This is what happens when authors have quotas. They fill space. No analysis, no research. No facts even, would not have taken but a few minutes to pull data and do a juxtaposition on market shares of desktop PCs and the move to tablets in the consumer space. The sad thing is, that guy got paid to write those words.
I agree, not sure the author knows what he is talking about ! not a single number or research study result or even a trivia to support his claim, Mobile OSes simply aren't designed for using the PC hardware ! A claim I can make by simply looking at the Android SDK/ iOS SDK / windows phone SDK, none of them truly can match up to what windows sdk has to offer !
Google and Apple have both found great success in phones while Microsoft has floundered and so the article logically asks, "what's to stop Google and Apple from carving up the desktop (including laptop) space as they have with phones?" The key is inertia. While Microsoft may have had a mobile OS before Apple or Google, it never really caught on. There was no inertia in the smartphone space. When Apple came along with iOS, almost no one had a smartphone. Apple didn't have to convince users to switch from a mobile platform they already felt was ok. Similarly, even when Android entered, the majority of people didn't have to be convinced to switch. Most people didn't have a smartphone.
Most people do have a desktop. They've invested years of time learning Windows and have applications specifically written for it. Desktop Linux has been around for years and hasn't made a dent in Windows. Why would a new desktop Linux distribution change that?
In many ways Android Desktop would be inferior to most desktop Linux distributions because it would be launching with few, if any, apps. Android has many mobile apps, but just like iOS and OS X, we would really need separate apps for both. Google could provide a Linux with Android APIs just as Apple shares much of Cocoa between iOS and OS X. However, traditional linux distributions are quite usable (my complaints about Gnome 3 and Unity aside) and they haven't made much of a dent in Windows. If people don't want those, why would they want Desktop Android?
Branding might help. People might hear Android and think, "oh, I've heard of that or used that before". Still, the "Windows" brand hasn't been helping Microsoft counter Google and Apple in the mobile space. In fact, looking at the mobile space, we can see how important inertia is. Despite coming out with a quite good mobile OS and getting Nokia to commit to exclusivity, that combined force just can't make a dent in consumer inertia toward iOS and Android. Even if Google came out with a premium desktop OS with the Android brand that people know and love, would users change their inertia?
It just seems less likely to me. In mobile, Google and Apple weren't fighting inertia. They were creating a new space.
Inertia doesn't last forever, neither does lock-in. Microsoft was in a classic catch-22: if they don't modernize and shake things up they will lose their lead slowly but surely. If they do they risk alienating their existing users in the short run.
For all of its annoyances, IMO Win8 was necessary. The problem is that they went overboard - the whole OS is just one gigantic pain in the ass for keyboard/mouse users (aka almost everyone), but pretty great for touch users (aka a small portion of everyone who bought a Windows machine in the last 3 months).
I wouldn't count Win8 out just yet. MS seems to be expecting that laptops/desktops move universally towards becoming touch-enabled, at which point Win8 makes a lot more sense. This is a future that's not certain, but quite likely if MS plays its cards right.
I've heard that PC stores are seeing plenty of people interested in windows 8 but walking away when they learn that current laptops don't have touch screens.
I think microsoft underestimated the incompetence of the PC vendors. They sort of assumed that the surface would set the bar for touch devices, and that this meant PC buyers this holiday season would be getting a good touch experience. I don't think they considered it a possibility that the PC vendors largely wouldn't bother with touch (aside from some token devices at the luxury end of the price range). It's like the PC vendors collectively gave up and decided they didn't much care for selling new PC's.
Anyway, we'll see what happens this year. Once the majority of PC's for sale are touch-enabled you could see a turnaround for windows 8, but that really hinges on ability to execute from the PC manufacturers.
> just like iOS and OS X, we would really need separate apps for both
Why? A desktop computer is powerful enough to emulate a smartphone, so existing Android apps could be desktop compatible (especially tablet ready apps).
Because in desktop apps we're expecting resizable windows, right-click ability, menus, mouse-over etc. Apps made for fullscreen touch devices would feel a bit crippled.
I think the main problem there is that they render graphics on the cpu. Also, an android desktop machine would most likely use an ARM architecture, making the point moot.
The future looks like a smartphone and docking station. The phones already have the horsepower needed to run all but the most demanding apps. Add a full size keyboard/monitor when in dock and people will switch in droves. The only question is which of the big three will get the formula right.
Apple would have the best shot if that was their direction, but they seem to be betting on multiple device sync rather that a single unified device. Also they will be too pricey in the long run.
