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1. of course phones will replace desktops, it's been coming for ages. If your phone is powerful enough, why buy a desktop too? 2. in general, phones are "overs

by 6ren 13y ago

1. of course phones will replace desktops, it's been coming for ages. If your phone is powerful enough, why buy a desktop too? 2. in general, phones are "overshooting" what is needed in a phone: 1080p, 469ppi, quad-core, 2GB RAM etc 3. the real next market is a smaller form-factor (which this better tech now makes possible), not larger - maybe watches, maybe glasses, maybe something else. Apple has being absolutely extraordinary in leading new markets several times - but only with Steve. Sony also did it several times - but also only with their founder. either don’t see a competitor rising up or are too complacent to feel threatened. Christensen says it's far worse: even when they do see it, fund it, prepare for it, take it seriously, they still can't do it. Factors: it's a different emphasis from everything else they do, so it's not only learning/adjusting, but also unlearning/unadjusting (entrants only have to learn/adjust). Specifically: the rate of releases (eg Windows vs iOS); what users value/prioritize; how they use it (tasks); how to communicate to customers (a previous positioning works against them); financial analyst expectations (new markets start small and unexciting); corporately, small and possibly-failing new markets do not always attract the best talent; and well-established corporations tend not to attract risk-takers - and why wouldn't such people strike out on their own? That's often how it goes in practice. Basically, like animals, companies become supremely adapted to their niche. When that niche disappears, they can't adapt. Fortunately for Apple, the same people will probably buy iWatches, iGlasses, iWearableWhatevers, for the same purposes, the same priorities as they buy iPhones. Still, cringely is right.

netcan 13y ago
Say you live in Apple land and have all the iStuff. Would you buy a brainless iPad with storage processing on your iPhone? If the only advantage is a cost savings ($50?), I don't see the point.
- 6ren 13y ago
  Sorry, I don't understand. Cringely's idea is not a brainless iPad, more like a brainless laptop/desktop When laptops came out, many people docked them at home/work to a full keyboard and monitor. Why have two (or three) computers to maintain and worry about? Why go to the hassle of switching between them - your files, apps and customized environment? To be fair, today is different, the cloud (dropbox etc) helps. But avoiding the problem in the first place has an appeal too; and dropbox doesn't solve apps. Though using webapps exclusively could solve that. You may have a point about the price difference though - is it really only $50 to buy a PC box these days? (i.e. excluding display, keyboard, mouse).
  - netcan 13y ago
    I just gave it as an example. Brain one place hardware in another. It just doesn't require imagination using iOS & iphone-esque RAM/processor on an ipad. $50 - In the ipad example, I imagine that would be the cost difference for the brain. Maybe a little more, I don't know. But there are definitely decent android tablets in the 100-$200 range. The whole premise of the-phone-is-the brain seems to be that this is all you need on your desktop. Anyway, Apple don't do stuff like this because its cheaper. But I don't really see a big cost savings. File sharing might be a bit of a win, but small compared to cloud based patchwork stuff (drive, dropbox emailing files). Apps are easy enough to install in iOS anyway and you could make app purchases be cross platform if you are all in the same ecosystem. Basically, I see the advantage of iOS on the desktop. Its clean and easy and better for a lot of people. But why complicate that by outsourcing processing to a different device? If you want iOS on a laptop, just put iOS on a laptop.
    - 6ren 13y ago
      But with a brainless iPad, you don't get the keyboard, mouse and upright display, which was the point... Anyway, maybe you're right about the cost saving. A SoC is pretty cheap. A clearer argument is that the guts of desktops/laptops will be replaced by phone guts. This is because an ARM SoC are cheaper than intel, and now good enough. We're already seeing the samsumg chromebook and asus transformer - and as ARMs increase in power, it increasingly makes sense. It's expected that Apple will do one eventually - which I guess also explains the evidence in the article (and you get iOS on the laptop/desktop with no extra work). Note 1: intel x86 CPUs (apart from atom) are still much more powerful than ARM - even a celeron. But Christensen's idea is that this doesn't matter. He calls it "overshooting" what the market need: people want enough power to do their tasks, they might like more, but not enough to sacrifice other things, or pay more. Maybe it won't run photoshop, but most people don't. Note 2: Apple has a focus on video and photo editing, and as these apps improve, they will meet the needs of more and more people, perhaps eventually reaching photoshop users. One thing that intrigues me about Apple's choice of pushing GPU (and not CPU) in iPhone/iPad, is that GPUs scale better, and GPGPU might well be the best multicore we're going to get. It's generally perfect for image processing (ie photoshop). So in this case, the iPhone 5S guts may turn out even more powerful than it seems.

by 6ren 13y ago

netcan 13y ago

Say you live in Apple land and have all the iStuff. Would you buy a brainless iPad with storage processing on your iPhone? If the only advantage is a cost savings ($50?), I don't see the point.

6ren 13y ago
Sorry, I don't understand. Cringely's idea is not a brainless iPad, more like a brainless laptop/desktop When laptops came out, many people docked them at home/work to a full keyboard and monitor. Why have two (or three) computers to maintain and worry about? Why go to the hassle of switching between them - your files, apps and customized environment? To be fair, today is different, the cloud (dropbox etc) helps. But avoiding the problem in the first place has an appeal too; and dropbox doesn't solve apps. Though using webapps exclusively could solve that. You may have a point about the price difference though - is it really only $50 to buy a PC box these days? (i.e. excluding display, keyboard, mouse).
- netcan 13y ago
  I just gave it as an example. Brain one place hardware in another. It just doesn't require imagination using iOS & iphone-esque RAM/processor on an ipad. $50 - In the ipad example, I imagine that would be the cost difference for the brain. Maybe a little more, I don't know. But there are definitely decent android tablets in the 100-$200 range. The whole premise of the-phone-is-the brain seems to be that this is all you need on your desktop. Anyway, Apple don't do stuff like this because its cheaper. But I don't really see a big cost savings. File sharing might be a bit of a win, but small compared to cloud based patchwork stuff (drive, dropbox emailing files). Apps are easy enough to install in iOS anyway and you could make app purchases be cross platform if you are all in the same ecosystem. Basically, I see the advantage of iOS on the desktop. Its clean and easy and better for a lot of people. But why complicate that by outsourcing processing to a different device? If you want iOS on a laptop, just put iOS on a laptop.
  - 6ren 13y ago
    But with a brainless iPad, you don't get the keyboard, mouse and upright display, which was the point... Anyway, maybe you're right about the cost saving. A SoC is pretty cheap. A clearer argument is that the guts of desktops/laptops will be replaced by phone guts. This is because an ARM SoC are cheaper than intel, and now good enough. We're already seeing the samsumg chromebook and asus transformer - and as ARMs increase in power, it increasingly makes sense. It's expected that Apple will do one eventually - which I guess also explains the evidence in the article (and you get iOS on the laptop/desktop with no extra work). Note 1: intel x86 CPUs (apart from atom) are still much more powerful than ARM - even a celeron. But Christensen's idea is that this doesn't matter. He calls it "overshooting" what the market need: people want enough power to do their tasks, they might like more, but not enough to sacrifice other things, or pay more. Maybe it won't run photoshop, but most people don't. Note 2: Apple has a focus on video and photo editing, and as these apps improve, they will meet the needs of more and more people, perhaps eventually reaching photoshop users. One thing that intrigues me about Apple's choice of pushing GPU (and not CPU) in iPhone/iPad, is that GPUs scale better, and GPGPU might well be the best multicore we're going to get. It's generally perfect for image processing (ie photoshop). So in this case, the iPhone 5S guts may turn out even more powerful than it seems.