Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu May Beat Windows 10 To Phone-PC Convergence After All
An anonymous reader writes with news that Mark Shuttleworth plans to have a Ubuntu smartphone that can be used as a PC out sometime this year. "Despite the recent announcement that Windows 10 phones will be able to be used as PCs when connected to an external monitor, Ubuntu—the first operating system to toy with the idea—hasn't conceded the smartphone-PC convergence race to Microsoft just yet. 'While I enjoy the race, I also like to win,' Ubuntu Foundation founder Mark Shuttleworth said during a Ubuntu Online Summit keynote, before announcing that Canonical will partner with a hardware manufacturer to release a Ubuntu Phone with smartphone-PC convergence features this year.
Didn't Motorola do pretty much the same thing with the Atrix back in 2011?
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Maybe the first to toy with it but BlackBerry implemented this feature in BB10 OS 2 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=306&v=xLnpaMiB7qE
I don't want "convergence" between my devices. Why would anyone?
My phone is used for wildly different tasks than my laptop, which is used for mostly different tasks from my desktop. Any form of convergence is going to hurt at least one of the workflows involved.
I want my phone software to be as lightweight/minimalistic as possible so my phone's battery can last, for example. A desktop doesn't have to care about that at all.
Just make the best phone software, or PC software, you can, don't half-ass both.
This, this, a million times this.
But wouldn't it make devices 50% lighter, 50% smaller and twice as portable if they're half-assed?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
So you don't have to purchase / maintain / upgrade / carry around / learn to use multiple devices.
Being honest, hasn't the attempt by MS to do this and the abject failure on Win 8.1 on the desktop been enough to convince the ego that is the other MS that this is a bad idea?
After all how many Linux desktop are there out there in % terms?
I use CentOS as my main desktop and really have no need to want to use my phone as a desktop.
This move strikes me as being more like
Jack of All trades, master on None.
Put handlebars on a 747. Then if you can ride a bike you're a pilot!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
What if you could just dock your smart device and it's now a workstation? To some extend the docking station could act as a feature/performance extension of a smaller device. It wouldn't ruin the flow and would allow you to carry your same configuration/environment everywhere. I know some will counter with "Why not use the cloud?" but the fact is that the cloud doesn't give you the nice smooth response of client side access and you never know if you will have a decent internet access where you go.
Keep in mind that I'm aware our smart devices are not there yet but 10 years from now it will be a lot closer. The future of having one device do it all is in view. Any company that refuses to get on board with this will possibly miss the boat the same way MS did with the smart phones.
That's nice. I want to be able to carry all of my files with me everywhere. I want the same development environment everywhere and to only configure it once. I want those configuration changes to follow me everywhere. I want to be able to answer the phone on my desktop. I want to have my call and messaging history accessible no matter what device I'm using. I don't want to buy 4 computers (phone, laptop, tablet, desktop) I want to buy 1. Displays, touchscreens, and peripherals should be dummy passthrough devices. I want all of this to be instant (which means no cloud storage until we can make that much much faster). You might not want convergence, but I would kill for it.
So.... really, how is this different from Windows RT leftovers, warmed up and plonked onto a phone a la Atrix as mentioned above?
It's got all the overhead of Windows but in a walled garden, etc etc. As before, what's the compelling advantage versus Android (which is faster, less costly, runs everywhere) or iOS (more pretty, more apps, and reliably walled-in)? It seems like they're beating the wall with their collective head.
More pointedly, the scraps left between the two big players in mobile aren't enough to create a success condition for Windows Phone 10, UNLESS somehow Microsoft fixes all the hassles with syncing enterprise AD accounts with consumer-level Microsoft accounts, AND all those Fortune 1000 companies with their own cloud implementation plans abruptly change their security policies to allow confidential documents to transit MS cloud services under consumer msft accounts (e.g. do phone buyers allow an employer to have complete control of their personal phone aka Blackberry, or carry two phones). Unlikely on all fronts. They can build it, but who's gonna come?
I think not...(*poof*)
I do. I want an app to work on different form factors - phone, tablet, laptop, desktop. I want the same app, but suitably displayed on each device. Of course this only applies to lightweight apps, are maybe games.
Heavyweight apps will remain on the desktop, but that's not what this is about. This is about a new API, and additional API. And that should be different from what we have today.
Motorola's Atrix, half a dozen Archos products, there's a good argument for the Palm Pilot, several older Sony products, et cetera.
