Hi Stephan,
On 9/8/2010 1:31 AM, Stephan February wrote:
> Assertion: The rise of MacOSX, mobile smart phones
> and the increasing importance of the browser as
> platform, has rendered Windows largely irrelevant as a
> desktop platform. Unfortunately these trends have
> taken out desktop Linux as collateral damage.
> Discuss!
> Cheers
> Stephan
I believe smartphones / iPads / iPod Touch will never take over the
desktop for some tasks:
because size matters!
Try to:
1- type a page long document on an iPad's iWork. Good luck. Predictive
input alone will make you pull your hair.
2- compose some music on an iPhone / iPad / Android phone (there's just
one very basic line-in jack at most!)
I know you can play with your mobile phone and some basic
synthesizers, but you could probably do better
on a Z80 with a tracker.
3- view a photo gallery. No no: a large photo gallery where you look for
a particular picture, not one
when you swipe left to right 5 pictures. Think more like 50 pictures
and you wish you had a 15" screen.
4- in general type more than 3 paragraphs on a touchscreen.
5- draw anything (better than a doodle, regular photo manipulation (not
one click auto-settings), brochure design)
6- program! I know gcc is available on rooted iPhone / Android phones,
but seriously, VI on a phone?
that's OK for 3 lines of code, not for a 1M+).
7- manage 7 email accounts with 10 mails per hour in each in-boxes. Sure
email works fine
on iOS / Android, but it gets very very tiring and you lack the big
picture and miss the big screen.
The battery alone would get gone in half the advertised time.
8- view a video in general. iPad/tablets would still be fine but
seriously on a smartphone screen kind of size
try to show an hilarious YouTube video and your friend will complain
he can't see the details, he can't hear
and view the video at the same time (phone against the ear to hear
better!), etc..
9- connect to your office using ssh / vnc / citrix and whatever
complicated VPN setup and actually debug
that linux / windows based service that crashes. shells on iPhones /
Androids are sweet, but after
typing my 32 chars long passwords I cramps already. For a one liner
command it's perfect on the go,
but as soon as you have to troubleshoot something forget it.
10- security: no firewall yet on smartphones / tablets. And the software
is equally vulnerable
(check the jailbreakme.com combo of vulnerabilities), and I'm sure
there are similar ones on Android.
No real antivirus, anti-malware, IDS / IPS, proper security model
(SE-Linux or vista-like), etc..etc...
Smartphones / tablets are the most interesting platforms to hack
right now. It started slowly but
hackers are spending tremendous efforts break them and of course
they manage.
Linux / Windows / Mac OS / *BSD laptops can still do these 10 tasks
perfectly.
Don't get me wrong, smartphones are cool, especially the Nexus One! :)
:) (yeah, got one before they closed
the online shop!!). But due to size factors, usability gets seriously
reduced. While it's ok for casual browsing,
casual messaging (sms, mms, msn, etc...), the occasional urgent email,
RSS feed / news reading, and obviously
calling friends, and listening to your music collection, it will never
replace my laptops in my house / office.
Obviously I send this from a desktop, couldn't be bothered to type this
on a touchscreen! ;-)
PS: happy national day.
Take care,
Fabrice.
--
Fabrice A. Marie
FMA Risk Management Solutions
http://www.fma-rms.com/
_______________________________________________
LUGS Mailing list - [email protected]
List FAQ: http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/LugsMailingListFaq
Info page: http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
To unsubscribe send an empty email to: [email protected]
