31–40 of 212 posts
Although for my use cases a phone will most likely never be fast enough I can see this working for a large majority of end users. As someone in my office just said: "This is like saying 'of course shoes need laces'".
I believe I have a right to computing freedom, and actively try to use free software on my personal computer and on servers I develop on and deploy to. I have EOMA68 laptop and desktop housings[0] coming, hopefully in the spring. I am also about to build a server with a motherboard that is supported by Libreboot[1] and processors that work fine without microcode updates. I use Android phones and tablets, but as long…
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge#/
I ask because my perspective is that the convergence effort started a long time ago...perhaps as early as Canonical's original controversial release of the Unity desktop...and these efforts by larger players are more or less followers (albeit higher powered followers with larger market reach).
This being the case, I actually support the "convergence" paradigm...particularly Ubuntu's efforts but even from players like Microsoft...since I see convergence as a way of cracking open (to some extent) the walled gardens mobile devices have become.
But I wonder if there is some part of the Ubuntu Edge that was "closed" and I didn't notice.
I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive to just give your employees mobile phones and hook the office up with continuum docks. But it seems problematic in more than one aspect. For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with.…
Senseless Corporate Priority inversions are most often some combination of internal politics and/or money grabs.
I have trouble coming up with use-cases...but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone.
People who prioritize for ultra light weight already have a "sub-par laptop." So what if you could get rid of the laptop? A large company that standardized around docks would make that possible. All large companies standardizing around, say USB-C connectors and a Windows ubiquitous wireless "dock" standard would make that possible for US corporations in general.
I wish Microsoft would get their shit together and start executing across the board. It's just sad seeing the mix mash of wasted potential.
Despite their huge success, such a statement could apply to Microsoft throughout most of its long history. I suspect that internal politics is behind much of that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a neat idea, but I think it's an idea ahead of it's time still. There have been docking laptops forever and even that doesn't seem to have taken the world by storm. My PC is configured with terabytes of slow storage, gigabytes of fast storage, a fast CPU, a fast GPU, and applications that need lots of storage and a fast video card and big screens. I'm unconstrained on size and power consumption and optimized for…
Alternatively, make everything a remote keyboard/mouse/display for your home computer. Even another desktop computer.
To use the typical car analogy, it feels like designing a motorcycle that you can attach a second set of wheels and a cabin to turn it into a car. Or a second set of wheels and a bed to turn it into pick up truck. Or wings to become an airplane. Or a hull to become a boat.
> Microsoft’s dominance in PCs means it’s the only company likely to pull it off at scale. Try they might, but it's not going to work of you don't have another piece of the puzzle i.e. Mobile. Microsoft is so much out of the mobile game, no matter what it's gonna do on PC, it'll not work. The windows phone is dead as a dodo, and they've nothing to show on mobile. It'll take extraordinary efforts to get their continuu…
As a Microsoft focused developer for 22 years and a windows phone user, everything still feels like its held together by sticky tape and string at the moment. It works but inconsistency and sometimes show stopping failures just ruin it. As an example, Windows 10 Mail just stopped working for me for 11 hours throwing an update settings notification loop on two devices. No fast ring here; only the stable releases. Edge is all marketing and is slow and clunky as fuck still.
This is daily friction which kills the platform. They need to focus on quality before promising features.
Did it take them more than five years to write an x86 emulator, or did they only decide to try this after Windows RT had failed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal take away from your critique is that the problem is not just the computer. We also need a mobile display solution. Whether MS thinks they have that solved with their coming AR devices or they are looking farther down the pipe, I'm not sure. I think MS's plan right now is to not have a plan. Many of their products point to them thinking that we are at a point where computers are making a fundamental shift…
I have a little hard time seeing AR-glasses and minority report like gloves/hand waving (or virtual keyboards) being feasible (at least before a couple of generations of improvements), but perhaps that's lack of imagination on my behalf. It seems like it get's more expensive/more complicated while not solving the same problems. Sure in the far far future there might be feasible solution but in the meantime it would b…
AR-glasses should be given to programmers and traders. What if AR-glasses could somehow be synchronized with what you're looking at in your IDE/editor? How about "diff-vision?" -- You could have a visual overlay that diffs the currently shown method/function with another bit of code from a stack?
I think the gloves are silly. Hand gestures would be a nice supplement to function keys. Heck, I could envision a bunch of good gestures that would mean less finger travel than function keys.
I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive to just give your employees mobile phones and hook the office up with continuum docks. But it seems problematic in more than one aspect. For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with.…
i have immediately thought of that. Also Microsoft has Office Apps for Smartphones. I downloaded them once, but never used them. For a quick view a browser based solution would be sufficient, i really don't need full editing capabilities on my smartphone. Speaking of tablets is entirely different, but microsoft already has the surface computer/tablet mix.
I'm more than a little confused about MS "mobile" strategy. Continuum sounds like a good idea, in theory. For enterprise I can kinda see it be attractive to just give your employees mobile phones and hook the office up with continuum docks. But it seems problematic in more than one aspect. For starters it's based on the fact that people are going to want to use a windows mobile as their primary device to start with.…
I could never wrap my head around how strategically MS could just let mobile go and not take the fight. Senseless Corporate Priority inversions are most often some combination of internal politics and/or money grabs. I have trouble coming up with use-cases...but then you have a sub-par laptop and a phone. People who prioritize for ultra light weight already have a "sub-par laptop." So what if you could get rid of the…
I think the problem I'm having with continuum is that it's based on us only using the computer in a few fixed places, whereas the good thing about laptops is that they can be used anywhere..
I agree that internal politics is most definitively the bane of Microsoft's existence :)