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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

#21

Post by drawnwren »

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 in the way we interact with them (Surface, AR, this) but not necessarily being sure where the shift is going.

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

#22

Post by FlyingSnake »

> 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 continuum working on Apple/Google walled gardens.

This will fizzle out soon, not because of the technical merits, but due to App Store politics.

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

#23

Post by dogma1138 »

notadoc wrote: post #17
no1youknowz wrote: post #4

As soon as I saw Ubuntu Edge back in 2013, I have been dreaming of the day something like Continuum is a reality and not just for Windows. For Linux and MacOS as well. Hopefully, it's not to far off now.

Greatly agreed. Being able to dock a phone and turn it into a fully functioning desktop is a phenomenal idea and feels like the natural progression. I don't think we'll ever see that with the Mac though unfortunately, and I suspect Apple would never introduce a cursor and windowing system into iOS either.

Can't you already do that today with any phone with an hdmi out and a Remote Desktop client?

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

#24

Post by mhomde »

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…

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 be nice if Microsoft had an idea of where they were headed instead of shrugging and going "well let's just see" :) They need to keep their ecosystem competitive to be positioned to take advantage of that future, whatever it is.

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

#25

Post by criddell »

notadoc wrote: post #17
no1youknowz wrote: post #4

As soon as I saw Ubuntu Edge back in 2013, I have been dreaming of the day something like Continuum is a reality and not just for Windows. For Linux and MacOS as well. Hopefully, it's not to far off now.

Greatly agreed. Being able to dock a phone and turn it into a fully functioning desktop is a phenomenal idea and feels like the natural progression. I don't think we'll ever see that with the Mac though unfortunately, and I suspect Apple would never introduce a cursor and windowing system into iOS either.

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 performance and my efficiency.

Meanwhile, my phone makes all kinds of compromises in order to be small and run all day on a single charge.

If being able to dock a phone is a good idea, why not go one step further? Make a watch that's your PC. When you sit down at a keyboard and monitor at Starbucks, it pairs with your watch and you get to work. Make the phone be nothing but a remote speaker, microphone, and display for your wrist computer. Your desktop is just a remote keyboard, mouse and display.

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

#26

Post by ianai »

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.

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

#27

Post by lmkg »

satysin wrote: post #13
solnyshok wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it could be wireless display and wireless keyboard, mouse

That does not prevent the display/keyboard from capturing everything you look at or everything you enter though. Using untrusted I/O devices, wireless or wired, is a privacy and security risk.

Just to build on this: I heard tell of a USB hard drive, back in the day, that would install its driver when plugged in. It did this by claiming to the attached device that it was a keyboard instead of a hard drive, and then sending keystroke data imitating opening a command prompt with hotkeys and typing in the installation commands. It's not difficult to imagine what "the bad guys" could have done instead (as if that wasn't bad enough).

An I/O device is inherently a security risk because it sits in-between the user and the system, and effectively acts the intermediary between the two. That's a ton of trust.

This isn't a completely unsolvable problem. One could imagine a security system where an app using external I/O is opt-in, and even then given restricted access (e.g. not in the Settings area). But it's something that has to be created and put in place first, and there will probably be some associated user friction.

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

#28

Post by jarjoura »

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 have been unthinkable if it was full emulation.

Question for this effort, is this Microsoft revisiting Surface Books that are running on ARM chips?

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

#29

Post by nambit »

criddell wrote: post #25
notadoc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greatly agreed. Being able to dock a phone and turn it into a fully functioning desktop is a phenomenal idea and feels like the natural progression. I don't think we'll ever see that with the Mac though unfortunately, and I suspect Apple would never introduce a cursor and windowing system into iOS either.

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.

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

#30

Post by LeanderK »

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.…

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.

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