I've been wanting to dock my phone into a cradle hooked up to multiple monitors, speakers, USB hub, keyboard, and mouse for a very long time.
The Microsoft acquisition of Nokia for a Surface Phone that would do something like this makes a lot of sense. They certainly wouldn't want to lose the new desktop form factor race.
Nor can I get it to work with either an iPad or iPhone 5 running iOS 7, using a MS BT Notebook mouse or Apple's own BT trackpad. The devices don't even see the pointing devices (or more accurately, they see them but they're not telling me in the UI). I've got an Apple BT mouse lying around somewhere that I'll try, but I doubt the results will change.
I believe it supports them, just like it supports game controllers now, but apps will have to include their own implementation of support to actually make use of them. It doesn't seem that iOS 7 supports using a mouse/touchpad by default throughout the OS itself.
Looks like apps can only support arbitrary Bluetooth devices if they're the Bluetooth Low Energy type: http://stackoverflow.com/a/11892685. Conventional Bluetooth devices would have to go through the MFi program to be supported by App Store apps.
BT keyboard has been supported back when original iPad was released. But BT mouse hasn't so far. If it is supported, then I think iPhone 5S could have the potential of being the first pocket size workstation.
Not just mice and keyboards either, Android has a surprisingly large number of devices and device types supported. Even I am left surprised at what "just works" on an Android device.
Why are the endless, tedious contribution like this not downvoted to oblivion as being offtopic? The topic is IOS 7, if you want to talk about Android start your own thread, failing that, take your witless preaching elsewhere.
It's more like a fraction of a second, not anywhere near 1-2 seconds in my experience. That said, I agree, even working with iWork-style apps might not be ideal. If they're gonna run iWork on TVs, I'd expect the apps to be executing on an Apple TV.
So basically what the article says is that apple should make a chromebook?
It could work. A touchscreen chromebook-like could be very attractive to the end user, especially if you can remove the base somehow and turn it into a big iPad. It would be like the Surface, except with a good app store.
No, what the article says is that Apple wants to make a phone that can also double as a desktop machine by docking it with the appropriate peripherals. That's a very different approach than Chromebook takes.
They will probably also want to support things like iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band and give us new features etc. I don't imagine those kind of apps working well on a Chromebook.
Weirdly this is exactly what Microsoft is doing with their tablets.
iOS is much more hampered in terms of doing 'real PC things' at this point so Microsoft has a good head start, even though Windows 8 isn't exactly the epitome of polish yet.
He's absolutely right, this will be the future of office type of work. He doesn't mention the Motorola Atrix (http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/motorola-atrix-4gs-webtop...) which tried to do precisely what he's talking about but failed due to Moto's incompetence (and lack of software like iWork). Apple's not Motorola though, they got everything aligned, including connection to the TV screens at home, something Atrix couldn't do.
Instead of hooking a keyboard to your iPhone/ipad flip it around. Apple TV can be an airplay receiver, your ios device sends it's display to the larger screen and you type, touch, or dictate on the device that's already in your hand most of the day. Some die hards won't give up their dedicated keyboards, but many people can transition over to the "mobile desktop".
I think OP is trying to see something when there is nothing to see. This seems to be common pattern with lot of Apple fanboys. Apple might be still innovative as they want to believe and I wouldn't argue with that because it's waste of time. OP's core argument is flawed due to many reasons:
1. iOS is not good at multi-tasking which is bread and butter for desktop. Look what happened to Windows 8 which tried to forced full screen apps on 24" monitors all the time.
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
I'm not saying that convergence is not possible. It's just too early for its time still. I can imagine iPhone 7 to be able to replace today's laptops. But arguing that Apple has this genius secret idea that no one is able to see it bit too much of fanboyism.
> 2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
Even if the hardware could handle an enterprise app like photoshop, I don't see companies wanting to spend the resources necessary to develop an iOS version in the first place.
Even if we don't get Photoshop on the iPad in the near future, that doesn't mean that a simpler version of Photoshop won't appear for tablets or even phones. There are a ton of simple (for the user) operations available in Photoshop, that are memory-intensive, that could become viable on a tablet given more memory.
That said, the important point isn't Photoshop specifically. Consider the Surface Pro - despite its flaws, being able to run virtually any desktop app (decently) is huge. We are nearing that convergence point where the distinction between tablet and desktop becomes fuzzy. More memory and higher power, lower wattage CPUs are getting us closer.
