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Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

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Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#41

Post by mhomde »

stcredzero wrote: post #38
mhomde wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 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…

What's the benefit against just visualizing it on the screen? Another problem is how comfortable it is staring through AR glasses hours at and end. I don't want to be the person to only see problems however, there might be some nice scenarios.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#42

Post by tluyben2 »

ianai wrote: post #26
FlyingSnake wrote: post #22

> 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…

I don't think you can count Microsoft out of entering a market. They have the capital to startup and launch in probably any industry, including big pharma. I also think it'd be dangerous for Apple or google to count Microsoft out. Furthermore the economist in me wants to see many more options in the IT industry than just 2-3 so adding one more is welcome.

> They have the capital to startup and launch in probably any industry,

They tried that more than a few times and failed. X-box worked, but portable music players, mobile and search would be things they pumped massive amounts of money into and didn't get very far with.

But yes, I would like choice above all. I am not a big Windows fan, but Android is really starting to annoy me and iOS (or at least the rules around iOS) is too limited for what I do with computers/phones/tablets.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#43

Post by wlesieutre »

jarjoura wrote: post #28

Hmm, x86 emulation on ARM is the most interesting nugget. No one here thinks Windows Phone will be back in any serious capacity and that brand is pretty much finished. Looks like this will run similar to how Apple got PowerPC apps running on early Intel Macs. Emulated just enough to cross the bridge to the Intel bits so that performance wasn't completely unusable. You could really run Adobe Photoshop, which would hav…

My hunch is a Surface Phone that can hook up to a larger screen and become a full computer, but I'm not sure how that would work if you ever need data that's in a win32 app while you're mobile. Guess it could run a desktop like you can use VNC/RDP apps on phones, let you pan and zoom around?

Not a great experience, but then again, touch input on the Windows desktop on the whole Surface line is occasionally janky when you have poorly compatible software, so that's nothing new.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#44

Post by tracker1 »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #37

So, Microsoft finally solved the Windows on ARM puzzle. 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?

I don't consider RT a failure itself... I think the failure was in ignoring legacy application environments and not having dev platforms available for testing/targeting windows rt ahead of time as a .Net build target.

If they'd supported a dev box (something like a beefy rpi3 with 2-4gb of ram, and ssd support) and sold that early for developers with windows rt a year ahead of the tablet/convertibles it would have gone much smoother.

They also should have pushed the .Net Core much sooner, and it should still be a bit further along than it is at this point. I do think it will get there though. The real question is will someone beat them to the punch.

I think ChromeOS and the Chromebooks are proof that this level of device is good enough for a lot of people and being able to dock a phone for a platform OS for most people is probably good enough hardware wise at this point. It's just that MS has always fallen short when it comes to quality control and polish.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#45

Post by brilliantcode »

I wonder what their end user is here. Android is clearly the winner which Windows Phone has lost to.

Perhaps they are aiming for productivity based use that requires windows toolsets? Sort of like a Bring Your Own Work Device to work that will inherently tie the worker beyond the office?

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#46

Post by WorldMaker »

drawnwren wrote: post #21
mhomde wrote: post #16

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.…

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…

Miracast is a Windows 10 supported mobile display solution with increasingly surprising ubiquity. You currently can't expect every hotel room TV to support it yet, but a generic Miracast stick (or Amazon Fire stick if you want a branded one) can be obtained pretty cheaply and is small and easy to tote around.

Microsoft has a folding bluetooth keyboard that fits in my pocket and is surprisingly nice to work on despite the size.

Keyboard, stick, phone, phone charger is just about all I need to be productive, and with a bit of arrangement I can fit all of that in carpenter's jeans pockets.

I think MS has several plans in motion but has been slow to get all of the moving parts in place. The Creator's Update and "Redstone 3" to follow sounds like some of those plans are finally starting to converge (now that the basic infrastructure is in place).

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#47

Post by tracker1 »

ebiester wrote: post #31
xutopia wrote: post #3

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'".

As a developer, I think I'm damn close to being able to work on a phone's processing power. The biggest problem is driving large enough monitors at this point, but most of my work can be handled via SSH when speed is an issue.

On my windows desktop, at least half the time, I am using an SMB share in my Linux VM to use a gui editor in windows (love VS Code), and have a few SSH terms in conemu connected to the same VM for running stuff. On mac, I managed to do fine locally against iTerm2. I tend to deploy against linux so this is the least friction for me.

I was actually fine with a chromebook a couple years ago, but couldn't get it to work with the VPN at work... So went back to an mbp. A lot of people do fine with this level of device (hence the chromebooks). I think the real shift will be in terms of integration without friction, which MS has a poor track record of, and most developers in general do poorly with.

Who knows though.

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#48

Post by tdb7893 »

brilliantcode wrote: post #45

I wonder what their end user is here. Android is clearly the winner which Windows Phone has lost to. Perhaps they are aiming for productivity based use that requires windows toolsets? Sort of like a Bring Your Own Work Device to work that will inherently tie the worker beyond the office?

If they released a windows phone that connects to monitors and has the basic word processing and web browsing capabilities I would definitely consider buying one. Also as long as monitors and everything aren't very expensive I could see them eating part of the market for chromebooks and tablets

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#49

Post by gyigdjjlpp »

gshulegaard wrote: post #32
ralmidani wrote: post #12

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…

Just curious, did you support the Ubuntu Edge effort a couple years back? Why or why not? 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 m…

I think the opposite.

Microsoft has a "legacy" on x86 that its open and standardized. Once it moves to ARM, all bets are off (see surface).

I wonder if I'm going to be able to install Linux on a "PC" in ten years

Re: Microsoft is bringing Windows 10, with desktop app support, to ARM chipsets

#50

Post by tracker1 »

faragon wrote: post #20

Good news. I never imagined to buy a "Windows Phone", but if they do that, and provide a good "restore" system (i.e. easy recover of a non-booting phone via USB), I would be glad of using one, so I can avoid traveling with a laptop (e.g. using the phone on hotel TVs with Bluetooth keyboard would be very convenient). I hope Android provide an equivalent thing. For me a simple dual boot of e.g. an Ubuntu read-only imag…

It could get very interesting... most of the profits from phones seem to be the "storage" differentiation on overpricing the extra storage... I don't think I could get by with a desktop with less than 128gb of open space... though RDP and SSH access could offset this a lot. Wonder if I can manage to get cifs sharing over ssh tunnel.
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