> On 9/8/2010 1:31 AM, Stephan February wrote: >> Assertion: The rise of MacOSX, mobile smart phones >> and the increasing importance of the browser as >> platform, has rendered Windows largely irrelevant as a >> desktop platform. Unfortunately these trends have >> taken out desktop Linux as collateral damage. >> Discuss!
On a slow National Day afternoon, this is the perfect topic to discuss. > I believe smartphones / iPads / iPod Touch will never take over the > desktop for some tasks: > because size matters! > > Try to: > 1- type a page long document on an iPad's iWork. Good luck. Predictive > input alone will make you pull your hair. The last 25 years of "desktop" computing was an enormous experiment in usage paradigms. All things considered, I love a keyboard (qwerty or otherwise). Devices like a Android and i* are approaching from the non-keyboard mode that I think is an experiment with new touch sensitive paradigms. Will this work? Hard to tell. Will some future generation look at us the same way we look at the quill-using generation? > 2- compose some music on an iPhone / iPad / Android phone (there's just > one very basic line-in jack at most!) > I know you can play with your mobile phone and some basic > synthesizers, but you could probably do better > on a Z80 with a tracker. > > 3- view a photo gallery. No no: a large photo gallery where you look for > a particular picture, not one > when you swipe left to right 5 pictures. Think more like 50 pictures > and you wish you had a 15" screen. > > 4- in general type more than 3 paragraphs on a touchscreen. > > 5- draw anything (better than a doodle, regular photo manipulation (not > one click auto-settings), brochure design) > > 6- program! I know gcc is available on rooted iPhone / Android phones, > but seriously, VI on a phone? > that's OK for 3 lines of code, not for a 1M+). > > 7- manage 7 email accounts with 10 mails per hour in each in-boxes. Sure > email works fine > on iOS / Android, but it gets very very tiring and you lack the big > picture and miss the big screen. > The battery alone would get gone in half the advertised time. > > 8- view a video in general. iPad/tablets would still be fine but > seriously on a smartphone screen kind of size > try to show an hilarious YouTube video and your friend will complain > he can't see the details, he can't hear > and view the video at the same time (phone against the ear to hear > better!), etc.. > > 9- connect to your office using ssh / vnc / citrix and whatever > complicated VPN setup and actually debug > that linux / windows based service that crashes. shells on iPhones / > Androids are sweet, but after > typing my 32 chars long passwords I cramps already. For a one liner > command it's perfect on the go, > but as soon as you have to troubleshoot something forget it. > > 10- security: no firewall yet on smartphones / tablets. And the software > is equally vulnerable > (check the jailbreakme.com combo of vulnerabilities), and I'm sure > there are similar ones on Android. > No real antivirus, anti-malware, IDS / IPS, proper security model > (SE-Linux or vista-like), etc..etc... > Smartphones / tablets are the most interesting platforms to hack > right now. It started slowly but > hackers are spending tremendous efforts break them and of course > they manage. > > Linux / Windows / Mac OS / *BSD laptops can still do these 10 tasks > perfectly. > > Don't get me wrong, smartphones are cool, especially the Nexus One! :) > :) (yeah, got one before they closed > the online shop!!). But due to size factors, usability gets seriously > reduced. While it's ok for casual browsing, > casual messaging (sms, mms, msn, etc...), the occasional urgent email, > RSS feed / news reading, and obviously > calling friends, and listening to your music collection, it will never > replace my laptops in my house / office. > > Obviously I send this from a desktop, couldn't be bothered to type this > on a touchscreen! ;-) +100 to all the above. > PS: happy national day. Majulah Singapura! -- Harish Pillay [email protected] gpg id: 746809E3 _______________________________________________ LUGS Mailing list - [email protected] List FAQ: http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/LugsMailingListFaq Info page: http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet To unsubscribe send an empty email to: [email protected]