I'm not sure I agree with Cringely here either, but I think you're missing some important points:
1. iPhones do support multi-tasking, but the interface for it is poor. This could remedied, especially if iPhone would detect a larger screen and add an additional menu bar.
2. The killer app for the average desktop user isn't Photoshop, it's some manner of email/doc/spreadsheet. These do not require gobs of ram. For everyday use, they require: monitor, keyboard, mouse.
3. Which is quite possibly why Apple has built a zillion dollar data storage center (iCloud).
Actually, Cringely might be right, but I don't think we're going to see it anytime soon. I think it might be Apple's longer-term plan.
Put another way, it does pull together some interesting choices that Apple has made:
1. iCloud -- and more importantly the monster infrastructure developed for it.
2. The growing iOS-ification of OS X.
3. 64-bit processors (which, of course, allow for 'desktop class' amounts of ram).
4. Hardware accelerated screen sharing (AirPlay).
Another thing, I don't understand why you would classify that as a "genius secret idea". I would call it a multi-billion dollar technology company looking a few years into the future.
The killer app for the average desktop user isn't Photoshop, it's some manner of email/doc/spreadsheet. These do not require gobs of ram. For everyday use, they require: monitor, keyboard, mouse.
If Apple thought they could run Photoshop off an iPad, they'd do it, but they also know their bread and butter for laptops and desktops are designers who use Photoshop and Illustrator all day, every day.
I work for a tech company with a fairly large operational staff. I reckon at least half of those employees could get by with a good tablet with peripherals for almost all of their tasks.
1. Macs do support multi-tasking, but the interface for it is poor. This could remedied, especially if OS X would detect a larger screen and add an additional menu bar.
> But arguing that Apple has this genius secret idea that no one is able to see it bit too much of fanboyism.
Did you read the article?
He says: "Why would Apple do this? Well for one thing if they don’t Google will. For that matter Google will, anyway, so Apple has some incentive to get this in the market pronto."
> 2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
The argument doesn't require it being able to run all kinds of desktop applications.
He does say: "There are other reasons why Apple would do this. For one thing it is much more likely to hurt the PC market than the Mac market, since pocket desktop performance probably won’t be there for Apple’s core graphics and video markets. Mac sales might actually increase as sales are grabbed from faltering Windows vendors."
I don't agree with everything the OP said, but it seems like you're criticising for the sake of it.
The OP is speculating about the future and the flaws you cite are valid now, but will they be valid in the future? What prevents iOS from getting improved multitasking in the future? Phone/pads don't have enough RAM or cheap storage now. What prevents them from getting that in the future?
The OP wrote "Jump forward in time to a year from today.". You're trying to see fanboyism where there's none (or at least not as much as you want to believe).
If Canonical could promise something similar to what the OP described with that famous Indiegogo campaign, don't you think it may be possible for Apple to do that for the next iPhone/iOS release?
RAM isn't the only limitation: however cloudy you are, you'd probably want more than 8 GiB of persistent storage too. On the other hand it's not hard to see future iPhones ramping up RAM and flash, partly since the explosive increase in iPhone CPU speed has to be coming towards its end.
I think what everyone is missing here is virtualization, why do you need your phone to have the power for it run them locally. Keep all the heavy lift action in the data center and with the new mobile data speeds "stream" your desktop through the phone onto a local screen/interactive devices.
Phones will be like thin clients (a la citrix receiver) and so we have persistent backups and universal access along with desktop performance but still portability and battery life when not in thin client mode.
> 1. iOS is not good at multi-tasking which is bread and butter for desktop. Look what happened to Windows 8 which tried to forced full screen apps on 24" monitors all the time.
The base of iOS is still the OSX kernel, which is excellent at multitasking. A new UI for multitasking on bigger screens but that is fairly small addition, given that the apps and everything in the stack can already handle this.
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
Disruption doesn't start with the power users, Photoshop is a power user style app, most users don't need anything like this - think more like multiple browsers windows, a chat client, office software etc.
The Sasmung Galaxy Note III comes with 3GB of RAM. The base model Macbook Air comes with 4GB, as does the mini, as does the non-retina MBP. I don't see a big difference in RAM here. With a 64bit ARM chips there's no effective limit to the amount of RAM a phone could have.
