
I'm dreaming of a pocket Macintosh - ingve
http://www.macworld.com/article/2449500/im-dreaming-of-a-pocket-macintosh.html
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Rangi42
An iPhone-sized computer that can wirelessly connect to a monitor and keyboard
could itself act as a mouse (with gesture recognition like Apple's Magic
Mouse), a touchpad, a chorded keyboard, or any other peripheral that can be
emulated with a touchscreen and some hardware buttons on the side. (Volume
up/down could act like back/forward on a mouse, for instance.) This would be
great for accessing your own data and applications from anywhere, without
relying on cloud storage.

~~~
Pwntastic
I really like this idea. I think you could add in accelerometer support and
make the phone function like an actual mouse, physically moving it around the
desk like you would a physical mouse.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
An accelerometer measures acceleration, not movement. You need some kind of
optical sensor (even the camera) to make it usable as a mouse.

~~~
mattegan
The integration of acceleration is velocity, integrate again and you have
position.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
You have that annoying +C though, so you need an initial velocity. While you
can just shove 0 in there, it would still not be 100% accurate, and you'd want
it to reset when no acceleration is detected for a period of time.

So while I'm sure you could make it work convincingly, it still wouldn't work
as well as a proper rollerball or optical sensor.

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benologist
I was surprised to see no mention of Ubuntu in this article, they did exactly
what's being imagined with the phone switchable to full-featured desktop.

~~~
personZ
The Motorola Atrix did that two year earlier, however, and is mentioned,
making a Ubuntu mention redundant.

~~~
vacri
An Ubuntu mention is warrantied, given that in the very next paragraph the
author dismisses Atrix as not having any worthwhile apps running. Ubuntu, on
the other hand, is a fully-fledged desktop and can't be dismissed as a toy
this way.

~~~
personZ
The Atrix was a full fledged Linux desktop, which could run virtually any
desktop Linux app such as OpenOffice. Heck, the Atrix ran a Ubuntu-based
desktop.

Maybe the author just didn't know that, or perhaps they just discount Linux
entirely compared to OSX and Windows.

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kps
You want your pocket machine to be a Macintosh; Apple wants your desktop
machine to be an iPhone.

(I might just be ten percent more cynical than usual, because, having just
opened iBooks for the first time to download the Swift manual, it — without
asking — ‘imported’ a raft of other ebooks, destroying my file name and folder
structure. My files don't belong to an ‘application’, they belong to _me_.)

~~~
voltagex_
I am very afraid of the day where I can't get a general-purpose computer
anymore.

The best pocket machine I've ever had was a Nokia N900. I strongly believe in
"if you don't have root, you don't own it".

~~~
Tloewald
I'm sure there are people who thought the same of microcode, bootstrap code,
or whatever. We all operate at some level of abstraction.

~~~
prutschman
It's an important distinction whether the abstraction is designed to
facilitate the user's operation of the hardware or interfere with it.

~~~
Tloewald
Define "facilitate" to everyone's satisfaction. By my definition, Apple has
done more to facilitate people's use of computer hardware than any other
single company.

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schappim
Apple once thought carrying your life (your Mac OS X home directory) was a
good idea when they publicly announced "Home on iPod". They quickly reversed
course. I assume the failure rates of the iPod's spinning hard disks were a
contributing factor.

I think this could only work if you had great backup with the cloud.

"Your iPod wasn’t designed to be used as a startup drive for long periods of
time. When the tiny hard drive inside the device spins for hours on end—as it
can if you boot from it—the player heats up enough to make your palms sweat.
Since there’s no way for the heat to vent, as it would on a hard drive in your
computer, you risk tragedy." \- Macworld.

~~~
egypturnash
When's the last time you saw an iThing with a spinning HD in it? Everything's
SSD now. And the computers are going that way too.

~~~
grimmfang
Surprisingly, Apple doesn't even offer SSD or their "Fusion Drives" in store.
I was at an Apple store last week trying to buy an iMac with a 256 GB SSD and
had to have them order one for me.

It is worth going to the store though, they gave me a fair discount for buying
it as a business.

~~~
egypturnash
Huh. I only get laptops for myself; looking at the online store there's all of
one stock Macbook Pro config that offers a HD instead of SSD. Even the default
config of the Mac Pro is SSD. All the default iMacs and Minis are HD, though.

We're not in the "SSD only" world yet by any means but there's a definite
change from just a few years ago.

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varkson
There are a lot of 8" Windows 8 Tablets that can already do basically this. No
wireless display but you could do a docking station that provides power, HDMI
and USB, then use bluetooth mouse and keyboard.

I have a Motorola Razr (Android) that can go into an Ubuntu install when
hooked up via HDMI. It's very slow and you can't extend it without root but
the idea is neat.

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geuis
"And who wants a touchscreen desktop, anyway? (Nobody.)"

This is the same kind of tripe that pundits always say. "No one would ever
want a touchscreen phone", etc. Its the kind of thing people say until
suddenly everyone wants it.

I have little love for Windows 8. Its a horrible kludge of bad interfaces and
confused priorities. One of the most frustrating experiences I had in the last
2 years with a new product was doing the initial unboxing and setup of a
Surface RT device.

That all being said, there was _one_ time where the entire Windows 8 paradigm
made sense. It was on a touchscreen Dell desktop that I played with at the
Microsoft store in San Francisco. After just a couple of minutes, several of
the normal Win8 annoyances like swiping from the sides to reveal UI panels
felt natural sitting at a desk.

