The image of the setup with the keyboard and the monitor gave me an idea: Open a coffee shop/internet cafe type place where people could bring tiny computers and/or cell phones in and plug them into a docking station attached to a keyboard and a monitor.
The hard bit isn't even the hardware. It's the ui. Phone ui and desktop ui going are always going to be different, so how jarring is it going to be to have two different uis on the same machine?
If you have a Mac and an iPhone, it's all OS X. Just have the system start up the "Desktop" window/UI management system when you dock the phone. Lots of Linux users are familiar with the same machine, with the same OS having 2, 3 or a dozen different window managers.
People are already used to having one set of UI conventions on their phone and another on their laptop/desktop. Doesn't seem to jar too many from where I'm sitting.
Smart phone users already have to switch between their computers and their phones. At the very worst, combining them would mean using two incompatible UIs as we do already, but your data would all be in the same place and you would save money. Any integration of the two UIs would be the icing on the cake.
I'm pretty sure the first such device will be a future iPhone.
It looks to me that the current mobile corporations (let's say Nokia) are so used with business as usual and the tight lockin they don't want to make this step.
iPAQ "blue dock" was somewhat similar but never caught on for some reason, perhaps too early ?
Technically it's been feasible since forever. My cellphone is way faster than my Cyrix CPU that ran Windows 98 just fine. Yet, there is no hardware and software support for this.
Add a bluetooth mouse, this keyboard dock[1] and either have an extra wire for the display or go entirely wireless. That would be something nice to see in the corner of Starbucks.
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The image of the setup with the keyboard and the monitor gave me an idea: Open a coffee shop/internet cafe type place where people could bring tiny computers and/or cell phones in and plug them into a docking station attached to a keyboard and a monitor.
I'll bet that's the future of the desktop/notebook, when cell phones become a little more powerful.
The hard bit isn't even the hardware. It's the ui. Phone ui and desktop ui going are always going to be different, so how jarring is it going to be to have two different uis on the same machine?
If you have a Mac and an iPhone, it's all OS X. Just have the system start up the "Desktop" window/UI management system when you dock the phone. Lots of Linux users are familiar with the same machine, with the same OS having 2, 3 or a dozen different window managers.
People are already used to having one set of UI conventions on their phone and another on their laptop/desktop. Doesn't seem to jar too many from where I'm sitting.
Smart phone users already have to switch between their computers and their phones. At the very worst, combining them would mean using two incompatible UIs as we do already, but your data would all be in the same place and you would save money. Any integration of the two UIs would be the icing on the cake.
That seems very solvable though, and importantly: solvable in ways that could be a real competitive advantage if done well.
The hard problem is how to get cell phones into people's hands that would work with it.
I'm pretty sure the first such device will be a future iPhone.
It looks to me that the current mobile corporations (let's say Nokia) are so used with business as usual and the tight lockin they don't want to make this step.
iPAQ "blue dock" was somewhat similar but never caught on for some reason, perhaps too early ?
Technically it's been feasible since forever. My cellphone is way faster than my Cyrix CPU that ran Windows 98 just fine. Yet, there is no hardware and software support for this.
Add a bluetooth mouse, this keyboard dock[1] and either have an extra wire for the display or go entirely wireless. That would be something nice to see in the corner of Starbucks.
1. http://store.apple.com/us/product/IPAD_KBDOCK?mco=MTcyMTgwOT...