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-galaxy-note-iii...
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
Android and iOS phones can talk to USB storage and SD cards anyway (except Apple currently limits this to photos only though it's camera connector). Even without this 64GB is a lot more than many people need, especially if they store content in the cloud, which seems likely in this model of computing. Even within the limitations of most phone's software now, you can use WiFi harddisks which are cheap.
> 1. iOS is not good at multi-tasking which is bread and butter for desktop. Look what happened to Windows 8 which tried to forced full screen apps on 24" monitors all the time.
Most non-techie people I know barely multitask. And that includes people who really would benefit from it ('high-powered executives' come to mind).
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
True, but for a huge amount of people that is not such an issue. The same people that barely multitask are also the ones that mostly use Office and a browser, and they usually only use the most basic office features.
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
Same situation. A large amount of users that I know don't need massive storage. Music is probably the biggest storage need, and even for that many have stopped bothering the whole itunes-syncing thing and just use spotify similar services.
Case in point: my father is pretty tech-savvy. And yet, over the past years he's started doing more and more work on his iPad, and less and less on his MacBook. Most of what he does it writing, browsing, watching videos and email. And my mother recently 'donated' her laptop to my younger sister and does almost all she needs on her phone. My brother recently started traveling and if I hadn't given him my old MacBook Air, he'd probably settle for an iPad.
And this is not just my family. I keep meeting more and more people who do this. Journalists going iPad-only, for example.
And it makes sense. A shocking number of fellow students, highly educated people who should benefit greatly from multitasking and whatnot, barely understood the filesystem, and often worked at the library on shitty computers where they fullscreened every app. They are not even aware of the 'power' that we power users utilize.
None of this invalidates your points. There are many people who need fully-featured operating systems. I'm merely pointing out that there's a huge market that can already get by on just an iPad (plus keyboard), and Apple is already mostly targeting this market. Convergence is pretty much possible already, and it wouldn't take much to make it entirely practical and workable for a huge amount of people.
The iPhone could replace desktop PCs that are only used for basic tasks like word processing and web browsing. However, advanced uses of desktops like hardcore gaming, a/v editing, software development, etc require much more advanced applications and underlying OS support that won't realistically be available on the iPhone in the near future.
That being said, I do think the idea of Apple selling MacBook Air like cases and displays with a slot for adding the iPhone has potential.
This has been done before and not taken off, but who knows with apple. The slot could be where the trackpad is with the phone functioning as the trackpad.
Add builtin inductive charging, with in-monitor charging stations (so you can literally keep your phone in your pocket) and the entire puzzle is complete. Although one might only want to do this after one has their personal optimum number of kids ;)
For me, I'll miss third-party non-gate-kept software. But I'm pretty sure that I'm the minority... iff Apple can get Microsoft's business apps on board.
Serious question: which business apps? From where I'm standing it looks like Office is dying. Not dead yet, but dying. So it can't just be that. Exchange?
Numbers are from 2012 b/c I didn't want to spend more time looking for more recent #s. But according the MS Q3 2012 numbers, their Business division revenue was $5.81 billion, up 9 percent from $5.33 billion a year earlier.
Those numbers say MS' business division is doing great. They don't say specific "apps" are doing great or would be a huge value add to iOS.
That said, I'm clearly not in the business world, because I haven't used a MS product outside an Xbox since school... so I probably have a skewed perspective.
Good read. It seems everything will be a module of a system. Users will only need to carry the necessary part with them. And since the mobile device now can have such a powerful calculation capability and wireless connectivity, users will be able to just switch the physical interface they operate on and use the small bar as the core device. This isn't the first time someone tries to do this. But it seems quite viable with what Apple currently have.
So Apple's plan is to do what Ubuntu and Windows are already heading in the direction of? Except when Apple do it is new and revolutionary.
Why would any enterprise IT department choose the iOS device, which is going to be more expensive, less open, and probably play less well with all the Microsoft back end products they have?
I cant see a single advantage Apple have in this space over Google and Microsoft, other than a lot of senior management tend to like the shiny Apple product.
Ubuntu? Where's the hardware? Where's the full experience?
Regardless, innovative isn't just trying it first. It's making it work first. Microsoft has made a good try but there's something missing if it's just not seeing adoption. I don't think it's easy to say what that is or it would be fixed already. But I do think Cringely is right that someone will get there, Apple or not.