There were phones running Windows NT.
Pity there's no downside to falsely claiming to be the first.
Initially I also thought like that, but isn't that thinking just based on the limitations of current devices? Syncing devices is a nightmare, and hence I switched from a desktop to a notebook, instead of maintaining both devices. Still synching my phone with my desktop is painful enough. The reason why I didn't buy a tablet was again the "sync between all devices" nightmare. Imagine a world, in say 10 years, where you have a device the size of a phone, capable of number crunching what current desktops can do. You have all your data with you - locally and under full control, and not in some cloud somewhere. In fact, I am looking at those convertible devices like the Surface Pro3, Lenovo Yoga, and the like. When I code, put it in a docking station, when I am on the way and need to type, use the notebook's keyboard, when just reading some pdf, use it as a tablet. Integration must be better than the desaster of Windows 8, but just bc Win8 sucks, doesn't mean it's not doable...
Do you really use them for wildly different tasks? Surely you browse the web and check your e-mail on each. Surely there's files you have on each.
I think the ideal would be a phone that had a single program with multiple modes. When (say) Word was in phone mode, Word mostly let you browse files and make simple edits. When a monitor was attached, you got the full version of Word.
And I'm guessing the current generation of mobile phone processors are already powerful enough for the desktop for most people, unless they game or do heavy graphic/video processing.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
The funny thing about this is that Apple realized early on that people didn't want a crappy PC in their pocket - they wanted an awesome phone. Say what you want, but Apple and Google have done a great job of making a computer work well with the smaller screen and all that.
There's a market for this concept, I'm sure, but I don't think it's anywhere near the size of the smartphone market.
Do you have ESP?
Because current smartphones are more powerful than ancient supercomputers. If it wasn't for increasingly wasteful software, you could already be using your phone as a complete workstation with power to spare. And when at home, there's no technological reason why you couldn't connect your smartphone like a desktop (as some people already do with laptops).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
They had the Atrix years ago which had both a laptop dock as well as a desktop dock.
Ubuntu can beat Microsoft to making a product that nobody wants. Honestly an Ubuntu phone? No thanks. I want this even less than a Windows 10 phone.
BSOD on a phone, tcp/ip stack corruption. Driveby downloads of toolbars. I can't wait to run combofix on some damn phone because the asshat decided he wanted to bit torrent the tenth installment of Transformers movies.
Could it not also get more RAM and CPU when docked ?
Nullius in verba
My Droid Bionic plus Lapdock have been great for me.
Granted.. the software IS mostly optimized for phone use. I'm not installing desktop stuff on there. Many apps do change their displays significantly when they are ran on a tablet as opposed to a phone. When using the lapdock they do the same thing which is awesome. They switch back to phone-mode when I unplug it.
Of course.. for 'real' desktop applications I use a VNC app. That's fine by me though. I already 'babysit' a desktop. (keep applications up to date, etc...). I don't really want a laptop because that would be just like having a second desktop to babysit. VNC on my phone in the lapdock with an unlimitted data connection is perfect for me!
Ubuntu Phone will only be able to run Luddite software when connected to a TV.
Windows 10 will run Apps!
This, plus voice control. Bonus points for transcription. Super extra bonus points to do it all without invading my privacy.
I don't want "convergence" between my devices. Why would anyone?
I don't want it either, but I don't dictate my taste to the rest of the world. Maybe someone out there wants it, so hooray, this is good news for them.
That said, the premise is sound. Microsoft took the interface from the Windows Phone nobody wants, and put it on the PC, and it was exactly as unpopular there. Presumably a Linux or iOS-based interface that people actually want would fare better in such an endeavor, if there's any market for this sort of thing at all.
It's got all the overhead of Windows
Well its Windows Mobile/Phone which doesn't have all the legacy cruft. So I am not sure how you could make such a claim.
advantage versus Android (which is faster, less costly, runs everywhere)
Well Windows Phones actually run faster than Android on the low end. Android requires considerably more RAM to perform tolerably.That means either slower Droids or more costly Droids. Also due to patent licensing (sigh) Android costs money while Windows Mobile is free. Seems somewhat compelling if you are an OEM looking to make dirt cheap smartphones (which is where Android thrives).
The big question will be if app developers care now, especially with iOS and Android support in Windows 10. Also it remains to be seen how those ported apps will perform relative to the originals on their native platforms. Ultimately Google will never port their own apps. A smartphone without Gmail, Chrome, Chromecasting, and most importantly Youtube... DOA just like Amazon.