Microsoft is pushing for a unified device vision with win8 but windows phone doesn't have market share. Win7 is good enough for desktop users. Clock is ticking and MS needs a 'hit' crossover device. Doubtful that we will see one.
Google already has desktop mode for android devices and several phones with HDMI output. Motorola and Samsung are making docking kits today. Also android is by far the cheapest option. The only thing holding back Google is a lack of salesmanship. If Steve Jobs had announced the Galaxy Note 2 and demoed the dock/desktop functions this market would be locked up already.
I can see that happen, but on the other hand: if data is in the cloud and computing hardware is dirt cheap, how would taking CPU+RAM out of a desktop setup make much of a difference? A raspberry PI in your 40" monitor shouldn't cost that much.
If data is not in the cloud, I would not want to have it only in my smartphone.
Also, I would hope that we will find a need for having desktop setups that are more powerful than what can realistically be put in a smartphone. 'Super ultra-extra-HD plus' or even holographic displays, good real-time speech and video recognition, whatever.
So, I can see using a smartphone as access token or as data store for not-yet-synced-to-the-cloud data, but I would hope it will not get used as a general computing device.
Windows 8 phone will probably have the market share in due time. Nokia has already reported increasing profits and personally I cant wait to switch out my Droid 2 for one. Windows 8 on the desktop is also amazing once you step back from the blogger cloud of BS and actually use it. Having the same OS on both desktop and phone is a powerful idea which even Ubuntu developers are now beginning to realize.
I'm testing the waters with a Windows 8 phone, which I bought after unintentionally checking it out while looking for a new Android to replace my old one. I did due diligence and checked online reviews first, which unanimously recommended not buying it because there weren't enough apps and it was too heavy (Nokia Lumia 920). But I was struck by how overwhelmingly owners of the phone in the comments loved it. It's only been a few weeks, but I don't regret it. I might even consider getting a Windows 8 tablet with a keyboard case, I find the interface so intriguing.
I definitely agree that having the same OS on your phone and desktop has a lot of potential.
But calling Win8 'amazing' on the desktop is a bit too much. It's about the same as Win7, with faster boot times and those kind-of-out-of-place Metro apps.
On a tablet, or on a laptop with a touch screen, on the other hand, then it is not bad after you get used to it.
It is the GPU acceleration of the UI and font rendering in desktop mode, the Hyper V integration, lower memory footprint and security enhancements that I think make it amazing. Sorry I should of said that is just my personal opinion. Yours is just as valid.
This assumes the future needs a docking station. Which assumes a keyboard and mouse are still the tools interaction. I won't concede that they are.
People in our business are a bit myopic because you HAVE to have a keyboard to code; that may not be true for everyone else. Granted that is what we are used to, but rewind a decade and no one was talking about playing games without a handheld controller.
I assume you mean "our business" = tech, programming, web, etc. but lots more people in nearly all businesses write a lot of text in the course of their day.
For example, marketing, communications, senior executives in almost every industry, sales ... these people write a lot of text in email or document form every day.
One can imagine them dictating, if speech recognition software is sufficiently good. This doesn't work for code (or, perhaps, it doesn't work for the programming languages we have now---a programming language with syntax designed to be spoken, not typed, would be very interesting) and it seems it doesn't work for writing fiction, as I think I recall Charlie Stross discovering (can't find the blog posts now, though http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/03/a-writin... discusses the problem). For day-to-day communication, though, the stylistic differences between dictated and typed prose are probably not important.
Moreover, this might yield a small efficiency win over both text communication as is (email, IM) and the telephone: dictated text would be as fast to produce as spoken communication (I can talk much faster than I can type, and I get the feeling that's true in general), while remaining as fast to read and as easy to edit as text.
I'm not sure this win would be very big, though; for me, at least, the bulk of the time I spend on writing is spent figuring out how to phrase things. Jackalope's comment, though, indicates that people are starting to see noticeable improvements in efficiency---the "how did I ever live without this" feeling. Perhaps they find speech more natural than typing, and spend less time agonizing over how to express themselves?
This scenario depresses me somewhat, as I have an inordinate and perhaps irrational fondness for slower, more considered forms of expression. I find my prose is more dense and pointed when I hand-write than when I type, which I prefer (though my superabundant laziness combined with the ease of editing on a computer mean that I almost always type).
Ummm... no. I am not going to dictate a spreadsheet worth of data even if the voice recognition were 100% (which it's not). I'm not going to try to dictate an IM in the middle of a meeting. I'm not going to dictate anything within listening distance of my boss or a customer that might be less than complementary. And so on...