Nobody has done it fully yet, including Apple. But again, Cringely doesn't give a single reason why Apple would succeed in this space over Google or Microsoft, or something like Ubuntu. Enterprise is probably going to want to stick to mostly one OS if everything has to be ported over and all their accessories need to be compatible, and iOS is very very unlikely to be first choice of most IT departments for obvious reasons.
So the idea of convergence isn't new, and the idea that iOS would win at the convergence game in the Enterprise is implausible - I don't know what he was smoking when he wrote this article.
Enterprise is going to be a slow-adopting beast, no matter what, but that doesn't mean that iOS (or some future evolution of it) is out of the running. Come on, you're not really saying that office work can't ever fundamentally change again, now that PCs are here -- are you?
Firstly, iOS as it stands is very very poor compared with a desktop OS for office work. At an absolute minimum people need to be able to have two documents up on screen at once, maybe one spreadsheet and one PowerPoint doc.
Secondly, im willing to entertain the idea that iOS could evolve into something that could become useful as a desktop replacement, but i am yet to see a single reason why it would have an advantage over competitors, and there are many reasons, such as cost, that they are at a disadvantage.
From my experience of working in an office with admin teams, the very large majority worked with apps open on the full screen and tabbed between them. Very rarely would they have more than app visible at once, even when they knew they could they wouldn't.
That has not been my experience with office workers. They often work with one maximized app, but they often work with more than one document at a time. For admin teams in particular they often have a small chat client open either for work reasons, or more commonly to chat with coworkers.
Didn't Ubuntu do 'Ubuntu on Android', which basically meant that when you plugged your Android telephone into a computer, you had a full desktop Ubuntu on it?
I am pretty sure Ubuntu Touch would have the same functionality.
I've been waiting for Ubuntu on Android but it seems to never come. Their site still says "Get in touch" at the bottom trying to get other companies to get involved with it. I want it to say "Download" or at least "Where to get it" damn it!
I don't know how much credit the post deserves, but something to think about: A lot of very strong companies had already started capturing the smartphone market before Apple came out with the iPhone. I think it's clear that people care about marketing and branding and are obviously willing to pay for that (hint: car companies).
In the enterprise people care about price. A lot. They might be happy to buy a few iPhones for management, but a wide scale iOS deployment as a desktop replacement to everyone in the company would be crazy, in the same way that very few companies give everyone a Mac.
I think if we're painting with really broad brushes, in the end companies care about ease of use. The cost of people is far greater than equipment. Of course, they don't evaluate hardware the same way that individuals do, so it looks like the price matters the most, because most companies already have established IT conventions and those qualify the highest for "ease of use" (they already know what they are doing).
So it will certainly take time, and it will take smaller, riskier companies demonstrating that some futuristic new platform is soooo much easier, but if that really was the case, it really wouldn't be that crazy to see large enterprises starting to shift this way.
Of course this is all based on the assumption that "it's going to be so much better and easier to use that it's obvious to the market as a whole." I'm not saying Apple will achieve that goal, but I think a lot of people who wouldn't traditionally have been "Apple fanboys" are rooting for Apple, simply because we've all seen them make transformative changes with the iPod and iPhone, and we like progress.
> I think if we're painting with really broad brushes, in the end companies care about ease of use. The cost of people is far greater than equipment.
Sounds like you have never worked in an enterprise. Ease of use for the staff is definitely not at the top of the list of concerns. They care about price, will it continue to run their legacy apps for another 10 years, how easy is it to administer etc.
Regarding your second point, I have not heard anyone who is not firmly an "Apple fanboy" cheering for iOS to supplant Windows in the enterprise. Linux, yes, iOS no.
Huh? Tons of companies have iOS massively rolled out to their sales teams already.
You're talking about this in theoretical terms like the iPhone isn't already doing very well coupled with Exchange in the enterprise space, but it is...
The iPhone costs enterprises about the same amount as a good Android phone (e.g. Galaxy 4/Note). So it isn't uncommon for companies to offer employees a choice of either an iPhone or Android phone, since both hook into Exchange equally as well and cost the company a similar amount.
Blackberry is dying as the go-to enterprise phone. Has been for a while.
