4 ms·

This looks like an extreme version of a thesis I've had for a while: mobile devices are portable dumb terminals for the cloud. This basically drives the entire

by api 10y ago

This looks like an extreme version of a thesis I've had for a while: mobile devices are portable dumb terminals for the cloud. This basically drives the entire mobile UI remotely. It's like 21st century touch based VT macros.

reitoei 10y ago
> mobile devices are portable dumb terminals for the cloud Catchy headline, but you and I both know that modern phones are extremely powerful computing devices.
- cjmcqueen 10y ago
  But do phones have to be so powerful? If they are dumb terminals, could we get smaller form factors, longer battery life and make them more disposable for the billions of people that cant pay $$$ for a device?
  - bitwize 10y ago
    You do realize that the radios in a phone eat more battery than the CPU under regular compute workloads?
  - reitoei 10y ago
    A dumb terminal would still need some kind of network stack (munchy munchy battery life). Maybe something like a kindle but with apps like WhatsApp, Twitter etc. optimized for e-ink displays. I saw a kind of interesting device recently with a regular screen on the front and e-ink screen on the back, the Yotaphone 2: https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/ https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/ Very cool, I think.
- bitwize 10y ago
  SHHHHHH! (whispered) We don't want our users knowing that. We don't want them finding out they have a choice of managing their own pony-related data, rather than letting us at Bronygram do that for them. So we're going to stay on message and talk up "cloud computing" and convince them their very powerful computing devices are just dumb terminals, so they remain on our service.
pswenson 10y ago
this flies in the face of all the mobile trends... smartphones are getting MUCH faster/more powerful every year.
- api 10y ago
  That may be the case, but mobile OSes and apps are designed around the cloud-centric service-centric consumer model that much more closely resembles the mainframe/VT paradigm. iOS is more extreme than Android in this area, but both platforms are locked down pretty hard against user control of their own device. Most of that power is being used for UI.

by api 10y ago

reitoei 10y ago

> mobile devices are portable dumb terminals for the cloud Catchy headline, but you and I both know that modern phones are extremely powerful computing devices.

cjmcqueen 10y ago
But do phones have to be so powerful? If they are dumb terminals, could we get smaller form factors, longer battery life and make them more disposable for the billions of people that cant pay $$$ for a device?
- bitwize 10y ago
  You do realize that the radios in a phone eat more battery than the CPU under regular compute workloads?
- reitoei 10y ago
  A dumb terminal would still need some kind of network stack (munchy munchy battery life). Maybe something like a kindle but with apps like WhatsApp, Twitter etc. optimized for e-ink displays. I saw a kind of interesting device recently with a regular screen on the front and e-ink screen on the back, the Yotaphone 2: https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/ https://yotaphone.com/gb-en/ Very cool, I think.
bitwize 10y ago
SHHHHHH! (whispered) We don't want our users knowing that. We don't want them finding out they have a choice of managing their own pony-related data, rather than letting us at Bronygram do that for them. So we're going to stay on message and talk up "cloud computing" and convince them their very powerful computing devices are just dumb terminals, so they remain on our service.

pswenson 10y ago

this flies in the face of all the mobile trends... smartphones are getting MUCH faster/more powerful every year.

api 10y ago
That may be the case, but mobile OSes and apps are designed around the cloud-centric service-centric consumer model that much more closely resembles the mainframe/VT paradigm. iOS is more extreme than Android in this area, but both platforms are locked down pretty hard against user control of their own device. Most of that power is being used for UI.