I think when we get fMRI sensors that fit on our head and we can "think" a sheet that's a possibility. But I see no business situation where voice beats typing when I have both available to me.
johngalt didn't mention a mouse, you did. I think when we get larger touchscreens the mouse may indeed become obsolete. (I'm looking forward to it; I never had any love for that form of input.) But a keyboard will continue to be useful for anyone who has to write more than 2 paragraphs in a sitting. That's most office workers. Also, a reporter, marketer, investor or designer (to name a few example non-code jobs) can hardly do their work on a 3 to 4 inch screen.
Voice recognition and predictive text have progressed very well. Despite the challenges posed by group settings, there are plenty of people who would turn to dictation if it freed them from the tyranny of the keyboard ("You want me to type 2 paragraphs? By hand?").
moving from mouse to touchscreen will also require moving from vertical to plane-of-the-desk displays. it's simply not ergonomic to keep touching a screen oriented the way desktop and laptop monitors are today.
Good point. Because of the bad ergonomics I hedged my bet and only said the mouse "may" become obsolete, but it didn't occur to me that full-size displays could sit flat (or very shallowly inclined?) on a desk.
A docking station is almost redundant for most phones and tablets. You can already use bluetooth to attach a keyboard and/or pointing device. All you need now is a way to wirelessly connect to a video display, preferably in a way that supports touch. This can't be far off, with apps like Photobeamer, Apple's constantly improving multimedia sharing between devices, etc.
I'd love to see the day where I can just drop my phone on a wireless charger at home or work and share the screen with a bigger display and other nearby peripherals without needing to invest in one or more docking stations. Who needs more technorubble?
I hope the future looks like there isn't one answer.
Apple's answer has been hugely successful, and so has Google's and they are not the same, even if they contend on the same classes of devices.
It looks like US carriers are going to give a QNX-based OS a chance to keep Blackberry in business.
Being able to carry a full desktop OS in your pocket and dock it to a big screen is something that makes sense for Windows Phone and is a stated goal for Ubuntu.
It looks like B2G will pick up the HTML5 Web runtime in phones torch later this year.
I am an hardcore Android fan. But this is too much of a stretch. I've been using Windows since Windows 95. I use OSX too, of course. And then Ubuntu too - 10.04 LTS, 12.04, and 12.10. As for smartphones - 4 HTC phones with Android 2.3+, an iPhone and a Nokia Lumia. But, even if today Google releases Android for the desktop, I wouldn't use it (as my main OS). Atleast not now.
There are somethings that are hard-coded within users like me. No matter what we do, we will go back to windows, no matter how bad it is - be it Vista or Longhorn or whatever. Because that's the influence of Windows. Bill gates made sure Windows and PC's are in harmony with each other right from the beginning. The number of applications, the vibrant developer community and the number of epic GAMES!
You may not notice this pattern within the US where you will encounter a lot of people on OSX. But the rest of the world, which is the majority, loves Windows. It's not going to be like one fine day someone comes in and says hey, you know what, Android's there for desktop, so you can stop using Windows. That will never happen. One main reason is the enormous developer community and applications available for Windows. Not to forget the fact that Windows is the #1 most pirated OS of all time ESPECIALLY in countries like China, India, etc. which is where the majority of the population lives (#1, #2 respectively). This means, if you take into account all the pirated copies too, the user base is enormous and it only keeps growing with each day. Because that was Bill Gates' vision and he has actually accomplished it. By no means I'm an MSFT 'fanboy'. This is just from what I know, what I observe around me, based on some analytical data derived from my business. In other words, this article is a fluff.
From my experience, it's because of this. These publications want pageviews, they'll write anything they want to get it.
But here's a more logical reason based on my experience traveling to these countries - In every home, they buy a PC once in every ~3-5 years. Now, the iPads have started to become really common, so everyone wants one too. So, you see a rise in the sales of the iPads. The decline is because the PC you bought 5 years ago (For. ex Core 2 Duo) is still as good and supports a lot of applications. So these users don't have this need to upgrade to a newer system - Because they can already multi-task pretty well.
One thing you must understand is that PC's are not mobile phones or tablets where they get outdated very fast - like less than a year or so. Whereas, the PC's utility and already excellent overshoots anything else and hence doesn't need an upgrade every year, atleast not for the average consumer. Also, the rise in the sales of the iPads and the decline in the sales of the PC does NOT necessarily mean that the usage of the PC is declining too. What I mean is that, in this era, almost every house has a PC. But tablets are on the rise. But that doesn't mean people are ditching their PC's to buy the tablets, it simply means they just buy the tablets in addition to their existing PC's. Can you show me one citation that says users are selling their PC's to buy a new tablet? And there lies your answer.