Not as desktop replacements they don't. iOS devices are fine for when the user has very simple needs like filling in a form or reading a pdf, but real office work is a completely different story.
A desktop Windows computer is faster, cheaper and more capabale than any phone out there. Dumb terminals are dramatically cheaper. That's why almost every office worker in the world uses them. iOS is doing well replacing Blackberry and Palm Pilot in the enterprise, not replacing Windows machines.
iPhones already exist in the enterprise space. They aren't going to need to buy more of them to use them as laptops, just keep buying the ones they're already buying and use them for two things instead of one.
iPhones aren't being used for anything more than trivial tasks, they are used for phone calls, reading email and light web browsing. Any smartphone can do that, and if we see convergence then probably all the new converged devices will be fine for that purpose too.
It is going to be a lot harder for iPhones to become capable of taking over the job of a Windows PC than for a small Wintel phone to fill in the job of an iPhone.
If convergence devices do appear in the enterprise I think its more likely that the popular ones will be Windows, Android or at an outside chance Ubuntu - and the devices more likely to disappear are the ones not best suited to the desktop work.
I don't think you've been following what industry has been doing with iPhones.
First of all, "light browsing, reading, and phone calls"? You clearly haven't been in sales. Entire 2000 word screens are usually banged out on one's iPhone or Blackberry. The calendar app has to manage hundreds of events, etc.
I do almost all of my browsing on an iPhone.
Airline mechanics at at lesat one major global airline have been using them to log their maintenance activities with precise detail.
More than one Class-1 railroad is prototyping iPhones and iPads for crew and yard devices to manage train manifests and marshalling orders.
Doctors are using their iPhones for looking up and editing EHRs in some hospitals.
Everywhere I look in the enterprise, they are killing the PC in favor of the smartphone -- today.
Again, that may be important work but it is all very basic work that can easily be done with any mid-range phone or tablet. Historically there may have been genuine reasons to pick the Apple product, but as time goes by there is less and less reason to choose Apple, and more and more reason to choose one of their competitors.
For "real" office work that needs a convergence device, Apple is in even less of a strong position, for the reasons outlined elsewhere.
They are likely to find some niche applications, and probably do well in the consumer side, but its hard to imagine Apple having much success as a PC replacement (and decreasing success in the long run as a BlackBerry replacement)
Wide scale Blackberry deployments are in progress of being re-assessed. I know at least one large logistics company that is throwing out all pre-10 Blackberries over the next 2-3 years and allowing iOS devices as the alternative.
Yes, the iPhone (and Android devices) are replacing Blackberries. Not desktop computers. If convergence devices show up then they will replace phones. The ones that get chosen will be the ones that make the best computers, not the ones that make the best phones.
More than they would save by going to one of their competitors? By the time convergence devices arrive, Google or Microsoft will almost certainly have the most cost effective solution for most businesses.
Because it's not a new idea, just an idea that's time may be coming. Ubuntu is definitely out ahead on this one conceptually, but iOS devices are inching their way closer and closer to desktop-class software and performance... by the time Ubuntu ships something, Apple may already be there.
I don't think Apple wants to abandon their desktop market at all. However, they could be introducing a new thing - a new Apple TV style device that's designed to connect to monitors and act as a workplace bridge for iPhones and iPads.
If you could get a $100 or $150 AppleDesktop that only ran App Store apps, but hooked up to a monitor/TV and allowed BT keyboard/mouse, would you do it?
It could be the AppleTV store, or the iOS App Store, or even the Mac App Store that's backing it, but it would definitely be an interesting competitor vs. a Chromebox, as it could function without internet (which might make it a perfect "computer" for your aging parents). The fact that it couldn't run OSX or sideload apps would clearly protect Macs from some cannibalization.
An interesting point is Apple is more like a consumer product company. The rules of tech industry have their effects on Apple. However, while completing in the consumer market, there are other rules as well. Taking different dimensions in to account could not be a bad idea.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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?
Who said you can't do both? Phones and cloud data storage aren't mutually exclusive.
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.
i had the exact same thought when talking to a friend about the last keynote. he told me the 5c was a ripoff and noone would buy it.
i told him he's missed the most important news : productivity apps for free, and the emphasis on trying to make pads and phones not only reading devices but content writing devices as well (5s as powerful as a laptop)
And since content editing requires more power and Apple is best at producing high level computing platforms, that would let them win market shares over android again (in a "if you can't win the game, change the rules" type of strategy).
i'm predicting a huge rise in medium prices and features for apps in the next year. But we'll only be sure when the new ipad is shown. because of its screen size, it's the only device really capable of providing a true content editing platform at the moment.