Untrue. Watch the very first iPhone keynote. The endless claims about it running full OSX are presented in full force.
Maybe not phones, but tablets are already doing this, and I don't think phones are that far behind. I think it'll be less than 10 years. I'm actually looking right now to replace my "portable workstation" with a dockable tablet. Some of my programming includes GUIs, so remote development hasn't really been all that feasible. If the phone can dock to something with large screen, keyboard, and mouse, and if it's still works great as a smartphone, then why not?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
I think that's very shortsighted. If you get what you want in a phone... all the things you want, that great, small, portable device that can do so much for you while your away from your desk... AND not have to buy a desktop or laptop, because when you dock it to something like a large screen, all the features of those applications you'd have on a desktop become available, then who wouldn't want that? I think the vast majority of users would love that - developers and games, not so much, but the rest of the world that just surfs, emails, youtubes, and does simple office apps... yes, I think they'd want that. Surely, as a parent, I'd love to be able to get my kids one thing to go to college instead of two or three.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Honestly, I use my desktop and laptop for vastly different tasks than my phone.
I use my phone only for basic communication. Email, texting, actually talking to people on the phone. I also have facebook, mostly for the messenger app since some of my friends seem to only be able to figure out how to use that instead of texting me directly. It's also my MP3 player since it's good at doing that. I have a few utilities on there like a calculator and a flashlight. And, of course, it has a pretty good camera so I use it to take snapshots.
Outside of Facebook, email, and playing MP3s while I'm working I do none of that on my desktop or laptop. When I'm at a "real computer" I do real work. I build software, I develop side projects, I write, I manage my website. Tasks that just don't work on a phone at all and are rather difficult on a tablet. Some of the things I build require some significant horsepower that you can't find in a mobile device.
Sure, if you're strictly a consumer, a "one-device-fits-all" approach may be appealing. And that's a non-trivial segment of the population. Quite a few people never do "real work" on a computer so they have no need to make use of a fully functional desktop. And a docking station that gives them a better monitor and keyboard at a desk may be all they need to do the few things that are cumbersome on the mobile device all by itself.
But don't make the mistake that just because you want something, everyone else should want it too.
And yes, that last statement applies to both sides of the argument. Saying "why doesn't everyone want X" is just as short sighted as "why would anyone want X". The fact is, different people want different things.
To the original point, I can understand why they are looking towards making your consumer electronic device be able to replace your full blown computer. It's something that some people find appealing. But there's still plenty of reason to keep real computers around because there are some of us who still need to do real work on real computers and we don't want to have to suffer through an over simplified touch-screen/mobile user interface because it gets in the way of us getting real work done. The best course going forward is for the OS developers to understand that and leave us with a choice of UI so that different people can use different systems for different things the way we want to use them.
The biggest issue with this convergence between phone and desktop is that the primary players are taking away our ability to choose the way we use computers and giving us the lowest common denominator UI that's really not suited to getting real work done.
I beg to differ.
My smartphone is plenty fast for desktop-like web-browsing, moviewatching, wordprocessing, editing code (compiling less so, but even that is tolerable in emergencies), but it's unworkable because of the tiny screen and fatfinger UI. Please make it so that I can plug in a screen and ans usb hub with mouse+keyboard and switch to a desktop-like UI. This does not need to take extra battery when not in use. It would probably take some storage, but psah! Whatever.
But please make it switch modes and don't create a phone UI for use on the desktop. Unity is fine( except for it's slowness in searching. epsecially when you type too fast it it can't find it at all), even Gnome 3 I can manage, but no Android/iOS/win8 on a big screen plz .
Believe it or not, there are other people in the world. Some of them would actually welcome a functional combining of the systems. I highly believe it's entirely possible to make the phone itself lose nothing in the process. Sure, a phone would never be able to replace the most power hungry of operations on a desktop. But, it's feasible to see it be able to perform basic desktop functions. Pretty much anything short of gaming and heavy number crunching is already well within the capabilities of current hardware. It's just a matter of optimizing the hardware and software.
well, it would certainly make finding a seat on the bus easier.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I don't want "convergence" between my devices. Why would anyone?
My phone is used for wildly different tasks than my laptop, which is used for mostly different tasks from my desktop. Any form of convergence is going to hurt at least one of the workflows involved.