Simple - For a PC, the keyboard is something that is a part of the PC itself. For an iPad, it becomes an accessory and also most probably expensive (a good one). Hence it's not a popular option.
2)The actual applications themselves. Most of the PC users are also developers. So let's say I have to use WAMP to install Wordpress or Drupal on localhost. This becomes a nightmare on an iPad, if not almost impossible.
3)The range of applications for PRODUCERS (content producers). Content is King. And content producers are king-makers. So, tell me how can I do something that I can do with Photoshop (advanced editing, etc.), illustrator, 3d Studio max, etc.
4) Performance - a PC is also a DIY machine. If I want more performance, I add more RAM. If I want to do graphics n stuff, I add a high-performance graphics adapter, If I want more space, I add a 2TB hard-disk. Tell me how will you achieve ANY of these with an iPad. The last time I heard, you couldn't even change the battery, unless you were a service technician of some sort.
Take technical people or power users out of the equation, as they are not the masses that use PC's. What is left is social media, e-mail, chat, browsing, games, and office productivity. If you really think people will keep buying PC's to do that stuff when an ipad is better at most of them, I have a bridge to sell you :)
Especially in markets like china I cannot see people investing in a PC when it costs more than a tablet and basically does the same things.
This is why laptops trounce desktops in sales. People don't want DIY, they don't want high-powered hardware. They want to get basic stuff done. If a tablet does that, that's good enough.
You have a valid point there, my friend :) But, for office, I personally don't use my iPad because of the touch screen usability, especially when it comes to copying and pasting stuff. I (personally) feel I'm more productive on a PC than on an iPad.
But actually, I'm sorry, by PC I meant both the Laptops and the Desktops combined only. No way I'm arguing in favor of just desktops alone...Laptops vs Desktops is a separate argument that I'll save for the rainy day ;)
A lot of Chinese people buy Apple products just to show them off. It's quite common there to buy a Mac and install Windows on it, because they don't like OS X.
From what I've heard, the main issue with OS X is with Chinese input. MS seems to do a much better job there.
I haven't tried writing in Chinese in a Mac though, so I can't say much there. But on Windows it works quite nicely (from the point of view of a foreigner trying to learn the language).
> From what I've heard, the main issue with OS X is with Chinese input. MS seems to do a much better job there.
I've never heard of this before. Pinyin input is pretty straightforward, and it works fine on OS X as far as I know. Is the predictive engine worse or something?
It is somewhat common everywhere to see people buying a Mac and installing Windows. Not because they don't like OSX but because they need certain Windows only apps.
Unlike of course you have some evidence of China being an outlier. Which of course you don't.
> It is somewhat common everywhere to see people buying a Mac and installing Windows. Not because they don't like OSX but because they need certain Windows only apps.
Do you have any evidence for either of these claims? Of course you don't.
> Unlike of course you have some evidence of China being an outlier. Which of course you don't.
Protip: next time, don't be such an asshole if you don't have the knowledge to back it up.
> In China, most of the Apple user will be installing Windows OS to their Mac machines. This is due to some major restrictions of using non IE browser. China has dramatically different browser usage patterns than developed countries. Most commonly used Chinese websites have been constructed and tested to work with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer only, without consideration of other web standard, non-IE browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome), or non-Windows platforms. A lot of Chinese websites will not shown and worked properly in Safari or Firefox browser. One good example is the support of e-banking , which greatly tied-up with the booming e-commerce in China. Almost all Chinese banks accepted only transactions via Internet Explorer, any type of security packet go along will works just on Windows. Given that IE has stopped Mac development for years now, new Chinese user have to look back at Windows when they get started with Mac.[0]
you must be joking ? your saying the avg chinese love paying 4000 yuan for an ipad than to pirate a windows copy (which is quite prevalent there) for free ?
> The number of applications, the vibrant developer community and the number of epic GAMES!
All of these either have changed in recent years, or are in the process of changing. Steambox will potentially see the downfall of the Windows gaming platform - if developers switch gears to opengl en masse, in half a decade we will easily be able to emulate the 15 years of Windows monopoly under Wine, possibly even integrated with Steam by that point.
I don't think Microsoft has any developer cred anymore. Android and iOS are too big, the Windows Store is too hostile, and Visual Studio isn't the only option in town anymore. Mono is pretty mature, so all those C# apps (C# is a brilliant language, btw, one great thing coming out of MS there) can be ported. The Unity game engine is a pretty big deal nowadays, being cross platform and supporting multiple script languages including C#.
