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.
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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.