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Microsoft Announces Continuum, Turning Windows 10 Phones into Desktops
- dharma1 11y agoreminds me of https://youtu.be/c3PUYoa1c9M?t=55s https://youtu.be/c3PUYoa1c9M?t=55s
- IanDrake 11y agoThey said they're waiting for hardware for this to actually work. I believe they're waiting for new Intel chips for phones.
- Wolniewicz 11y agoThey said they'll have a working hardware demo on Thursday. Just the phone he had wasn't compatible.
- morganvachon 11y agoI hope you're wrong; there's several great Windows 10-capable phones already out that should have the horsepower to accomplish this. It would be a shame for such a useful feature to be limited to next year's devices.
- cwyers 11y agoI don't think horsepower is the constraint, it's running two displays at once.
- Guvante 11y agoYou don't need to run both if you don't want to. People would be fine with the phone turning off its display if that were necessary. The real problem is USB-C which would be necessary to both charge your phone and have it connect devices.
- IanDrake 11y agoThe reason I said this is that Windows 10 universal apps compile to one binary (as MS claims) and how would this binary run on ARM chips? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I assume it would need something like this... http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/02/intel-atom-x3-x5-x7/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/02/intel-atom-x3-x5-x7/
- duaneb 11y agoYou can stick multiple arches in the same binary, much like OSX does. I think you can have ARM, PowerPC, and x86 in the same executable, each with 32-bit and 64-bit varieties.
- morganvachon 11y agoThe way I understood it, Windows 10 universal apps are truly universal; if your device runs Windows 10, it runs the app. This can be achieved as duaneb said, using the same method Apple has been using since the Intel switch 10 years ago.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoThey mentioned HDMI (presumably MHL) in the article, which surprised me, since I expected it to be USB type C that they're waiting for. That would allow the monitor to act as a docking station. 11-pin MHL would also allow this, but it's uncommon and not on any current generation phones, AFAICT.
- sp332 11y agoThere are some phones, but support seems spotty. http://meetmhl.com/devices.aspx?tid=1 http://meetmhl.com/devices.aspx?tid=1
- Guvante 11y agoIt depends how you want the hardware to work. If you want people to bring their own monitors then you need to support HDMI. I would expect a docking station that charged the phone and had a built in USB port. Said docking station could hook up via USB-C and use a displayport mode to send the data across of course. In either case though saying HDMI is for the best as it sends the signal of "works with your hardware" versus "works with hardware we will be releasing".
- bryanlarsen 11y agoI expect that USB type C support on monitors will become ubiquitous in the next couple of years.
- MLR 11y agoIn this video they actually mention they're waiting on new Qualcomm chips capable of driving two screen simultaneously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=123&v=-oi1B9fjVs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=123&v=-oi1B9fjVs4
- lewisl9029 11y agoDoes this actually enable running legacy desktop apps on Windows Phone? Or is this just for Universal Apps? If it's the former (and I hope it is), non-x86 chips is probably out of the question. For me, this would be the killer feature that finally drives me away from Android and onto Windows Phone. I'm also hopeful that eventually we'll see Hyper-V ported to mobile and be able to run alternative mobile/desktop OS's simultaneously.
- venomsnake 11y agoWill you have administrator privileges? And side loading? Otherwise it is of no use at all.
- stinos 11y agono use at all that seems exaggerated.. Being able to hook up your phone to a monitor (projector?)/keyboard/mouse and have access to what looks like the full office suite seems quite useful for some.
- Guvante 11y agoI think the huge ecosystem of apps out there thoroughly disproves your point. Honestly I love the permission scheme of the app stores compared to my desktop. Being able to control what the app can do is massively better than the desktop system of "runs as user". On the topic of root, I would hope we would work towards a time when it wasn't necessary rather than using it as a crutch.
- venomsnake 11y agoOn desktop you have more control - you can firewall, code inject, rewrite dlls, crack, cheatengine stuff and so on. Root means ownership of your device. And not being confined to a walled garden ... so while a future in which root is not used is terrific, a future in which root does not belong to the user is terrifying ...
- abrowne 11y ago
- techwizrd 11y agoThis is something Canonical and Ubuntu have been trying to do for a while. It's definitely interesting to think about as phones become the de factor computing devices.
- shock 11y agoIt appears Canonical are already doing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PUYoa1c9M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3PUYoa1c9M I found the demo pretty impressive.
- emehrkay 11y agoThis is really really nice. I'm glad to see that they didn't abandon the phone to desktop model that they originally promised. This is the future right here. Its just so bland looking. I know that doesn't really matter, but they need some good ui/ux people to really sell this thing.
- bsimpson 11y agoI think Motorola shipped a similar vision in 2011.
