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That's something I've been saying for a long time. It frustrates me a bit when you see these announcements for a productivity app on iOS, and I'll just sit the

That's something I've been saying for a long time. It frustrates me a bit when you see these announcements for a productivity app on iOS, and I'll just sit there thinking "wow, this is almost as cool as the stuff I had on Windows 98...". Stuff like Excel have (historically) been substantially worse than their desktop counterparts on mobile. Now, in some ways I do understand why this is; I suspect the people making the apps figure that if you're doing "real" work, you'll probably still defer to a "real" computer running Windows or macOS or Linux, but that sort of implies that smartphones aren't "real" computers. My iPhone 12 Pro is so much more powerful than a typical Windows 98 computer that I'm not even sure how you'd quantify it [1], but if I had to actually do work, it's not immediately obvious to me that the iPhone would actually be the superior option. Microsoft Office 98 is still pretty usable, early Photoshop is primitive but still reasonably intuitive, it's not hard to get proper text editors. [1] Obviously you can look at clock speeds and "flops per second" and stuff like that, but there's other ways that modern computers are more powerful that are less obvious, like custom decoder/neural chips, better compilers and more efficient operating systems, etc. I think the safest thing to say is it's a lot more powerful.

memefrog 3y ago
I don't think Excel is worse on a phone than on desktop because people don't think it's capable of "real work". It's worse because the whole interface of Excel is designed around a mouse and keyboard. The tiny little cells, the dragging things to be wider and narrower, typing everything - everything is designed around using a very accurate pointer and a keyboard. I have no idea how you'd use Excel productively on a phone. Even if the cells are the same size as they are on a desktop, the screen is tiny, so you'd not be able to see anything. And if the cells are smaller, then they're even harder to use. They actually need to be bigger to be a decent touch interface, and then you'd be constantly scrolling around. The same applies to things like text editors. Phone keyboards are awful for typing anything except English prose. The only reason they're usable for typing is the autocorrection features. I turned mine off for a while and then you really realise how precise you have to be to type everything correctly on a phone. You certainly can't write code on them - imagine switching to the symbols keyboard every couple of seconds. It just doesn't make sense. It's bad enough typing a URL.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Right. And we can see that by looking at the iPad, a device halfway between a full size computer and a smartphone. Throw in a keyboard, and you can definitely use Google Sheets (Excel is so 90's), and I'd dare say you can do a lot more with a ipad today including the Internet than you ever could on Windows 98 without. The world's progressed since Windows 98 for good and bad. There are a multitude of cloud services that let you program from your iphone or ipad. Yes, that's not gcc running locally and yeah something's been lost along with progress. I miss it too. But we live in the present, not the past. Linux is going through its own debacle with Wayland and snap, there's no clear path forwards and it looks like that's just how things are now. Like how it's 2023 and Sonos is the only game in the multi-room-audio town due to patents unless you want to hack something up.
  - memefrog 3y ago
    There's no "debacle with Wayland". There was some controversy a few years ago, and some people will stick with X forever for the same reason that there are still people that will resolutely stick with sysvinit. But Wayland is not controversial in the mainstream any more than systemd is. Snaps, on the other hand? Yeah there's certainly some controversy there. The clear aim there is a walled garden distribution. But the good thing is that you can just not use Ubuntu. Nobody is forced to use Ubuntu. I don't know anyone with a Sonos. Yamaha's multi-room audio hasn't had any problems for me.
    - zaat 3y ago
      I'm not sure you get to decide what is controversial and what's mainstream without hard numbers behind your statements. As a single datapoint, I can say that systemd is awesome but Wayland is still crap, whenever I try to stick with it I hit a stupid issue within few weeks, debug and analyze for a week, then when I remember that I have enabled Wayland I go back to X and everything just work. I have zero ideological or personal affiliation here, I just want my stuff to work.
      - memefrog 3y ago
dfinninger 3y ago
Calling out excel, photoshop, and text editors (I’m assuming coding)… those are all computationally expensive tasks. My mom runs her entire business off of her iPhone and iPad. I’d say that she’s doing “real work”. She just doesn’t need a discrete GPU. My sister is in a similar boat with her business. There are definitely certain classes of work that lend themselves to larger screens and an actively-cooled chassis. But many people don’t need the extras and are quite happy with the “mobile experience“. It’s just a different market. They love the updates coming down the pipe.
- tomcam 3y ago
  I would love to get a few more details describing how your mom uses the iPhone to run her business.
  - wildzzz 3y ago
    I can certainly see someone running a one-person Etsy or farmers market stand business all from their iPhone. You use Excel or Google sheets to track expenses and income or just track it in a real ledger book. All the banks have an app now. She can order supplies through a browser or just by calling vendors. She can take payment in cash or card using the phone itself or a Square reader. TurboTax has an app. She can file state sales tax online or through the mail by printing forms from the phone if her payment processer isn't already handling this for her. You can even build basic websites using templates. I'm sure all of these tasks are a little easier with a bigger screen and real keyboard but they aren't impossible to do on a phone. Plus, record keeping on paper still exists and isn't difficult if your volume is small. You could even run something like a dropshipping business where you don't do any physical work and hire freelancers to do things that usually require a real computer like graphic design. Or maybe you just own a larger business with people under you that handle all the day-to-day work while you do big picture stuff in meetings or contact clients via email.
ramraj07 3y ago
Have you tried using excel or google sheets on an iPhone or android. It is perfectly serviceable. In fact on many days I get most of my work done through my iPhone, if I don’t have to _write_ code, just documents, review PRs and attend zoom meetings. Especially after the GitHub app has become good.
- jxramos 3y ago
  It feels likes some of the office like apps on the browser at least let you read documents and sheets and what not but when you go to edit them they push to to install the app. That's when I switch to the desktop version of the website which lets edit operations proceed. Kind of a weird workflow but it is what it is, mobile biased to reading, and apps biased towards editing. Problem is I don't want the app.