Tell that to Microsoft. They have a considerably different point of view by presenting a single pane of glass across all smartphones, PCs, and tablets. In the end, we won't even be manufacturing a traditional desktop like you have today outside of very specialized applications.
I want my phone software to be as lightweight/minimalistic as possible so my phone's battery can last, for example. A desktop doesn't have to care about that at all.
Just make the best phone software, or PC software, you can, don't half-ass both.
Your smartphone will make today's most powerful desktops look like cheap toys in 10 years or less, and battery advancements will likely push it out to lasting at least a few days, regardless of what mode (desktop or phone) you use.
And a desktop, or more to the point a corporation WILL care about all those power-saving features when they are fined per machine by the power regulators for running any device consuming more than 10 watts on the desktop.
I don't want "convergence" between my devices. Why would anyone?
My phone is used for wildly different tasks than my laptop, which is used for mostly different tasks from my desktop. Any form of convergence is going to hurt at least one of the workflows involved.
I want my phone software to be as lightweight/minimalistic as possible so my phone's battery can last, for example. A desktop doesn't have to care about that at all.
Just make the best phone software, or PC software, you can, don't half-ass both.
If convergence means that I have to put up UI like Gnome 3, then please don't coverge.
news for you, the windows phone flopped. so did their new and improved ui, no one wants that shit
in ten years desktops will be kicking smartphone's asses, same as now
people who need powerful desktops that consume more than ten watts will have them, even if it pisses people like you off. there will be no fine. agenda driven crippling of progress and technology by fines is for morons
Does this mean I'll be able to run gedit on my Ubuntu phone? I can hardly contain my excitement.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I came.
I've used my Nexus 7 that way, and it works reasonably well. The biggest problem, as always, is that apps that are optimized for the small displays of most mobile devices simply don't work that well on larger screens. I have used it quite frequently with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and RDP software to work on our terminal services server, and there really isn't any noticeable difference between that and a PC remoting in. It's rather a special case, to be sure.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Years ago I had a laptop that could be effectively turned into a portable hard disk drive depending on some weird keystrokes at boot-time. I can't remember exactly how it worked now (but I think it was Firewire) but I had considered building a diskless desktop computer that the laptop would dock into, where the desktop was orders of magnitude more powerful, so the desktop would boot from the laptop's disk.
To make this happen I was going to use Linux, as Windows would have thrown a bitch-fit over the differences in architecture and chipset. Never got around to it before the laptop was hopelessly obsolete and newer ones didn't have the feature anymore.
I could see a dock with all of the accessories that someone would want in a desktop that has storage to mirror the phone's contents in the event the phone is broken or gone, but only if it's not tied to a single model of phone.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
news for you, the windows phone flopped. so did their new and improved ui, no one wants that shit
in ten years desktops will be kicking smartphone's asses, same as now
people who need powerful desktops that consume more than ten watts will have them, even if it pisses people like you off. there will be no fine. agenda driven crippling of progress and technology by fines is for morons
Cute theory here, but go ahead and tell me why the average corporate desktop needs to be anything more powerful than an i5 today.
Fact is, it doesn't. Hardware started really eclipsing software demand long ago. And smartphones are only getting more and more powerful with every iteration. Desktops are not really on the same linear progression anymore, mainly due to demand.
Yes, there will be a need for powerful computing but that will live inside the cloud, with virtual server offerings and other massive parallel computing needs that would reduce even future desktop systems to pathetic performing crap. Why the hell would I run a "powerful" desktop in the future and wait an hour for my local processing to be done when I can own a smartphone and send that job to the cloud system to process in seconds?
Fact is, I wouldn't.
real work on real computers and we don't want to have to suffer through an over simplified touch-screen/mobile user interface because it gets in the way of us getting real work done. The best course going forward is for the OS developers to understand that and leave us with a choice of UI so that different people can use different systems for different things the way we want to use them.
An Apple A8 is more than powerful enough for the big important work you do. And Windows 10 or Ubuntu would alter the interface depending on whether your using it as a PC or as a phone (as was mentioned in both the article and in the reply you quoted).
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Yes, it runs OS X internally. But the UI kit is completely different from OS X. As it should be because a mouse, keyboard, touchpad forces a different style of interactions than a touchscreen. The easiest way to make a piss-poor UI is to pretend a touchscreen is a mouse (what Windows had done traditionally). Because what happens is the UI works with a mouse, but it's finicky and painful to use on a touch screen. (There isn't any "right-click" on a touch screen. You can emulate it, but it's not as convenient).
