3 ms·

And yet, Apple has been successfully pushing a Unix desktop for years. It's all a matter of how it is wrapped. People don't want a linux desktop with the usual

And yet, Apple has been successfully pushing a Unix desktop for years. It's all a matter of how it is wrapped. People don't want a linux desktop with the usual linux tools. People want a desktop/phone with an app store and "point & click". People also want their usual apps, and we've come a long way in the past decade. Office apps are now on every major platform, and lets face it, Office apps are the bread and butter of desktop platforms. Messaging has moved from desktop messengers 20 years ago, to everything messaging living on a phone, to some extent also including email (which apparently refuses to die) I don't know much about Android hardware, but the current generation of A13 processors in iPhones has nearly the (benchmark) performance of the low end 2019 Core i7 processor, which should be enough for a large part of users, including developers compiling stuff. I agree that the next revolution probably won't come from a start up pushing "ready made" phones with a different skin/feature set. And i doubt anyone has the resources to make this happen but a few select players, like Apple, Google, Microsoft and IBM.

jkestner 7y ago
For this to work, all the apps that a person expects to see on their computer should be there, running on an ARM chip. So far, Microsoft hasn’t gotten traction there. Apple will of course pull macOS users along, but it’s been running away from modularity since the PowerBook Duo. You say, it doesn’t have to be native apps - Google Docs, etc works great in the browser. Then you’re competing with Chromebooks, and I’m not sure a modular system can be as cheap as that.
- 8fingerlouie 7y ago
  Smartphones are a relic from last decade. They were revolutionary when they arrived, and in a few years completely wiped out not only competing phones but also compact cameras, GPS gadgets and more. Since then not much has changed. Apple invents something and Samsung etc, rushes to ridicule them and then copies the feature. Apple does the same (minus the ridicule). The smartphone innovation for the past 4-5 years has pretty much been limited to a missing headphone jack and a screen notch. Everything else has been incremental upgrades. Still, the first iPhone didn’t have an App Store, and the 3G model had an App Store but no apps in the beginning. And people still bought them. The iPad was ridiculed when it was unveiled, and yet it seems like everybody has a tablet these days. The smart watch was curiosity until Apple launched the Apple Watch, and it was ridiculed for being ugly. Millions of people bought them, and today they’re pretty well underway to disrupting the fitness tracker and health monitoring devices. Bring the right technology along with a developer friendly environment and that could easily happen again if the technology is disruptive enough. As for competing with chromebooks, you’re essentially replacing X devices with a single device. Of course you’d still need some kind of external display/monitor, but if connection to those can be wireless you could start seeing some really great combinations. How about a screen you can fold/roll up and keep in your jacket ? Or just a “notepad” that is a monitor ? Or in a few years when everything with a processor is probably 5G enabled, and every wall panel is a potential display ? Point your device at the wall (using existing technology like the U1 chip in current gen iPhones) and suddenly your dining room wall is a 4K Cinema Display being broadcast to from your phone. Your kitchen wall or office wall could become a desktop display, again broadcast to from your phone.

jkestner 7y ago

For this to work, all the apps that a person expects to see on their computer should be there, running on an ARM chip. So far, Microsoft hasn’t gotten traction there. Apple will of course pull macOS users along, but it’s been running away from modularity since the PowerBook Duo. You say, it doesn’t have to be native apps - Google Docs, etc works great in the browser. Then you’re competing with Chromebooks, and I’m not sure a modular system can be as cheap as that.

8fingerlouie 7y ago
Smartphones are a relic from last decade. They were revolutionary when they arrived, and in a few years completely wiped out not only competing phones but also compact cameras, GPS gadgets and more. Since then not much has changed. Apple invents something and Samsung etc, rushes to ridicule them and then copies the feature. Apple does the same (minus the ridicule). The smartphone innovation for the past 4-5 years has pretty much been limited to a missing headphone jack and a screen notch. Everything else has been incremental upgrades. Still, the first iPhone didn’t have an App Store, and the 3G model had an App Store but no apps in the beginning. And people still bought them. The iPad was ridiculed when it was unveiled, and yet it seems like everybody has a tablet these days. The smart watch was curiosity until Apple launched the Apple Watch, and it was ridiculed for being ugly. Millions of people bought them, and today they’re pretty well underway to disrupting the fitness tracker and health monitoring devices. Bring the right technology along with a developer friendly environment and that could easily happen again if the technology is disruptive enough. As for competing with chromebooks, you’re essentially replacing X devices with a single device. Of course you’d still need some kind of external display/monitor, but if connection to those can be wireless you could start seeing some really great combinations. How about a screen you can fold/roll up and keep in your jacket ? Or just a “notepad” that is a monitor ? Or in a few years when everything with a processor is probably 5G enabled, and every wall panel is a potential display ? Point your device at the wall (using existing technology like the U1 chip in current gen iPhones) and suddenly your dining room wall is a 4K Cinema Display being broadcast to from your phone. Your kitchen wall or office wall could become a desktop display, again broadcast to from your phone.