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[ 0.81 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadThe Microsoft acquisition of Nokia for a Surface Phone that would do something like this makes a lot of sense. They certainly wouldn't want to lose the new desktop form factor race.
Wait, what? If this is true, it certainly hasn't been talked about much.
Edit: I should be more straightforward — I don't believe this is true.
can i buy this? no.
It could work. A touchscreen chromebook-like could be very attractive to the end user, especially if you can remove the base somehow and turn it into a big iPad. It would be like the Surface, except with a good app store.
iOS is much more hampered in terms of doing 'real PC things' at this point so Microsoft has a good head start, even though Windows 8 isn't exactly the epitome of polish yet.
Same reason why people argue that standalone pocket cameras are dead or doomed.
1. iOS is not good at multi-tasking which is bread and butter for desktop. Look what happened to Windows 8 which tried to forced full screen apps on 24" monitors all the time.
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
I'm not saying that convergence is not possible. It's just too early for its time still. I can imagine iPhone 7 to be able to replace today's laptops. But arguing that Apple has this genius secret idea that no one is able to see it bit too much of fanboyism.
Even if the hardware could handle an enterprise app like photoshop, I don't see companies wanting to spend the resources necessary to develop an iOS version in the first place.
That said, the important point isn't Photoshop specifically. Consider the Surface Pro - despite its flaws, being able to run virtually any desktop app (decently) is huge. We are nearing that convergence point where the distinction between tablet and desktop becomes fuzzy. More memory and higher power, lower wattage CPUs are getting us closer.
1. iPhones do support multi-tasking, but the interface for it is poor. This could remedied, especially if iPhone would detect a larger screen and add an additional menu bar.
2. The killer app for the average desktop user isn't Photoshop, it's some manner of email/doc/spreadsheet. These do not require gobs of ram. For everyday use, they require: monitor, keyboard, mouse.
3. Which is quite possibly why Apple has built a zillion dollar data storage center (iCloud).
Actually, Cringely might be right, but I don't think we're going to see it anytime soon. I think it might be Apple's longer-term plan.
Put another way, it does pull together some interesting choices that Apple has made:
1. iCloud -- and more importantly the monster infrastructure developed for it.
2. The growing iOS-ification of OS X.
3. 64-bit processors (which, of course, allow for 'desktop class' amounts of ram).
4. Hardware accelerated screen sharing (AirPlay).
Another thing, I don't understand why you would classify that as a "genius secret idea". I would call it a multi-billion dollar technology company looking a few years into the future.
The killer app for the average desktop user isn't Photoshop, it's some manner of email/doc/spreadsheet. These do not require gobs of ram. For everyday use, they require: monitor, keyboard, mouse.
If Apple thought they could run Photoshop off an iPad, they'd do it, but they also know their bread and butter for laptops and desktops are designers who use Photoshop and Illustrator all day, every day.
I work for a tech company with a fairly large operational staff. I reckon at least half of those employees could get by with a good tablet with peripherals for almost all of their tasks.
iOS is 90% of Apple's business
Did you read the article?
He says: "Why would Apple do this? Well for one thing if they don’t Google will. For that matter Google will, anyway, so Apple has some incentive to get this in the market pronto."
The argument doesn't require it being able to run all kinds of desktop applications.
He does say: "There are other reasons why Apple would do this. For one thing it is much more likely to hurt the PC market than the Mac market, since pocket desktop performance probably won’t be there for Apple’s core graphics and video markets. Mac sales might actually increase as sales are grabbed from faltering Windows vendors."
The OP is speculating about the future and the flaws you cite are valid now, but will they be valid in the future? What prevents iOS from getting improved multitasking in the future? Phone/pads don't have enough RAM or cheap storage now. What prevents them from getting that in the future?
The OP wrote "Jump forward in time to a year from today.". You're trying to see fanboyism where there's none (or at least not as much as you want to believe).
If Canonical could promise something similar to what the OP described with that famous Indiegogo campaign, don't you think it may be possible for Apple to do that for the next iPhone/iOS release?