Likewise, you can't "hover" with a touchscreen so tool tips are ineffective (and your finger covers half of it up).
Apple may have based iOS on OS X, but the upper layer stuff is completely different to force developers to actually consider how they use a touchscreen over simply porting an existing app.
Privacy is your lowest priority?
American?
First off, you have no idea what work I do on my desktop. Second, the processor, in and of itself, is only one small part of the equation. There's more to performance than how many FLOPS you can crank out. Third, it's people like you who just assume you know what other people are doing and what's "good enough" for them that is the whole problem. Thank you for proving my point.
Sounds like you advocate some socialist dystopia.. I'll pass.
Network-synced home directories, desktop call answering, and always-available call and messaging history have been around for many, many years. For one of the more recent examples, look at Google's offerings in the space. You don't need phone and PC convergence to get this, it's a matter of writing platform-specific software that pulls data from the same source... which is shit that we've been doing since the seventies.
You *say* you want the same dev env everywhere you go, but the truth is that a UI built for a 30" monitor and a user wielding a mouse and keyboard _just_ _doesn't_ _work_ on a 5" screen with a user wielding one to five fingers. That's pretty much a fundamental physics issue. There's no escaping it. Moreover, if you re-work -say- Visual Studio or MonoDevelop to work on a phone screen, and then force desktop folks to use that UI, the software will lose a *LOT* of its power and effectiveness and you will alienate a huge portion of your userbase.
So... cant you just turn your phone into a wireless NAS already?
Why is there a requirement to do processing centrally, that makes less sense.
Could it not also get more RAM and CPU when docked ?
I see a theme in these requests, y'all just want a portable hard drive.
You don't need to avoid cloud storage for instant access to files, you just need to use one of the many dropbox apps. It's fast enough unless your constantly switching between devices every minute or so.
Plus, if it's all unified, that opens the door for possible network based copying for faster sync.
The i5 chip alone pulls 70 watts in my desktop.
Corporate web architecture today is offloading work to the assumed fat and powerful client, big business doesn't want to bear the expense of massive compute if it can be avoided. Serious business apps of ecommerce, logistics, accounting don't assume a puny mobile device.
Strawman: no-one is saying otherwise.
Do you honestly think Ubuntu is planning to offer a desktop UI on a phone? Did you even click on TFA link and see the screenshot?
Is your current Windows / Ubuntu deskop in a walled-garden? The devices being discussed here are proper (unencumbered) desktop machines when docked, and yet proper mobile (with mobile UI) devices when they need to be. So even when it's in "mobile mode" one would still have all their files available. THAT is why this is news.
Now, whether you'd want to open a GIMP file from a mobile UI is up to the individual. Personally, I'd love a device with such dual personalities.
That's what USB storage is for. Use the best UI for each form factor, but with common data files.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Adding CPU kinda defeats the point.
Could it not also get more RAM and CPU when docked ?
I see a theme in these requests, y'all just want a portable hard drive.
... or a memory card.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Google will never port their own apps. A smartphone without Gmail, Chrome, Chromecasting, and most importantly Youtube... DOA just like Amazon.
Do you have a source for that? They sure did everything in their power to get their apps on Apple devices, it would be insane for them not to write apps for the Microsoft store if it begins to gain steam.
Windows, and presumably Ubuntu, will morph from "bike" to "747" depending on whether it is being used as a phone or is it is docked. Your analogy is fail.
I want my phone software to be as lightweight/minimalistic as possible so my phone's battery can last, for example. A desktop doesn't have to care about that at all.
I'm just the opposite. I've always wanted a mobile handset to have a full operating system only with a different or scalable front end/shell. There is no longer a capability gap/excuse not to go there.
I don't buy battery life arguments and see little reason desktop apps would not also benefit from efforts to beat down unnecessary CPU usage including user knobs to freeze unused background tasks/windows.
Most handsets are currently being drained by constant communication with vendor motherships and assorted ad/spy networks which do users little to no good.
I'm tired of all the mobile ecosystem BS sooner it goes away the better. "app stores", walled gardens, no user OS choice, vendors abandoning hardware second of release, insane practice of building operating system images specifically for each and every device, allowing carriers to nerf software, unavoidable vendor "cloud" shit and generally crummy and incomplete APIs and capabilities.