The fact that the Microsoft ecosystem and community was hostile to open source and code sharing basically meant that FOSS (and even OSX) could build up a backlog of shared base to constantly take advantage of, while Visual Studio and that entire ecosystem was always shackled to what Microsoft provided.
The reason Windows is everywhere is two fold - one, it is the default. Two, it is expected. If you got any other computer OS into Best Buy, it would still flounder next to #2, because Microsoft has created this culture of computers = Windows. I see college kids and teens with OSX laptops, not their parents. They still run Windows. Because they are used to it.
In a way though, because they are used to it, Microsoft is in many ways already toast. Because Windows 8 is too much a departure for that kind of person to upgrade to and adapt to. What is going to happen is that unless Windows 9 brings back the classic desktop as the default, most people will be sitting on 7 like we did XP for 6 - 8 years.
Strangely, the only even remotely comparable experience to Windows 7 out there that I can find is KDE. It doesn't come that way default, which is a great hampering, but the default KDE suite can be tweaked to behave like Windows 7 to some great detail. I don't imagine a FOSS software project getting into Best Buy corporate and seeing laptops with Kubuntu served to consumers, though.
The problem is that Android and iOS, while popular, are largely money losers for most game shops. Console games are still where the big money is for top tier game shops, and MS still does quite well there.
Now Steambox may provide some competition, but I think it will be more like Sony and Nintendo in that it'll just be another platform. No major studios are going to neglect DirectX and the XBox720 (or whatever it will be called).
The fact that the Microsoft ecosystem and community was hostile to open source and code sharing basically meant that FOSS (and even OSX) could build up a backlog of shared base to constantly take advantage of, while Visual Studio and that entire ecosystem was always shackled to what Microsoft provided.
I'm not sure that's true. I've used a lot of shared code developing on Windows. One big difference though is that I pay for the code, rather than it being open source. Control and component vendors are very common on Windows.
The problem with the Windows dev ecosystem is that it's more pragmatic. The Android dev ecosystem and (to a lesser extent) iOS dev ecosystem are more fanatical. This allows them to bootstrap new form factors before a user base shows up.
> Now Steambox may provide some competition, but I think it will be more like Sony and Nintendo in that it'll just be another platform. No major studios are going to neglect DirectX and the XBox720 (or whatever it will be called).
Valve will be debuting this thing at a loss to try to detract classic PC gamers off Windows so Microsoft can't do a hostile takeover with the Windows Store. Game engines are more and more being developed to support mobile and traditional profiles, so they write to opengl, not directX. Once you start using openGL, nothing is tying you to Windows anymore, and you start releasing your games everywhere. I fully expect initiatives like Shield, Ouya, and Steambox to take away huge chunks of the market from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
> I'm not sure that's true. I've used a lot of shared code developing on Windows. One big difference though is that I pay for the code, rather than it being open source. Control and component vendors are very common on Windows.
And small games don't have the funds to try to buy their way into code bases. They look at their options and see webapps or mobile as a much lower barrier to entry and jump on that. The Windows dev community that emerged in the 90s is still the same group, and all new entries are moving elsewhere.
Game engines are more and more being developed to support mobile and traditional profiles, so they write to opengl, not directX.
Game engines have long supported OpenGL. Mobile profiles are now more common, but if your argument is that DirectX is no longer relevant because of OpenGL -- this arguably would have happened a long time ago. Game engines were probably some of the first to support the OpenGL (even before DX and D3D became relevant).
I fully expect initiatives like Shield, Ouya, and Steambox to take away huge chunks of the market from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
Steambox stands a chance if they do exclusives on their platform of things like HalfLife and Portal.
Shield doesn't look particularly more inviting than the PSVita. I think the dedicated portable game device is probably dead.
Ouya -- breakout success for them would be getting 1% of the market. Which they may get. It'll be niche at best.
I will let you know right now what can totally change the tide in gaming... Oculus Rift (and VR headset in general). Seems easier to pull off then the MS Illumiroom and would provide a more immersive scenario. If a platform can pull this off at a reasonable pricepoint ($99/headset max) -- I predict they win.
> Game engines have long supported OpenGL. Mobile profiles are now more common, but if your argument is that DirectX is no longer relevant because of OpenGL -- this arguably would have happened a long time ago. Game engines were probably some of the first to support the OpenGL (even before DX and D3D became relevant).
