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I've always thought Apple was pretty clear in the direction they were headed when Jobs made his car and trucks analogy at All Things D. The iPad is meant for th

I've always thought Apple was pretty clear in the direction they were headed when Jobs made his car and trucks analogy at All Things D. The iPad is meant for the 90% of current users as their main device. The PC is for the heavy lifting for those in fields such as audio, video and science. There may be a time where a tablet can meet these needs but I certainly don't think we're close yet.

kenjackson 14y ago
One thing about Jobs... he was good at saying, "XYZ is a bad idea" right up until the day he announces "we're doing XYZ and it will change the world". Once Apple can get iOS working well on x86, they'll do the same.
- Judson 14y ago
  From what I understand, the problem with x68 is the lack of processors that can compete with ARM on battery life, which is one of the most important aspects of a portable device.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Intel has and is shipping x86 SoC processors which can compete (perhaps not beat) with ARM power efficiency. [1] On the flip side, ARM doesn't scale as well as x86 to higher power outputs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28system_on_chip%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28system_on_chip%29
- sjwright 14y ago
  > Once Apple can get iOS working well on x86 I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that iOS already works well on x86 and has never not worked well on x86. After all, the core OS maintains ongoing heritage with an x86 OS, and every single app in the store has already been successfully compiled for x86...
  - someperson 14y ago
    > every single app in the store has already been successfully compiled for x86 Really!?
    - peterkelly 14y ago
      Theoretically it would be possible develop your app in Xcode and only ever compile it for ARM and test on the actual device. But if you use the iOS simulator to develop/test your app (which I imagine every developer does), then you're running your iOS app natively on OS X, linked against a version of all the iOS libraries compiled for x86.
    - rsynnott 14y ago
      No, actually. There are a couple of third-party development tools for iOS which only compile to ARM (and which therefore can't run in the iOS simulator), notably Adobe Air for mobile, and that Delphi for iOS thing. 99.999%, though; anything written in Xcode, and anything written with the majority of third-party tools, has been run in the simulator.
  - stcredzero 14y ago
    Every app that has been run in the "simulator" has been compiled on x86. The simulator is not one. It's really a cross-compiling trick.
    - masklinn 14y ago
      > The simulator is not one. It's really a cross-compiling trick. Uh? No, that's the exact opposite, the simulator is exactly a simulator. What it's not is an emulator: it does not emulate an ARM device, it simulates an iPhone by running iOS/x86.
      - nitid_name 14y ago
        Possibly a naive question: what's the difference between a simulator and an emulator? Presumably an emulator copies the actual instruction set, while a simulator... only pretends to copy the instruction set?
sjwright 14y ago
> I certainly don't think we're close yet Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd assert that an iPad -- perhaps with a bluetooth keyboard -- is already enough computer for 70% of western world.
- kamaal 14y ago
  If computing history has shown as anything, nothing really is 'enough' for any part of the world.
- geon 14y ago
  > Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd say especially for the HN audience. A lot of people around here live most of their lives in the terminal, using Vi and Git. They have no reason to work on a beefy machine, as long as they can access more hardware somewhere else. It could be a server in the closet, or "the cloud". When I bought my first laptop and started doing webdev in 2001, I noticed that all I needed was enough power to play music, edit text and run a web/database server. It worked great with win2k WAMP on a P2 266 MHz, 96 MB, 4 GB. My much more powerful desktop was suddenly left powered off most of the time.
  - lloeki 14y ago
    In fact the only total, absolute, complete deal breaker is Cmd+Tab instead of reaching for the home button+screen.

kenjackson 14y ago

One thing about Jobs... he was good at saying, "XYZ is a bad idea" right up until the day he announces "we're doing XYZ and it will change the world". Once Apple can get iOS working well on x86, they'll do the same.

Judson 14y ago
From what I understand, the problem with x68 is the lack of processors that can compete with ARM on battery life, which is one of the most important aspects of a portable device.
- freehunter 14y ago
  Intel has and is shipping x86 SoC processors which can compete (perhaps not beat) with ARM power efficiency. [1] On the flip side, ARM doesn't scale as well as x86 to higher power outputs. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28system_on_chip%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_%28system_on_chip%29
sjwright 14y ago
> Once Apple can get iOS working well on x86 I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that iOS already works well on x86 and has never not worked well on x86. After all, the core OS maintains ongoing heritage with an x86 OS, and every single app in the store has already been successfully compiled for x86...
- someperson 14y ago
  > every single app in the store has already been successfully compiled for x86 Really!?
  - peterkelly 14y ago
    Theoretically it would be possible develop your app in Xcode and only ever compile it for ARM and test on the actual device. But if you use the iOS simulator to develop/test your app (which I imagine every developer does), then you're running your iOS app natively on OS X, linked against a version of all the iOS libraries compiled for x86.
  - rsynnott 14y ago
    No, actually. There are a couple of third-party development tools for iOS which only compile to ARM (and which therefore can't run in the iOS simulator), notably Adobe Air for mobile, and that Delphi for iOS thing. 99.999%, though; anything written in Xcode, and anything written with the majority of third-party tools, has been run in the simulator.
- stcredzero 14y ago
  Every app that has been run in the "simulator" has been compiled on x86. The simulator is not one. It's really a cross-compiling trick.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > The simulator is not one. It's really a cross-compiling trick. Uh? No, that's the exact opposite, the simulator is exactly a simulator. What it's not is an emulator: it does not emulate an ARM device, it simulates an iPhone by running iOS/x86.
    - nitid_name 14y ago
      Possibly a naive question: what's the difference between a simulator and an emulator? Presumably an emulator copies the actual instruction set, while a simulator... only pretends to copy the instruction set?

sjwright 14y ago

> I certainly don't think we're close yet Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd assert that an iPad -- perhaps with a bluetooth keyboard -- is already enough computer for 70% of western world.

kamaal 14y ago
If computing history has shown as anything, nothing really is 'enough' for any part of the world.
geon 14y ago
> Perhaps not for the Hacker News audience. I'd say especially for the HN audience. A lot of people around here live most of their lives in the terminal, using Vi and Git. They have no reason to work on a beefy machine, as long as they can access more hardware somewhere else. It could be a server in the closet, or "the cloud". When I bought my first laptop and started doing webdev in 2001, I noticed that all I needed was enough power to play music, edit text and run a web/database server. It worked great with win2k WAMP on a P2 266 MHz, 96 MB, 4 GB. My much more powerful desktop was suddenly left powered off most of the time.
- lloeki 14y ago
  In fact the only total, absolute, complete deal breaker is Cmd+Tab instead of reaching for the home button+screen.