- josho 11y agoTwo thoughts here. I love the contrast between Apple and Microsoft. That is Microsoft frequently announces products/technologies with no shipping dates. While on the other side of the spectrum Apple builds out their products in secrecy announcing only when they have a ship date. As a developer building on their platforms I prefer Apple's approach as it lowers my risk of developing against a vapourware product. Second, I'm betting Microsoft announced this before its ready in order to get out ahead of Apple and Android's mobile dominance and be seen as a leader in mobile. Though, I'd also bet that given where current technology is Apple's Continuity approach provides the better experience today. But, no doubt what Microsoft showed is the future.
- melling 11y agoMicrosoft did invent the term vaporware and they've been using it to their advantage for decades: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
- kemiller 11y agoI suspect it doesn't work as well when you're a marginal player (as they are in mobile today) as when you're the 800-lb gorilla. Edit: I suppose this is a case of them trying to pull the conversation back to the place where they ARE an 800-lb gorilla. I just don't see them as being as dominant even on the desktop as they once were.
- bhauer 11y agoThis gets incrementally closer to an ideal computing model I call "personal application omnipresence" [1]. Notably it brings a presumably-standard means for applications to scale their views to myriad input/output capabilities on the fly. Attach a monitor and the view expands and adjusts accordingly; attach a keyboard and the UI adjusts accordingly. This is great progress, but I remain fixed in my desire for singular running instances of my personal applications to run on an application server I control and to which I attach views from all of my devices. I want to have a singular e-mail application that I see on all of my devices. I want to have a singular web browser application that I see on all my devices. And so on. We need to make my many devices appear as one rather than making a single device act as many devices. [1] http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao http://tiamat.tsotech.com/pao
- alyx 11y agoYou can technically do this today albeit with some overhead. Spin up an Azure VM, install all the apps you desire and configure it as you want. Every other PC you own, becomes just a head display, using RDP you can use a single dedicated VM. The overhead here becomes that you still need to have full blown OS installed on the heads, however their specs can be very limited (compared to the VM).
- stephengillie 11y agoAs well as double-digit latency, maybe even triple-digit at times, solely from general internet transit.
- freehunter 11y agoAnd being blocked by basically everything in existence. I installed a desktop on Linode and Google blocked me from even their search product. Many other sites had blocks set up or at least CAPTCHAs. If you have browsing activity coming from a datacenter, everyone assumes it's a bot. Geo IP gets messed up too. Really hard to get any work done like that.
- 11y ago
- andor 11y agoThis was demoed in the Build Keynote presentation, jump to 3:55:15: http://channel9.msdn.com/?wt.mc_id=build_hp http://channel9.msdn.com/?wt.mc_id=build_hp
- blinkingled 11y agoWow. Parts of that demo really seem to be inspired from Android. The hamburger menu, the black navigation bar at the bottom, the slide out menus etc. But the potential really is in the Phone->PC continuum. If I can take a beefy x86 phone (Intel seems to be inching closer to that reality) running windows and use it like phone most time and then dock it onto a big screen with keyboard and mouse - that really is a killer feature. It could change things in Microsoft's favor if they manage to get the integration and hardware parts right. (I should say that the concept is not new - Motorola tried that with the Atrix - but it was underpowered hardware, flakey software and little integration that killed it. From the looks of it Microsoft seems to be geared to address all three rather well.)
- walterbell 11y agoThis future would benefit from universal, non-proprietary docking stations, for the same reason we have standardized plugs/sockets for power, ethernet, USB, etc.
- blinkingled 11y agoYep, and Microsoft still has the clout to push OEMs to make that happen.
- vidarh 11y agoThe new USB Type C standard can provide up to 100W of power, while at the same time letting you use it to send DisplayPort (and you can connect to HDMI or DVI devices with a simple adapter) signalling. And your network connection. But with wireless charging + wireless data/display casting chances are it won't be that long before you won't need a wire for any of this most of the time.
- mark_l_watson 11y agoI was hoping for this from Android phones. My Note 4 has 3 gigs of RAM and a fast processor. I bought a HDMI converter to hook it up to a large monitor but the connection was problematic. I would argue that the amount of SSD storage on phones is not too big of an issue. More as a learning experience than anything else, I augmented my Linux and Mac laptops with a little Windows 8.1 HP Stream 11 this year that only has a 32 gig drive (with another 32 gigs added via a memory card). With OneDrive, not having much disk space is not much of an issue. I installed git, bash, IntelliJ, Java 8, and my current writing projects with enough room to spare because a lot of what I access (infrequently) can live in the cloud and only be cached locally if needed. Anyway, my Android Note 4 has a pretty good Java IDE, useful apps (including Office 365 and my favorite games) and really could be my primary computer with excellent docking support. Add cloud development tools like nitrous.io, web version of visual studio, etc., and we are getting close to what should end up being the future of the way most people interact with productivity and entertainment devices.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mikelat 11y agoI'm surprised the technology isn't "fast enough" yet. Most top end phones are quad core, output 1080p, have 2-4gb ram, etc. Specs like that easily meet the listed minimum requirements of windows... odd. They're now basically giving google and apple time to easily catch up to what could of been a killer feature that sells windows phones.