Just make the best phone software, or PC software, you can, don't half-ass both.
I agree what would really suck is something like typical poorly implemented "responsive design" meme infecting the application space and everyone ending up with apps that look and act like shit on both mobile and desktop spaces.
No. Just because it's listed last doesn't mean it's my lowest priority. Way to go for false assumptions, though, it almost sounds like you have a brain.
Privacy is listed last because it's the least likely thing for me to get. If it were a dealbreaker I would already not have a phone.
Why don't they just sit at the back of the class and just listen while real companies launch mobile OSs
They will not embrace an open platform because they won't be able to lock a user into their sandbox. A user will be able to turn off all the butt sniffing and phoning home. Their revenue stream will not remain intact.
Rick B.
If my mobile phone was just a phone, I would not have a mobile phone. That sense of isolation and freedom when you are out and about is worthwhile (except maybe for out going emergency calls). So as much screen real estate and reasonable possible, lots of reasonable and accessible features as possible without installing additional apps. this to make carrying the thing worthwhile. PC convergence, why? When I get home I do not throw my phone in the bin, it is still fully accessible sure transfer data that is pretty much it. As a remote for a large screen device it is a bit small, so a tablet coming with that large screen device simply works better, again screen real estate (you simply can do more when you can see more and parts of your work are not hidden).
So lets see more Ubuntu on the big screen, lets crack that large display barrier and force manufacturers to drop their own locked heavily censored smart TV interfaces. All in one computers need to kick up their size to the plus 40 inch range and beyond with a tablet as the remote.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
First off, you have no idea what work I do on my desktop. Second, the processor, in and of itself, is only one small part of the equation. There's more to performance than how many FLOPS you can crank out. Third, it's people like you who just assume you know what other people are doing and what's "good enough" for them that is the whole problem. Thank you for proving my point.
And don't forget, once they have everyone off their computers, then they have more control of you. What OS you may use, what files you may look at...... everything. Sure, I might be paranoid, but this is a massive trap in my mind that will steal your freedom. This is why I carry a simple phone that I use as a phone(or text) and a laptop that I keep my stuff on and my own local server for backups.
Yes what an excellent idea, your phone is stolen, lost or broken and then all your data is gone and your peripherals useless. A better idea is cloud (or your own private NAS) sync so that data is available - as you say - "no matter what device you're using".
Privacy is your lowest priority?
Information wants to be free!
...apparently.
Just imagine the possibilities for shitware.
Imagine a Verizon locked phone that suddenly discovers that it is connected to a 17" screen. It will be like web browser popup hell from 20 years ago.
Surely you browse the web and check your e-mail on each.
Yeah and my bookmarks and email sync to both.
Surely there's files you have on each.
Some, but relatively few exist on both. I have terrabytes of storage on my desktop and only gigabytes on my phone.
And I'm guessing the current generation of mobile phone processors are already powerful enough for the desktop for most people
If you're just doing simple tasks then sure but most people will have a desktop because - even if only for a very small percentage of the time - they do something other than those simple tasks that cannot be handled by a phone or a tablet or an ultrabook.
An Apple A8 is more than powerful enough for the big important work you do.
For CAD, CAM, CAE, manufacturing process simulation, fire dynamics sim, fluid dynamics sim, rendering (realtime and offline), modeling, audio production, video production, image manipulation, etc... it's rubbish.
Yes you can tweak simple designs in autocad ws, create shader-based physically-inaccurate realtime fluid visualizations, model simple geometry, modify your voice with the T-Pain voice changer and apply a filter to your instagram photos but the A8 is a relative simpleton in terms of its capabilities as a workstation processor.
news for you, the windows phone flopped. so did their new and improved ui, no one wants that shit
So did Linux desktop but that hasn't stopped people and companies flogging that dead horse. Honestly what is with you morons thinking that the only thing that matters is what is popular and that if it isn't the number one then it's a failure? Obviously nobody needs niche products and everybody's needs are exactly the same.
I guess you missed the point of this convergence.
The point is that I can plug my phone into docking station and use it as a PC, with external monitor, keyboard and such, Unity automatically adaps to PC layout then. Canonical already demonstrated this couple years back with their Android version. At the time, mobile hardware was much slower and it looked quite laggy, although very promising.
Now the hardware has catched up considerably, Unity 8 is much much more lighter, and this can actually finally work.