Actually, no. The largest game engine of last generation was Unreal 3, which never had comprehensive and direct opengl support (I don't know how they hacked OSX in there) and supported the ps3 through the DRM library (handhelds were through GLES). The only U3 game ported to openGL was Dungeon Defenders for the recent Humble Bundle. If more games and engines were on opengl, porting to Linux would be a simple recompile a significant majority of the time, because they don't depend on win32 for the sake of the same cross platform behavior.
> Steambox stands a chance if they do exclusives on their platform of things like HalfLife and Portal.
They could just be the best value proposition. I don't think people will ever stop buying Xboxes, Playstations, or Wiifus since they always have first class exclusives. I just think that if the Steambox and steam sale system works, either the other platforms will have to dramatically cut prices to compete, or they will lose out on major sales. And a big difference is that Steam games work anywhere you can install Steam, and the platform is also a value proposition.
> Shield doesn't look particularly more inviting than the PSVita. I think the dedicated portable game device is probably dead.
In many ways, that is the beauty of Shield. It isn't a dedicated gaming device, it runs stock Android and has controller buttons built in. Sure, the platform isn't a great idea if you aren't going to game on it, but it can easily function as a general purpose tablet outside of gaming. I am certain one of the analog sticks on shield will behave like swiping for the purposes of app emulation. It would be nice for reading web pages. It also can act as a netflix machine, or any movie or audio player. PSVita doesn't have that luxury.
The other reason to put more faith in the Shield than Vita is that targeting Shield targets 70% of the phone market and 30% of the tablet market. It targets a platform that will continue to grow, and you release your game not as an in-store one time purchase physical flash memory card but off the Play Store and as such will be a continuous source of revenue (despite Play games selling for significantly less than console counterparts, but I imagine dedicated Android gaming platform owners will buy games).
> Ouya -- breakout success for them would be getting 1% of the market. Which they may get. It'll be niche at best.
They won't even get that. The Ouya succeeds not if they move a lot of units but if games developed for Android start supporting hardware controllers. As soon as that happens, the Ouya isn't niche at all, and games that target Android and work on it just make it a positive value proposition to complement other Android devices you already have. It runs reskinned Android though, so I don't know if it as capable as a Shield as a general media device.
> I will let you know right now what can totally change the tide in gaming... Oculus Rift (and VR headset in general). Seems easier to pull off then the MS Illumiroom and would provide a more immersive scenario. If a platform can pull this off at a reasonable price point ($99/headset max) -- I predict they win.
I'd like to see the OR work out too, but I think the market for VR headsets isn't that big. It is comparable to 3d tvs, albeit less gimmicky in most ways. I don't see myself going out of my way to stick on a helmet to play Doom 3. Then again, I didn't like the ideas behind motion controllers either, so I'm probably just outside that demographic. I like moving pictures with some buttons to press to make things happen.
I've heard the games argument over and over, as if it's true for everyone. I'm a 35 year old male, and I could care less about games. I want a decent game, I'll pull out my phone and download something for a buck or free. If I want a better experience, I suppose I'd buy a console and then have the ability to rent from GameFly. (back when I had a Wii, I thought it was pretty cool to download old games from the 80's, I'll admit) There's a subset of the market: those who want a better gaming experience due to better hardware than a console provides and are willing to drop $60 a pop for the privilege. That may be you, but don't extrapolate to the population. There's a ton of people who don't have time or interest for something more than Angry Birds. I've heard too many discussions about Windows that indicate that games is the only real compelling advantage, and if that's true, that means a large portion of the market is ambivalent.
You sir, are the minority (with all due respect). The rest of the population is crazy about games. That's why all top dev's develop games for windows first (forget the consoles) and then the tablets. Because, they are a bigger audience.
Again somebody seems to misunderstand what OS means. Only because Android OS and Chrome OS are called operating systems does not mean they play in the same category as Windows. Windows is a platform, because it has vendor-provided high-quality drivers for basically any hardware device, wheres Android, Chrome, and OS X are always a customization for a particular device or device series. Drivers and a good driver model for the OS are hard.
If there was no Windows (or better anything like the x86-Windows PC platform), there would likely be no hardware platform to run Linux on, and CPUs for OS X would be way less powerful due to lack of the progress of a highly competitive market over two decades.
For this reason, the potential demise of Windows is a nightmare that should keep any IT professional awake. But I am optimistic: web apps have yet to prove to be on par with desktop apps, and there seems always to be the next desktop app when you think people are basically only using a web browser. I am confident that in 10 years there still will be Windows PCs or Laptops in private households, together with many other devices.