- Gustomaximus 11y agoThis seems an all too obvious entry into the enterprise environment for their mobile platform whilst strengthening the moat to their current desktop. Possibly for the education market too. I'm surprised this hasn't come earlier and would be further surprised if this isn't a top priority. I'm 100% sold if it remains a snappy platform running a couple of screens and heavy-ish excel files in a native environment.
- hhandoko 11y agoIt's not exactly apples-to-apples comparison. Whilst on paper the specs are similar, each architecture (e.g. ARM vs x86) has different priorities - power vs performance. But the two's priorities are converging, ARM becoming more powerful and x86 more efficient. I suppose, in another five years, running a desktop OS from your smartphone will be entirely feasible / practical. At the moment, it's just confined to tablets where higher power draw requirement is much more forgiving (better heat dissipation methods, and bigger battery).
- late2part 11y agoI'm no MSFT fanboy, but this is a big deal. Within 10 years, if not 5, we'll plug all of our phones into keyboards and monitors; and only the odd geek nerd will have a desktop or proper laptop.
- wampus 11y agoI'm excited about this, too, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I can't connect a bluetooth keyboard to my Lumia 920, or treat it as a USB mass storage device, or mount a thumb drive in its USB port, etc. Why should I believe they'll let me connect "future devices" to an external display? When I install Windows 10 on my phone, will I be able to remote desktop to it? Probably not.
- Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 11y agoThey specifically called out the use of bluetooth keyboards and mice in the phone during their presentation, so that's a given. Since you're essentially running the full windows now, I don't see why remote desktop wouldn't work with the metro version currently present in their store either.
- anonymfus 11y ago>I can't connect a bluetooth keyboard to my Lumia 920 You can since WP8.1 GDR2. >Why should I believe they'll let me connect "future devices" to an external display People can connect latest Lumias with Miracast support to external display for mirroring. Sadly, 920 is not one of them. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/connectivity/project-my-phone-screen http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/connectivity/pr... > mount a thumb drive in its USB port This will be supported on future devices according to this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn957036.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn... >treat it as a USB mass storage device This will probably be never supported because implementing it will require disconnecting storage from phone's OS and MTP is supposed to be enough. Edit: miracast is not supported on 920.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
- clumsysmurf 11y agoAs a long time Android developer this has me super interested! After years of writing apps (toys), struggling with design decisions made to get java running on 2007-level hardware like: 64k method limit, components with crazy life-cycles making concurrency difficult without leaking things, frankenstein Java ecosystem, brittle and complicated build system... Microsoft comes along and says "screw that shit", write mobile Applications as /desktop/ applications using C#, F#, or C++. This is also masterful because, as Windows Phone market share is hovering at almost zero, many people who simply need a low-powered device like chromebook, tablet, can just get a phablet Windows Phone and presto, they are now Windows Desktop /and/ Phone users. From an app monetization standpoint, its great because now I can make money on form factors from phone, tablet, laptop, desktop with one code base - instead of Android (phone) and which has more or less failed on tablets.
- lcedp 11y agoWhat do you mean by "write mobile Applications as desktop application"? How would it be possible on mobile devices e.g. with limited RAM?
- mrmondo 11y agoThis is the first thing Microsoft has done in 10 years that truly interests me. This is exactly what I was hoping for with a Linux based smartphone similar to what Ubuntu was going to do.
- rgbrenner 11y agoThis was what excited me the most about Ubuntu's Edge smartphone (2013): https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNhlVn3ETQ&t=1m56s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtNhlVn3ETQ&t=1m56s Happy to see someone copied it.
- Spooky23 11y agoIt annoys me that Apple didn't ship this a few years ago. We had business units test switching to 100% iPad with VDI, and many of them actually enjoyed it. It would be fairly trivial to deliver a great experience like this. In my case, I'd have 20,000 iPhone user ditching laptops.
- make3 11y agothey should mention that apps need to be built for arm to run
- castell 11y agoHTML5 with CSS3 (offline) web apps offer that, Motorola Android offered that called "WebTop" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G), Ubuntu Phone offers that, Apple's continuity offers that. Windows RunTime apps may offer that in future - no specific date. Microsoft had all the technology already for years inbuilt in Windows and Win32 API, called Windows Terminal Server and Remote Desktop (RDP) - it works great with all Windows applications in enterprise. Yet Microsoft hasn't delivered it yet to consumer devices. Microsoft to agree to license Citrix technology for Windows NT Server 4.0, which resulted in Windows Terminal Server Edition in 1998 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrix_Systems http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrix_Systems
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- alexkavon 11y agoNot exactly announced today...but hey who really fact checks these days?
- MichaelMoser123 11y agoi remember this article from ten years ago by Phil Greenspun; he predicted that this was going to happen some day. http://philip.greenspun.com/business/mobile-phone-as-home-computer.html http://philip.greenspun.com/business/mobile-phone-as-home-co...
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoHeh. So after everyone accused Windows 8 of turning your desktop into a phone, Microsoft has decided to shift into reverse?