What's "uncomfortable" is the walled garden approaches that kills off abilities that power users want and expect from a computing device. The need to hack a system to jailbreak to get functionality you would normally find on a full-fledged computer is not sitting right with me or many others.
Give me full access to the system on iOS, just like on OS X -- make it an option! iOS devices COULD be SO much more than they are today if Apple opened them up!
You speak for a slim thin segment of few users. The new world order micturates on your pitiful petition.
Not really. We're talking about whether tablets can replace desktops in principle, not the current practical issues keeping this or that person from switching to a tablet (i.e., lack of power, lack of certain apps, lack of certain OS features, etc). Personally I think the trucks and cars analogy is wrong. It's more like the transition from the tiller to the steering wheel. Nobody steers their car (or truck) with a tiller anymore because a steering wheel is a much more natural method of control. I think this transition from PCs to tablets is happening as fast as it is because touch is a much more natural input method. The mouse/trackpad is essentially a broken form of touch; you touch somewhere else to position a pointer that stands in for your finger and then press a button on the mouse/trackpad to press an onscreen button rather than simply pressing the onscreen button directly. There are kids growing up with touch-based smartphones and tablets today who will think of the mouse/trackpad as antiquated and silly, like the rotary phone or steering a car with a tiller. The notion that anyone could have thought of it as a "power user" feature will seem absurd.
The thing about large displays is that, while the display area can be very large due to the nature of vision (i.e., visual acuity, how you can move your head, etc), the size of a given interaction area is limited by your hands. Moreover, most of what people want a larger display for is passive. You want to see the video you're editing, for example. You want multiple views into a data set. You want to see documentation while you work. A tablet could be used to drive a display in such cases, with the editing happening on the tablet UI, and the big display offering additional synchronised views. So I find it unlikely the PCs will continue to stick around as the "trucks" of the computing world because some apps need big displays.
I don't get this whole "the desktop has a future because I like big displays" argument. Hook a big display up to a tablet and have both. A big display is an accessory. This is also why "tablets are for content consumption" is completely back-to-front. Big displays are for content consumption. Even professionals who insist on big displays are usually using them for "content consumption" (i.e., displaying documentation alongside an IDE). Tablets are for interaction. Touch is a better and more direct interaction method than the (indirect) mouse or trackpad. That's why tablets are rapidly replacing PCs. The mouse/trackpad was a kludge because we didn't have touch. The laptop is a compromised form factor because we didn't have touch. The desktop has been irrelevant for years already. It's amusing that people are still maintaining the tablet can't rival PCs while the entire PC market is crashing.
What I am referring to is that your statements are so absolute... so exaggerated!
I agree with many of your points -- it's just that you present them as black or white -- while the reality is a lot of gray areas.
It is disingenuous to claim that ' professionals who insist on big displays are usually using them for "content consumption" '. Certainly the person creating or editing a video, spreadsheet, document, etc. needs to see the content they are dealing with... especially for things like before/after comparison, versioning, drag and drop...
Since you used the big display to illustrate how some people differentiate a [power] desktop computer from an [appliance] iPad -- let me describe a power desktop computer from a few years back.
Among other things, this computer was used for power number-crunching by major corporations.
The power app that made this possible was Microsoft Excel.
The power computer that made this possible was the original Mac... the year was 1985, and here are the specs of that [power desktop] Mac computer:
It is interesting to note the display size of that power desktop computer of yesteryear...
The original iPad is superior in almost every way (hardware, OS and software) to that Mac. (Except for screen size, the iPhone is superior, too).
Oddly enough, I cannot run Excel on the superior iPad.
I can run Apple Numbers on the iPad -- but it does not have all the features found in the Mac version.
I have a Numbers spreadsheet that requires Table Categories. I want all members of our household to use this! Each has his own personal iPad. But the Table Categories "feature" is not available on iOS Numbers...
So, each of us, in turn must use an iMac on the desktop.
Spoken from the real world, by an [over] enthusiastic iPad advocate... nay evangelist.
To nit-pick, the 128K mac could not and did not run Excel, it ran MultiPlan, the forerunner of Excel. Apparently, iOS will get Excel next year. Who's to know whether it will be gimped like the SurfaceRT version of Excel, but I expect both Excel and Numbers for the iPad to develop more capabilities over time, just as Excel did between 1984 and today.
As an old user of the original Mac, I couldn't let this little factoid slip by. I made some pretty good spreadsheet on that little wonder with it's single coffee-grinder drive... RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu.
The thing about large displays is that, while the display area can be very large due to the nature of vision (i.e., visual acuity, how you can move your head, etc), the size of a given interaction area is limited by your hands. Moreover, most of what people want a larger display for is passive. You want to see the video you're editing, for example. You want multiple views into a data set. You want to see documentation while you work. A tablet could be used to drive a display in such cases, with the editing happening on the tablet UI, and the big display offering additional synchronised views. So I find it unlikely the PCs will continue to stick around as the "trucks" of the computing world because some apps need big displays.
One of the major issues is that most existing apps are not designed for a touch interface.
