I have had this idea for a few years now. Its to do with the usability limitations of the phone due to its hardware size.
If you look at any of the new generation of smartphones, you can do almost all the thing you would do using a PC and more. In fact the hardware spec for a phone is much higher in terms of different tech than PCs and even laptops. For example, how many PCs, laptops do you know which come built in with camera, gps, accelerometers, etc. in addition to network connection (gsm, 3g, wifi). Also, most smartphones have applications which enable you to write emails, browse the internet, write documents, show presentations, play songs, movies, games, make audio/video calls, take photos/videos, instant messaging, the list goes on... and you can install 3rd party applications, just like PCs. But even though we have had all these features on smartphones for some years for now, they are no replacement for PCs. We still prefer to use our desktops/laptops to for most of the above tasks and use smartphones as a backup when we are away form our desktops/laptops. I think the main reason for this is the size limitations of the screen and keypads. Now if we remove this limitations I think smartphones can start challenging the laptops/netbooks/desktops. And I don't think the way forward is to stick a bigger screen and keypad into phones, but enable them to use external screens, keyboards, mouse, etc. This has been done to a certain extent at a very simplistic level by some manufacturers by enabling the us of bigger addon keypads, but thats just too basic. What I am suggesting is a smartphone should at an OS level have two modes of operation - one in which it acts like a normal smartphone running within the limitations of its immediate hardware shell and second when it is connected to a "docking station", just like laptops. When it is connected to the docking station, the UI scales to make use of the higher screen resolutions (not just a dumb scaling to make things look bigger), the applications themselves might show more features to take advantage of the extra screen space. Just as on laptops, we connect mouse, bigger screens to improve their usability the same applies to smartphones. The OS should handle these new hardware devices. I know some of you might say, smartphones will never replace PCs. To a certain extent that might be true. But I am sure the iPhones and Nokia E71's of today are much more powerful than my 486/586 based PC I had a few years back and I could do quite a lot on those old PCs! Also, technology improves constantly and I would like to see a more intelligent evolution of the phones, than just making them slimmer, ligheter adding more memory, better camera, etc. And this is where Andriod and other open OS can make a difference. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