I don't think Microsoft's approach is going to be the clear winner. But they
may be on to something, and it will take a few generations to figure out what
its supposed to be.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its pretty clear that touchscreen + desktop is a loser. For a phone/pad the
screen/keyboard/buttons are all within hands reach, using fine motor skills to
manipulate.

The desktop is usually a large landscape screen(s) some distance from the
viewer. The keyboard is conveniently located at arms reach in front of the
user. Combining them cant be done without losing much from one or the other.

~~~
slantyyz
I find touch with the Windows desktop interface to be fine (with my Surface
Pro, at least). I mainly use touch for scrolling, cursor positioning and app
switching when in desktop mode.

I find it's actually better than using a touchpad or mousing around. I'm
primarily a Mac user (and more of a keyboard user than a "mouser"), but having
a touchscreen on a laptop or desktop makes a lot of sense to me.

~~~
actsasbuffoon
I don't think it would translate well to a desktop. I've got a Cintiq, and
it's great for drawing. I can't stand web browsing with it, as my arm gets
tired after a few minutes of poking the big screen.

Touch works for phones and tablets because they're already in your hand.
Holding your arm up to touch a 20+ inch monitor several feet away gets
physically painful within 5 minutes. There's also a difference between the
motions you make when drawing (hands spend 90% of the time in the same area, a
few sweeping motions to change drawing tools) versus normal computer use where
you're scrolling around, clicking buttons, and navigating menus. That's a lot
of strain on shoulder sockets when the screen is large.

I think multi touch trackpads are the closest we're going to get until someone
has a breakthrough idea.

~~~
slantyyz
If you are looking at touch as the primary method of interacting with a
desktop, then sure, it doesn't work. As a _supplementary_ method to a keyboard
and mouse, however, it can work quite well.

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RexRollman
I don't think such a product would do well, personally speaking. But then
again, I also think smart-watches are pure idiocy.

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mikestew
"The power is just not there yet."

Hmm, I don't know that I'd be so sure about that. I was running Leopard and
Snow Leopard on an MSI hackintosh that had some underpowered (1.6Ghz?) Atom
processor in it. It ran OS X just fine, and I created my first iOS app on that
machine. I have no idea how that matches up to today's A7 (and we certainly
can't go by Ghz), but that MSI is probably 4 or 5 years old by now. I wouldn't
be surprised if an A7 ran OS X acceptably well.

But I don't think it's a matter of what an A7 can acceptably run, but rather
if Apple sees a compelling reason to do so. Since we're all pulling
predictions/hypotheticals out of our nether regions, I'd guess that the
closest we'd ever see is an A7-powered Air that gets 24 hours on a battery
charge.

~~~
slantyyz
The current Bay Trail Atoms are pretty good. They've got great battery life
and while not necessarily as fast as an A7, are probably snappy enough to run
a version of OSX that doesn't rely heavily on GPU power for UI effects.

~~~
bhauer
As far as I am aware, the Bay Trail is generally equal to A7, is it not?

For example:
[http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7335/58179.png](http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7335/58179.png)

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mark_l_watson
I sort of have this on my old Samsung Galaxy III phone: a HDMI converter for a
large monitor and a Java IDE. Anyway, I like the idea of a pocket Mac, even if
the market might be small.

Chromebooks in a small form factor, with a full size Chromebook might provide
uniform access to data and apps, but I don't like this option as much as the
proposed pocket Mac.

Another good alternative coming soon (?) is the mini version of the Surface 3.
With a good docking station, it might be a good universal 'one device for
everything' especially if it also functioned as a huge cellphone. I have not
bought a Windows device for many years, but I am waiting for the specs on the
Surface mini before I buy another device.

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programminggeek
He pretty much described the Ubuntu Phone concept and um it didn't quite work
out for Ubuntu.

Before that, Motorola tried to build a phone that docked into a keyboard
tablety kind of thing. I forget what it was called.

It was like ten years ago that I ran KDE on my Sharp Zaurus PDA with WiFi and
everything.

The idea of a full blown OS or a dockable phone that delivers a full PC
experience is not exactly new. What hasn't been proven is that the demand from
consumers is there in droves.

Microsoft Surface is making the best run at this idea so far, and even still
it's not selling especially well.

Until you can sell this dockable phone concept to tens of millions of people,
I don't think it will ever be much more than a pipe dream.

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iheart2code
This reminds me of the ClamBook. Sure, the ClamBook is likely vaporware. But
it's also an excellent idea that I would love to have made available. We
haven't really had a proper execution of this idea on the market that I've
seen.

[http://clamcase.com/clambook-android-and-iphone-laptop-
dock....](http://clamcase.com/clambook-android-and-iphone-laptop-dock.html)

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RazvanPanda
Like:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noe3kR8KqJc)
? :)

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alphakappa
Where is this hypothetical user going to find a keyboard, mouse and airplay
display (and maybe a dock)? If all those things already exist, then having a
CPU inside one of them is a lot easier than trying to make your phone act like
a desktop.

In the end, if you have cloud/continuity/whattnot, what problem does this
solve?

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S4M
Reminds me of the Open Pandora:
[http://boards.openpandora.org/page/homepage.html](http://boards.openpandora.org/page/homepage.html)

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michaelbuddy
"and I just made it up!"

wow genius. Except all he did was look at the Ubuntu project and Microsoft
Surface and substitute a Mac in using his "imagination"

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Eleutheria
I like the idea.

Pick an app, show it in the nearest monitor or TV, and allow me to switch
between touchpad and keyboard with a simple gesture.

Yes, I want to use it as an editor and a terminal for most of my work, plus
surfing the web; so type and scroll, type and scroll, that's most of its use
as a headless computer while comfortably sitting in a couch ten feet from a
display.

Doable.