Below. is a screen shot of FCPX running fullscreen on an iMac 27". I have activated a cursor replacement app (called PhoneFinger) to approximate how one would run this app on a touch screen device. I have small hands and PhoneFinger is scaled to match the size of my finger.
It illustrates several problems:
the finger obscures the control or area you are targeting
it is difficult to match the "sweet spot" of the finger to the "sweet spot" of the target (even when not fully obscured)
there is no granularity -- it would be impossible to select a pixel or a small control.
there is no hover/hint capability
there are no quick shortcuts analogous to kb shortcuts -- just point and click (and a few variants)
Apologies in advance for the large image -- it illustrates the points.
The finger has highlighted an event in the event library. At the very left is a small triangle twirl-down control -- used to show/hide the contents of that event. Didn't even come close with repeated tries.
It would be equally difficult to use a touch interface on a large spreadsheet, IDE, word-processing document, etc.
To fully understand the problems, I suggest you surf for PhoneFinger and try it on your Mac -- it might change your prospective about what's possible... and what's reality, today and for the next few years.
These problems are not insoluble... but they exist in today's world.
I want to make one more point here. Assume:
we are talking about a Mac running OS X FCPX
the equivalent capabilities (APIs, Frameworks, Codecs) required already exist in iOS
FCPX has been ported to run on an iPad
the touch issues listed above have been resolved.
The iPad does not not have enough power to do the job! At best, the iPad (maybe in a larger screen size) could be the UI to a more powerful [desktop or floor top] computer to do the heavy lifting.
Just some random examples:
A 4K video transmits a Gig of data per second -- that's a little over 2 minutes on the largest iPad.
Most multicam editing is done in ProRes Proxy to allow concurrent display of multiple video streams -- say 9 (angles) to avoid dropping frames on a top-end Mac with top-end CPUs, RAM, GPUs... No way does the iPad have the horses to run in that race.
Rendering the final cut of a video can take days on a maxed-out Mac.
I believe that there will always be power users with requirements above and beyond the appliance user... and they will require more robust hardware.
That said, the appliance user will grow to expect more capability on his device (outgrow iMovie for FCPX, in our example)... and will continue to overlap the territory of the power user.
Who knows, in the near future the appliance user may be able to collaborate with other appliance users to do FCPX editing in the cloud... but some badass computers, somewhere will still be doing the heavy lifting!
Since you used the big display to illustrate how some people differentiate a [power] desktop computer from an [appliance] iPad -- let me describe a power desktop computer from a few years back.
Among other things, this computer was used for power number-crunching by major corporations.
The power app that made this possible was Microsoft Excel.
The power computer that made this possible was the original Mac... the year was 1985, and here are the specs of that [power desktop] Mac computer:
It is interesting to note the display size of that power desktop computer of yesteryear...
The original iPad is superior in almost every way (hardware, OS and software) to that Mac. (Except for screen size, the iPhone is superior, too).
Oddly enough, I cannot run Excel on the superior iPad.
I can run Apple Numbers on the iPad -- but it does not have all the features found in the Mac version.
I have a Numbers spreadsheet that requires Table Categories. I want all members of our household to use this! Each has his own personal iPad. But the Table Categories "feature" is not available on iOS Numbers...
So, each of us, in turn must use an iMac on the desktop.
Spoken from the real world, by an [over] enthusiastic iPad advocate... nay evangelist.
To nit-pick, the 128K mac could not and did not run Excel, it ran MultiPlan, the forerunner of Excel. Apparently, iOS will get Excel next year. Who's to know whether it will be gimped like the SurfaceRT version of Excel, but I expect both Excel and Numbers for the iPad to develop more capabilities over time, just as Excel did between 1984 and today.
As an old user of the original Mac, I couldn't let this little factoid slip by. I made some pretty good spreadsheet on that little wonder with it's single coffee-grinder drive... RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu.
Ha! I was really just testing the readers to see if they knew the 512K requirement... Yeah, Right ... …
OMG... 512,000 Bytes of RAM... who would ever need that much RAM? VisiCalc only required 48K on the Apple ][.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by libertyforall
What's "uncomfortable" is the walled garden approaches that kills off abilities that power users want and expect from a computing device. The need to hack a system to jailbreak to get functionality you would normally find on a full-fledged computer is not sitting right with me or many others.
Give me full access to the system on iOS, just like on OS X -- make it an option! iOS devices COULD be SO much more than they are today if Apple opened them up!
You speak for a slim thin segment of few users. The new world order micturates on your pitiful petition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
You're being a tad hyperbolic don't you think?
Not really. We're talking about whether tablets can replace desktops in principle, not the current practical issues keeping this or that person from switching to a tablet (i.e., lack of power, lack of certain apps, lack of certain OS features, etc). Personally I think the trucks and cars analogy is wrong. It's more like the transition from the tiller to the steering wheel. Nobody steers their car (or truck) with a tiller anymore because a steering wheel is a much more natural method of control. I think this transition from PCs to tablets is happening as fast as it is because touch is a much more natural input method. The mouse/trackpad is essentially a broken form of touch; you touch somewhere else to position a pointer that stands in for your finger and then press a button on the mouse/trackpad to press an onscreen button rather than simply pressing the onscreen button directly. There are kids growing up with touch-based smartphones and tablets today who will think of the mouse/trackpad as antiquated and silly, like the rotary phone or steering a car with a tiller. The notion that anyone could have thought of it as a "power user" feature will seem absurd.