Marco (hate him or love him) nailed the criticism of this a few years back:
The joke of “next year will be the year of Linux on the
desktop” is almost as old as the internet, but it’s
true: desktop-Linux fans always say it’s “getting
better”, and there’s always a major distribution update
a few months away that’s about to be awesome. But it
never is. And it never will be, because the reasons why
desktop Linux isn’t awesome today will still hold
tomorrow: it’s still an extremely fragmented
development community for which the non-geek user
experience is one of the lowest priorities.
The fragmented community doesn't matter. At all, really. It just requires that one group (Canonical, Redhat, whoever) put their guns behind what they provide and try getting that into the market.
While having more developers would help the individual efforts, having other people rebuilding the same thing doesn't hurt the individual projects. It hurts the ecosystem to have excessive duplication (and I don't know why I can list 3 dozen window managers or file browsers but can't name one good non-linear video editor) but the success of any single distribution doesn't depend on everyone else getting behind it.
I think the comment is actually pretty accurate in relation to the non-geek - the problem has nothing to do with developer fragmentation. Consumers don't care about that. The reason desktop Linux doesn't take off is because Grandma doesn't walk into Best Buy and see an Ubuntu laptop, they see Windows. And every computer 99% of consumers will buy will be from a store, carrying Windows of some flavor.
They won't go out of their way looking for a competing OS, or how to install it. As soon as the thing boots into Windows, you have lost them, because they won't change anything. And you can't try teaching them, because Windows has won for them - the device works, hence nothing has to change. Internet Explorer shows emails, even if it is slow, I don't know what "security vulnerabilities" are, or why developers hate it (and why do I care? they already rewrite the site to work in 10 year old non-standards compliant web browsers anyway).
Linux will get widespread adoption the day it is the default. Because it honestly does work, when you take the time to tailor the hardware to it. System76 or a Dell Ubuntu laptop are as far as you need to go to see that in effect - they work out of the box because the engineers tailored the device to the OS. Like they all do with Windows already.
The problem with Ubuntu, though, is that it is too different. It doesn't look like Windows 7 (or, for a lot of people, XP still). Instantly, nobody likes it. They want the same thing, better. Not something different. They don't want change, or to have to learn or read. They want to read their kids facebook posts. And you can't blame them for that.
I've seen that article and I submit the Nexus 7 as a counter-example. (If anyone didn't read the link: that quote's making an analogy between desktop Linux and Android devices.) The Nexus 7 was widely agreed to be great on day one, even by certain die-hard Apple fans. (I forget if Marco was one of those.)
With that, Google now has a track record of achieving "great on day one". Who's to say they can't repeat that on the desktop? In fact, they may be well on their way with the new Samsung Chromebook, which seems to have received mostly praise: the biggest remaining criticisms are with the concept, not the execution.
The central point I agree with Marco on is the problem with the rhetoric of "X open source project will work soon or eventually". It's always a pipedream and not a project you can hold in your hand - sometimes because the person demonstrating it won't allow a hands-on experience. :)
Just a hot headline. Nothing will happen. Whether, Android on Surface or Winodws / Ubuntu on Nexus or something else on some other device.
There is more world than just what Geeks do.
Just a catchy headline and author have no any justified reason for it.
But there is something to it: Linux could use some Google attention and to make Android/Linux run on laptops would be something Microsoft fears if it catches on. The Samsung ChromeBook is the best selling laptop for Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Computers-Accessories-Lap... Why make Chrome OS and Android? Put the effort in Android for desktop...
At one point WP7 devices dominated the Amazon cell phone list in terms of sales. Due to the way people purchase and buy certain items (like desktops, laptops, and cellphones) -- Amazon is not a good sample. It tends to reflect niche groups that find a good deal on Amazon -- so everyone from ChromeLovers.com goes to Amazon to buy the Chromebook, but it's not really popular beyond that.
"Linux could use some Google attention" -- I'm not sure if you noticed, but Google has been giving Linux its attention for the past 14 years.
You've got me. I ment to say Linux/Android for regular desktopusers could use some attention. MS has released their own version of Mobile/Desktop. What if Google went the other way around and released an Android desktop version? Powerful stuff me thinks.
Why would they try to force an entire application stack that has nothing to do with windowing or full opengl and try to put it on x86?
The people who don't need desktops or laptops are already using ipads and Android tablets as computing replacements. They get their web apps and that is all they want. To write emails, they might get a bluetooth keyboard. To write a document, they might use google docs. They have no use case for a full sized x86 desktop or laptop anymore.