Phones will be like thin clients (a la citrix receiver) and so we have persistent backups and universal access along with desktop performance but still portability and battery life when not in thin client mode.
> 1. iOS is not good at multi-tasking which is bread and butter for desktop. Look what happened to Windows 8 which tried to forced full screen apps on 24" monitors all the time.
The base of iOS is still the OSX kernel, which is excellent at multitasking. A new UI for multitasking on bigger screens but that is fairly small addition, given that the apps and everything in the stack can already handle this.
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
Disruption doesn't start with the power users, Photoshop is a power user style app, most users don't need anything like this - think more like multiple browsers windows, a chat client, office software etc. The Sasmung Galaxy Note III comes with 3GB of RAM. The base model Macbook Air comes with 4GB, as does the mini, as does the non-retina MBP. I don't see a big difference in RAM here. With a 64bit ARM chips there's no effective limit to the amount of RAM a phone could have. http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/samsung-galaxy-note-iii...
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
Android and iOS phones can talk to USB storage and SD cards anyway (except Apple currently limits this to photos only though it's camera connector). Even without this 64GB is a lot more than many people need, especially if they store content in the cloud, which seems likely in this model of computing. Even within the limitations of most phone's software now, you can use WiFi harddisks which are cheap.
If Apple doesn't do this, someone else will, e.g. http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge
Most non-techie people I know barely multitask. And that includes people who really would benefit from it ('high-powered executives' come to mind).
2. Phone/pads still don't have necessary RAM to run desktop class applications. Can you imagine running full strength Photoshop on iPad yet?
True, but for a huge amount of people that is not such an issue. The same people that barely multitask are also the ones that mostly use Office and a browser, and they usually only use the most basic office features.
3. Phone/Pads are still far behind in providing large cheap storage compared to similarly priced devices.
Same situation. A large amount of users that I know don't need massive storage. Music is probably the biggest storage need, and even for that many have stopped bothering the whole itunes-syncing thing and just use spotify similar services.
Case in point: my father is pretty tech-savvy. And yet, over the past years he's started doing more and more work on his iPad, and less and less on his MacBook. Most of what he does it writing, browsing, watching videos and email. And my mother recently 'donated' her laptop to my younger sister and does almost all she needs on her phone. My brother recently started traveling and if I hadn't given him my old MacBook Air, he'd probably settle for an iPad.
And this is not just my family. I keep meeting more and more people who do this. Journalists going iPad-only, for example.
And it makes sense. A shocking number of fellow students, highly educated people who should benefit greatly from multitasking and whatnot, barely understood the filesystem, and often worked at the library on shitty computers where they fullscreened every app. They are not even aware of the 'power' that we power users utilize.
None of this invalidates your points. There are many people who need fully-featured operating systems. I'm merely pointing out that there's a huge market that can already get by on just an iPad (plus keyboard), and Apple is already mostly targeting this market. Convergence is pretty much possible already, and it wouldn't take much to make it entirely practical and workable for a huge amount of people.
That being said, I do think the idea of Apple selling MacBook Air like cases and displays with a slot for adding the iPhone has potential.
For me, I'll miss third-party non-gate-kept software. But I'm pretty sure that I'm the minority... iff Apple can get Microsoft's business apps on board.
That said, I'm clearly not in the business world, because I haven't used a MS product outside an Xbox since school... so I probably have a skewed perspective.
Why would any enterprise IT department choose the iOS device, which is going to be more expensive, less open, and probably play less well with all the Microsoft back end products they have?
I cant see a single advantage Apple have in this space over Google and Microsoft, other than a lot of senior management tend to like the shiny Apple product.
Regardless, innovative isn't just trying it first. It's making it work first. Microsoft has made a good try but there's something missing if it's just not seeing adoption. I don't think it's easy to say what that is or it would be fixed already. But I do think Cringely is right that someone will get there, Apple or not.
So the idea of convergence isn't new, and the idea that iOS would win at the convergence game in the Enterprise is implausible - I don't know what he was smoking when he wrote this article.
Secondly, im willing to entertain the idea that iOS could evolve into something that could become useful as a desktop replacement, but i am yet to see a single reason why it would have an advantage over competitors, and there are many reasons, such as cost, that they are at a disadvantage.
