktop that's meant to follow you around. It's not quite phone sized, but MS is definitely showing a strong interest in unifying the mobile and desktop user experience. They've done more so far than Apple has, since Cringely's speculations on iOS are still entirely future tense. Still, I'm not entirely convinced the one-computer following you everywhere approach is going to beat the cloud. A little back-tracking by governments on their right to invade user privacy or a credible open-source secure-cloud environment actually taking off could lift cloud computing's chances. Yes, I'm aware it will largely be chance which one wins, and user privacy will likely be compromised no matter which approach wins, either by cloud-data storage or mobile-device backups.
No matter how it happens, things are evolving towards a world where we won't have separate, discrete devices, but just multiple ways of accessing the same persistent computing space. When it comes right down to it, new ways to interface with our computing environment are probably just as important as unifying our discrete computing spaces. Google's work on Glass indicates another possible way to change the game. Free both the user's hands and you have the potential to deliver richer user-input capability. Still, it's not entirely clear to me that this is Google's intention with glass. They may be getting too hung up on the idea of augmented reality when improving user input capability would bring far greater benefits. Augmented reality is nice, but if that's all Google sees in Glass they're going to get their butts handed to them.