←back to thread

442 points logic_node | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.203s | source
Show context
lanthissa ◴[] No.43973748[source]
this done well is a transformational thing, its just no one has been willing to invest yet, but the compute on a phone is now good enough to do most things most users do on desktop.

I can easily see the future of personal computing being a mobile device with peripherals that use its compute and cloud for anything serious. be that airpods, glasses, watches, or just hooking that device up to a larger screen.

theres not a great reason for an individual to own processing power in a desktop, laptop, phone, and glasses when most are idle while using the others.

replies(13): >>43973781 #>>43973797 #>>43973869 #>>43976591 #>>43978587 #>>43979114 #>>43979639 #>>43980207 #>>43981040 #>>43982455 #>>43982914 #>>43983353 #>>43983525 #
dzdt ◴[] No.43976591[source]
The future of personal computing is being dictated by the economics of it, which are that the optimal route to extract value from consumers is to have walled-garden software systems gated by per-month subscription access and/or massive forced advertising. This leads to everything being in the cloud and only fairly thin clients running on user hardware. That gives the most control to the system owners and the least control to the user.

Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.

replies(2): >>43978398 #>>43981988 #
gwbas1c ◴[] No.43978398[source]
I've heard so many "The future of personal computing" statements that haven't come true, so I don't take much stock in them.

I remember when everyone thought we were going to throw out our desktops and do all our work on phones and tablets! (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)

> Given that all the compute and all the data is on the cloud, there is little point in making ways for users to do clever interconnect things with their local devices.

IMO, it's a pain-in-the-ass to manage multiple devices, so IMO, it's much easier to just plug my phone into a clamshell and have all my apps show up there.

replies(4): >>43980040 #>>43980224 #>>43983279 #>>43987295 #
lmm ◴[] No.43980040[source]
> we were going to throw out our desktops and do all our work on phones and tablets! (Someone who kept insisting on this finally admitted that they couldn't do a spreadsheet on a phone or tablet.)

We're almost there. The cool kids are already using 12" touchscreen ARM devices that people from 10 or 20 years ago would probably think of as tablets. Some kinds of work benefit greatly from a keyboard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want oneall the time - I still think the future is either 360-fold laptops with a good tablet mode (indeed that's the present for me, my main machine is a HP Envy) or something like the MS Surface line with their detachable "keyboard cover".

replies(2): >>43980263 #>>43983713 #
1. wkat4242 ◴[] No.43983713[source]
> Some kinds of work benefit greatly from a keyboard, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want oneall the time

I would say most kinds of work.

Even if you're just on teams discussions - a real keyboard is much more productive than messing around on a touchscreen. Same with just reading. Sometimes I read a forum thread on my phone and then when I get back to the real computer I'm surprised how little I read and how much it felt like.

The only thing where I don't see this being the case is creative work like drawing where a tablet is really perfect, much better than a wacom or something.