I am pretty sure Ubuntu Touch would have the same functionality.
http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/ubuntu-for-android
So it will certainly take time, and it will take smaller, riskier companies demonstrating that some futuristic new platform is soooo much easier, but if that really was the case, it really wouldn't be that crazy to see large enterprises starting to shift this way.
Of course this is all based on the assumption that "it's going to be so much better and easier to use that it's obvious to the market as a whole." I'm not saying Apple will achieve that goal, but I think a lot of people who wouldn't traditionally have been "Apple fanboys" are rooting for Apple, simply because we've all seen them make transformative changes with the iPod and iPhone, and we like progress.
Sounds like you have never worked in an enterprise. Ease of use for the staff is definitely not at the top of the list of concerns. They care about price, will it continue to run their legacy apps for another 10 years, how easy is it to administer etc.
Regarding your second point, I have not heard anyone who is not firmly an "Apple fanboy" cheering for iOS to supplant Windows in the enterprise. Linux, yes, iOS no.
You're talking about this in theoretical terms like the iPhone isn't already doing very well coupled with Exchange in the enterprise space, but it is...
The iPhone costs enterprises about the same amount as a good Android phone (e.g. Galaxy 4/Note). So it isn't uncommon for companies to offer employees a choice of either an iPhone or Android phone, since both hook into Exchange equally as well and cost the company a similar amount.
Blackberry is dying as the go-to enterprise phone. Has been for a while.
A desktop Windows computer is faster, cheaper and more capabale than any phone out there. Dumb terminals are dramatically cheaper. That's why almost every office worker in the world uses them. iOS is doing well replacing Blackberry and Palm Pilot in the enterprise, not replacing Windows machines.
iPhones already exist in the enterprise space. They aren't going to need to buy more of them to use them as laptops, just keep buying the ones they're already buying and use them for two things instead of one.
It is going to be a lot harder for iPhones to become capable of taking over the job of a Windows PC than for a small Wintel phone to fill in the job of an iPhone.
If convergence devices do appear in the enterprise I think its more likely that the popular ones will be Windows, Android or at an outside chance Ubuntu - and the devices more likely to disappear are the ones not best suited to the desktop work.
First of all, "light browsing, reading, and phone calls"? You clearly haven't been in sales. Entire 2000 word screens are usually banged out on one's iPhone or Blackberry. The calendar app has to manage hundreds of events, etc.
I do almost all of my browsing on an iPhone.
Airline mechanics at at lesat one major global airline have been using them to log their maintenance activities with precise detail.
More than one Class-1 railroad is prototyping iPhones and iPads for crew and yard devices to manage train manifests and marshalling orders.
Doctors are using their iPhones for looking up and editing EHRs in some hospitals.
Everywhere I look in the enterprise, they are killing the PC in favor of the smartphone -- today.
For "real" office work that needs a convergence device, Apple is in even less of a strong position, for the reasons outlined elsewhere.
They are likely to find some niche applications, and probably do well in the consumer side, but its hard to imagine Apple having much success as a PC replacement (and decreasing success in the long run as a BlackBerry replacement)
If you could get a $100 or $150 AppleDesktop that only ran App Store apps, but hooked up to a monitor/TV and allowed BT keyboard/mouse, would you do it?
It could be the AppleTV store, or the iOS App Store, or even the Mac App Store that's backing it, but it would definitely be an interesting competitor vs. a Chromebox, as it could function without internet (which might make it a perfect "computer" for your aging parents). The fact that it couldn't run OSX or sideload apps would clearly protect Macs from some cannibalization.
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.
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!
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.
http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
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.
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.
This isn't some revelation, it's achievable today
The result is so horrible that I've adapted the old jwz quote to describe it:
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use Citrix." Now they have two problems.
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...
Who said you can't do both? Phones and cloud data storage aren't mutually exclusive.
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 told him he's missed the most important news : productivity apps for free, and the emphasis on trying to make pads and phones not only reading devices but content writing devices as well (5s as powerful as a laptop)
And since content editing requires more power and Apple is best at producing high level computing platforms, that would let them win market shares over android again (in a "if you can't win the game, change the rules" type of strategy).
i'm predicting a huge rise in medium prices and features for apps in the next year. But we'll only be sure when the new ipad is shown. because of its screen size, it's the only device really capable of providing a true content editing platform at the moment.