The thing about large displays is that, while the display area can be very large due to the nature of vision (i.e., visual acuity, how you can move your head, etc), the size of a given interaction area is limited by your hands. Moreover, most of what people want a larger display for is passive. You want to see the video you're editing, for example. You want multiple views into a data set. You want to see documentation while you work. A tablet could be used to drive a display in such cases, with the editing happening on the tablet UI, and the big display offering additional synchronised views. So I find it unlikely the PCs will continue to stick around as the "trucks" of the computing world because some apps need big displays.
Below is your original post -- I highlighted the places where you used hyperbole:
What I am referring to is that your statements are so absolute... so exaggerated!
I agree with many of your points -- it's just that you present them as black or white -- while the reality is a lot of gray areas.
It is disingenuous to claim that ' professionals who insist on big displays are usually using them for "content consumption" '. Certainly the person creating or editing a video, spreadsheet, document, etc. needs to see the content they are dealing with... especially for things like before/after comparison, versioning, drag and drop...
I'll respond more completely in a following post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum
Since you used the big display to illustrate how some people differentiate a [power] desktop computer from an [appliance] iPad -- let me describe a power desktop computer from a few years back.
Among other things, this computer was used for power number-crunching by major corporations.
The power app that made this possible was Microsoft Excel.
The power computer that made this possible was the original Mac... the year was 1985, and here are the specs of that [power desktop] Mac computer:
It is interesting to note the display size of that power desktop computer of yesteryear...
The original iPad is superior in almost every way (hardware, OS and software) to that Mac. (Except for screen size, the iPhone is superior, too).
Oddly enough, I cannot run Excel on the superior iPad.
I can run Apple Numbers on the iPad -- but it does not have all the features found in the Mac version.
I have a Numbers spreadsheet that requires Table Categories. I want all members of our household to use this! Each has his own personal iPad. But the Table Categories "feature" is not available on iOS Numbers...
So, each of us, in turn must use an iMac on the desktop.
Spoken from the real world, by an [over] enthusiastic iPad advocate... nay evangelist.
To nit-pick, the 128K mac could not and did not run Excel, it ran MultiPlan, the forerunner of Excel. Apparently, iOS will get Excel next year. Who's to know whether it will be gimped like the SurfaceRT version of Excel, but I expect both Excel and Numbers for the iPad to develop more capabilities over time, just as Excel did between 1984 and today.
As an old user of the original Mac, I couldn't let this little factoid slip by. I made some pretty good spreadsheet on that little wonder with it's single coffee-grinder drive... RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu, RUUU-ruuu.
One of the major issues is that most existing apps are not designed for a touch interface.
Below. is a screen shot of FCPX running fullscreen on an iMac 27". I have activated a cursor replacement app (called PhoneFinger) to approximate how one would run this app on a touch screen device. I have small hands and PhoneFinger is scaled to match the size of my finger.
It illustrates several problems:
Apologies in advance for the large image -- it illustrates the points.
The finger has highlighted an event in the event library. At the very left is a small triangle twirl-down control -- used to show/hide the contents of that event. Didn't even come close with repeated tries.
It would be equally difficult to use a touch interface on a large spreadsheet, IDE, word-processing document, etc.
To fully understand the problems, I suggest you surf for PhoneFinger and try it on your Mac -- it might change your prospective about what's possible... and what's reality, today and for the next few years.
These problems are not insoluble... but they exist in today's world.
I want to make one more point here. Assume:
The iPad does not not have enough power to do the job! At best, the iPad (maybe in a larger screen size) could be the UI to a more powerful [desktop or floor top] computer to do the heavy lifting.
Just some random examples:
A 4K video transmits a Gig of data per second -- that's a little over 2 minutes on the largest iPad.
Most multicam editing is done in ProRes Proxy to allow concurrent display of multiple video streams -- say 9 (angles) to avoid dropping frames on a top-end Mac with top-end CPUs, RAM, GPUs... No way does the iPad have the horses to run in that race.
Rendering the final cut of a video can take days on a maxed-out Mac.
I believe that there will always be power users with requirements above and beyond the appliance user... and they will require more robust hardware.
That said, the appliance user will grow to expect more capability on his device (outgrow iMovie for FCPX, in our example)... and will continue to overlap the territory of the power user.
Who knows, in the near future the appliance user may be able to collaborate with other appliance users to do FCPX editing in the cloud... but some badass computers, somewhere will still be doing the heavy lifting!
Ha! I was really just testing the readers to see if they knew the 512K requirement... Yeah, Right ... …
OMG... 512,000 Bytes of RAM... who would ever need that much RAM? VisiCalc only required 48K on the Apple ][.