memefrog 3y ago

I don't think Excel is worse on a phone than on desktop because people don't think it's capable of "real work". It's worse because the whole interface of Excel is designed around a mouse and keyboard. The tiny little cells, the dragging things to be wider and narrower, typing everything - everything is designed around using a very accurate pointer and a keyboard. I have no idea how you'd use Excel productively on a phone. Even if the cells are the same size as they are on a desktop, the screen is tiny, so you'd not be able to see anything. And if the cells are smaller, then they're even harder to use. They actually need to be bigger to be a decent touch interface, and then you'd be constantly scrolling around. The same applies to things like text editors. Phone keyboards are awful for typing anything except English prose. The only reason they're usable for typing is the autocorrection features. I turned mine off for a while and then you really realise how precise you have to be to type everything correctly on a phone. You certainly can't write code on them - imagine switching to the symbols keyboard every couple of seconds. It just doesn't make sense. It's bad enough typing a URL.

fragmede 3y ago
Right. And we can see that by looking at the iPad, a device halfway between a full size computer and a smartphone. Throw in a keyboard, and you can definitely use Google Sheets (Excel is so 90's), and I'd dare say you can do a lot more with a ipad today including the Internet than you ever could on Windows 98 without. The world's progressed since Windows 98 for good and bad. There are a multitude of cloud services that let you program from your iphone or ipad. Yes, that's not gcc running locally and yeah something's been lost along with progress. I miss it too. But we live in the present, not the past. Linux is going through its own debacle with Wayland and snap, there's no clear path forwards and it looks like that's just how things are now. Like how it's 2023 and Sonos is the only game in the multi-room-audio town due to patents unless you want to hack something up.
- memefrog 3y ago
  There's no "debacle with Wayland". There was some controversy a few years ago, and some people will stick with X forever for the same reason that there are still people that will resolutely stick with sysvinit. But Wayland is not controversial in the mainstream any more than systemd is. Snaps, on the other hand? Yeah there's certainly some controversy there. The clear aim there is a walled garden distribution. But the good thing is that you can just not use Ubuntu. Nobody is forced to use Ubuntu. I don't know anyone with a Sonos. Yamaha's multi-room audio hasn't had any problems for me.
  - zaat 3y ago
    I'm not sure you get to decide what is controversial and what's mainstream without hard numbers behind your statements. As a single datapoint, I can say that systemd is awesome but Wayland is still crap, whenever I try to stick with it I hit a stupid issue within few weeks, debug and analyze for a week, then when I remember that I have enabled Wayland I go back to X and everything just work. I have zero ideological or personal affiliation here, I just want my stuff to work.
    - memefrog 3y ago

dfinninger 3y ago

Calling out excel, photoshop, and text editors (I’m assuming coding)… those are all computationally expensive tasks. My mom runs her entire business off of her iPhone and iPad. I’d say that she’s doing “real work”. She just doesn’t need a discrete GPU. My sister is in a similar boat with her business. There are definitely certain classes of work that lend themselves to larger screens and an actively-cooled chassis. But many people don’t need the extras and are quite happy with the “mobile experience“. It’s just a different market. They love the updates coming down the pipe.

tomcam 3y ago
I would love to get a few more details describing how your mom uses the iPhone to run her business.
- wildzzz 3y ago
  I can certainly see someone running a one-person Etsy or farmers market stand business all from their iPhone. You use Excel or Google sheets to track expenses and income or just track it in a real ledger book. All the banks have an app now. She can order supplies through a browser or just by calling vendors. She can take payment in cash or card using the phone itself or a Square reader. TurboTax has an app. She can file state sales tax online or through the mail by printing forms from the phone if her payment processer isn't already handling this for her. You can even build basic websites using templates. I'm sure all of these tasks are a little easier with a bigger screen and real keyboard but they aren't impossible to do on a phone. Plus, record keeping on paper still exists and isn't difficult if your volume is small. You could even run something like a dropshipping business where you don't do any physical work and hire freelancers to do things that usually require a real computer like graphic design. Or maybe you just own a larger business with people under you that handle all the day-to-day work while you do big picture stuff in meetings or contact clients via email.

ramraj07 3y ago

Have you tried using excel or google sheets on an iPhone or android. It is perfectly serviceable. In fact on many days I get most of my work done through my iPhone, if I don’t have to _write_ code, just documents, review PRs and attend zoom meetings. Especially after the GitHub app has become good.

jxramos 3y ago
It feels likes some of the office like apps on the browser at least let you read documents and sheets and what not but when you go to edit them they push to to install the app. That's when I switch to the desktop version of the website which lets edit operations proceed. Kind of a weird workflow but it is what it is, mobile biased to reading, and apps biased towards editing. Problem is I don't want the app.