And no, it's nothing like Windows RT (closed ecosystem), it's full Ubuntu desktop in your phone with all your usual open source apps and dev environments which just adaps as phone when you unplug it from the hdmi/docking station.
Years ago I had a laptop that could be effectively turned into a portable hard disk drive depending on some weird keystrokes at boot-time. I can't remember exactly how it worked now (but I think it was Firewire) but I had considered building a diskless desktop computer that the laptop would dock into, where the desktop was orders of magnitude more powerful, so the desktop would boot from the laptop's disk.
To make this happen I was going to use Linux, as Windows would have thrown a bitch-fit over the differences in architecture and chipset. Never got around to it before the laptop was hopelessly obsolete and newer ones didn't have the feature anymore.
I could see a dock with all of the accessories that someone would want in a desktop that has storage to mirror the phone's contents in the event the phone is broken or gone, but only if it's not tied to a single model of phone.
I think any Mac can do that, boot from external storage and target disk mode, but I don't see the utility outside of testing OS releases or doing repairs.
You could always keep a VM image on a removable drive if you wanted a portable OS and you wouldn't have to shut it down if your systems architectures are all close enough to do suspend/resume. Well... no-go on a phone.
IDK, unless you are carrying a disk array in your pocket, it seems like replacing local storage would be a bad bet.
So what I don't get is why do the processing on the mobile device vs. using it as removeable storage.
While you're at it, why not add an SSD and PCIe x16 video card? Oh wait...
On second thought, maybe I'll just keep my phone and desktop separate. :)
Aliens from outer-space have beaten all of man to convergence and Ubuntu will have the same marketshare on this world as they do.
You mean my phone will morph into a full-sized laptop with the wholesale usability shift it entails? Fucking awesome.
Cloud synced to local is has smooth response, when synced :-)
As long as your offline, you can work on the latest sync, and when you reconnect it'll sync up to the cloud.
I use MEGA, because NSA hates it, governments hates it, and VISA, Mastercard and Paypal has denied service to them. That's a good sign. Oh, and it's encrypted to kingdom come with opensource code.
I can already hook my android phone up to a monitor and connect a blue tooth keyboard and mouse.
Works perfectly well although I have only really used it as an SSH terminal or RDP thin client.
Since when is this new ?
I don't want "convergence" between my devices. Why would anyone?
because there's a lot of people out there with their own views and needs that may not match yours?
Look at office-type tasks on a tablet. People like the idea of turning the tablet on and off instantly, but dislike having to spend extra on a normal PC to get SSDs and still fall short of that kind of performance.
The applications built for mobile are smaller and optimised for fewer tasks on a device that is less likely to require maintenance, with OS that is updated by someone else.It makes a lot of sense to want to get from this situation from one where people benefit from better ways of using PCs, while retaining the nice things about traditional PCs (like keyboards and big screens!).
Toss it into a docking station and yes. The Modern UI is automagically replaced with a desktop UI. Take it out of the dock and you're back to the touchscreen UI.
I have no idea what you mean by "usability shift". Sounds like a flimsy excuse. I don't know about you, but I can effortlessly switch between using a PC and a handheld device, such as my Windows notebook and Android phone.
The software can be built to adjust its interface accordingly to the device that it's being displayed on. That's the point of convergence. No need to compromise.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Too bad you feel that way, since this is what's coming. The future keeps happening, even if you don't want it to.
Why wouldn't you want your computing device to also be your phone, just plug it into a cradle at your desk for large monitor and beefed up additional processing power.
Conceptually, it's exactly what our devices should already be.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Carry all your files with you everywhere? Why the hell would you want this? You seem like an odd usage case, or perhaps an oddball person.
I'd think something like a combination of IntelliJ's presentation/powersave modes. Turn both of those on and you pretty much have a "mobile interface". There have been plenty of times where I was working on some problem, and the solution comes to me when I'm far away from a computer. Just being able to view files and make quick edits would be enough.
For a long time, you couldn't right click on a desktop Mac either. Maybe the hover thing can be resolved with technology someday - it doesn't seem unthinkable to discover a technique to tell where a finger is in front of the display but not touching it. Unfortunately it would probably only be available on one brand of phone because patents. I'd say that mobile devices already need it - there are a lot of icons on my phone where I have no idea what they mean.
BTW, Samsung's Galaxy Note 4 already does this, sort of, with the pen. It can detect hover and has a button that is basically a secondary click. The problem of course is that it's only on one phone and no apps outside of a few Samsung apps make use of it.
The i5 chip alone pulls 70 watts in my desktop.
And the i7 in my Mac Mini pulls considerably less. It's called efficient design.
And if you're only running an i5 in a desktop, then you can likely run an i7 in a laptop, and consume a lot less power during the day.
Corporate web architecture today is offloading work to the assumed fat and powerful client, big business doesn't want to bear the expense of massive compute if it can be avoided. Serious business apps of ecommerce, logistics, accounting don't assume a puny mobile device.
Serious business apps are large ERP and financial systems such as Oracle or SAP that run in server farms or hosted in the cloud, which only require a "puny" browser running java to interface.
And your accounting department still uses Excel and Access as "serious business apps" outside of those larger systems, which could run on a tablet today.
Agreed. I want to do basic things on my phone and have the battery last more than 8 hours, I have my computers (laptop and desktop) at home for more serious tasks.
don't we need to sprinkle some pixie dust on it for this to happen?
No, it's called "You don't understand the Intel product line", that's a feeble processor for business use.
Laptops have shorter life and emit toxic batteries into waste stream
Wrong about my employer, our accounting system is elaborate software on AIX (with various Oracle on Linux DBMS backend) that also needs very powerful client.
Responsive ui.
That's why it matters and why iOS debs are fucked
Right, fire dynamics sims. I'm sure that's what's driving the demand for desktop computers. You're really digging deep to come up with examples...
Obviously there are purposes for which a more powerful processor is useful. Just, they're rare enough that it's not a good argument for why this phone-as-computer is a bad idea for the masses.
I think you nailed it. It should probably be used as external storage but there is value in having the H/W be used. Right now the processing power is not comparable to an i5 4570 but most users don't need that kind of processing power and as it moves forward it will improve as well. At the end of the day being able to replace one device to upgrade your whole world is kinda of neat and less wasteful. Currently in my household there are 10 separate processing units used regularly (2 tablets, 4 phones and 4 pcs). We could cut that down to 5 and possibly make better use of our existing equipment such as sound system and televisions.
Virtualization is making all kind of H/W compatibility issues an issue of the past so I figure it's just a matter of time before we see a merger between PCs and mobile devices
Yes, I agree. There are bits and pieces that are already happening but a fully emerged experience is still no here. We aren't far which is very satisfying. I know some will say you can't compete with the power of a workstation and they would be right. After all the engineers at my company get to work with i7 4770 with 16gb of ram, 500gb SSD and $2000 NVidia Quadro video cards. Yes, $2000!!!
So obviously there are many exceptions but when talking about non specialized requirements it makes perfect sense especially that the processing power will continue to increase.
Will the drivers work with Debian? That's my only question.
Like Windows 8, with its huge billboards or whatever they're called that are big enough to hit with a boxing glove on a clothes-prop, even when it's on a machine with a fairly precise pointing device attached?
As to Ubuntu, that's the bunch who invented unity, which was liked by people with about 200 braincells, total.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Windows 10 brings back the start menu, so presumably, yes. All it would have to do is detect if it's docked or not.
It could do that. That doesn't mean it will. Because they could have done that before.
To those who say Microsoft never innovate, look at how many new and original ways they've found to fuck up a UI.
To be fair, they're hardly alone in that. Yes, Google, Ubuntu & Gnome, I did look at you.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Right, fire dynamics sims. I'm sure that's what's driving the demand for desktop computers. You're really digging deep to come up with examples...
That's just one of thousands of use-cases for which the A8 would be complete rubbish. I gave you a dozen use cases there but I'm hardly going to enumerate all of them just to educate you and fill your knowledge gaps.
Just, they're rare enough that it's not a good argument for why this phone-as-computer is a bad idea for the masses.
Well ok then I put it to you to justify this "phone-as-a-computer" concept: What is it that people use desktops for that you can't do on a tablet even though it is powerful enough to do?
Exactly - I make the car analogy. I love my car despite the fact that it's not great at anything - I love it because it's good at just about everything. So just because I can't tow a houseboat doesn't make my car bad - I don't need to tow a houseboat; very few people need to tow houseboats! Very few people need NVidia Quadro cards, and NOBODY needs them to surf the web, email, or write papers and use a spreadsheet.
Stupid sexy Flanders.