Meanwhile, productivity software like Photoshop or Sony Vegas is completely off the table for Android. Both depend on directX, and unless Google outright bought Adobe or Sony they wouldn't persuade them to rewrite the whole thing to port it. That stuff won't show up on Windows RT either, even though porting with DirectX intact would still be easier than porting to openGL. Same thing with old games.
If Android x86 or just desktop ARM were put in stores tomorrow, no one would buy it. Gamers would get Windows for games, artists would get Windows for photoshop, grandparents would still buy tablets because they don't need a desktop, and businesses would still get Windows because all their shoddy business applications were written on Windows.
Not a great article, but I'll play along. If it happens, I don;t see Android on the desktop. I see android tablets replacing desktops in the future, with people docking a tablet or perhaps they're cheap enough that people have a 15" tablet more-or-less permanently docked at their desk but able to roam into a meeting, along with a 7" tablet in their briefcase or purse. And a phone, of course.
I can easily see Android brains built into every monitor and TV. TVs already have reasonable brains and most of them run Linux. From that to running Android (and bringing a whole app ecosystem along) is a small step (some extra DRAM, some extra flash).
When every monitor runs a full Android environment, you may just log on to your monitor and have your Google-hosted data and applications ready.
For Microsoft, this is not only a nightmare scenario. It's a doomsday scenario.
Would a medium to large business go Android over Windows? I really, really doubt it. Yes, there's Office apps and that's fine, but a lot of businesses run on oddball software or strange marriages of various bits and pieces that are Windows only for whatever reason. They won't, and that'll keep the cash going for Microsoft.
Microsoft needs to worry about being relevant with modern consumers, not about Android. It could be anything that'll eat their marketshare.
Indeed. Business sales will continue. I certainly don't plan on running Android as the base OS on a development machine.
I'm failing to find recent statistics, but I've seen numbers that indicate that 80%+ of licenses for Office are the Home and Student editions. (Even so, the higher cost of business versions makes this a less relevant statistic) No matter what, Microsoft still relies heavily on sales to home and college users.
But large businesses represents less than 50% of the GDP (of either the U.S. or Europe).
Contrarily to popular belief the real backbone of the economy is not "corporate america". They're just very vocal.
Think of it this way: BlackBerry was still ruling king in the corporate world (with some companies buying thousands of BlackBerries at once for their employees) and yet everybody knew the writing was on the wall: nothing would stop the iPhone and Android. What's the result now? Employees are crying to use their iPhone and Android phones at work and so they're allowed to.
I'm sure, say, corporate America is still high on Excel and Powerpoint and Exchange... But that is not exactly helping Microsoft deal with the fact that year-to-year sales of PCs worlwide have dropped 3.5% from 2011 to 2012 while, meanwhile, smartphones and tablets sales have skyrocketed.
Oh I know that, but whilst the count for less than 50% of GDP they're also one of the biggest customer sectors for Microsoft, and one that is unlikely to dry up and disappear. They'll have a market there for as long as the market is there, and that's dependent on enterprise developers wanting to move development platforms to whatever the new hotness is.
For consumers it's all a 'it depends'. It depends on whether it's good enough, rather than whether it does everything they could ever possibly need to.
In case anyone wants to run Android on their desktop today check out androvm: http://androvm.org/blog/download/. It runs much faster then the emulator that comes with the android SDK.
I'd say they should be more worried about ChromeOS, as the Samsung Chromebook is still #1 on Amazon laptops despite all the marketing money spent on Windows 8.
For Android, if Google added desktop mode and improved performance, and well-known OEMs released stick PCs with 4GB RAM and quad-core ARM A15, then Android could become a serious contender in the low-end market.
The nightmare that keeps Microsoft awake is that the idea of "the desktop" might become irrelevant.
While the metaphor was useful in its day, the trend-setters I encounter (who are not programmers) seem far more concerned with new notions of "presence," they view my focus on controlling my own little world as quaint, and they resent being tied to any particular device.
And unicorns and monkeys will start flying out of my butt...
There is absolutely no possibility that Android or any bastardisation of it can or will be used for anything involving moderate productivity apart from a geek niche.
Why?
People really don't have the time or inclination to meddle around and learn new interface paradigms for the sake of anything other than consuming. For people who earn cash or actually have to get shit done, it's too much of a context switch to get over. Not only that, it actually wrecks productivity.
It's hard enough for people to move from Windows to Linux.
And don't say about OSX market share or penetration as an example - there are precisely sod all Macs in the majority of businesses.
People aren't even buying Windows 8 because it's too different.
People actually really like Windows XP-7 and Office 97-2010 and don't want anything else. Sorry if this is painful news.
Even smartphones are starting to piss people off. I've seen so many people switching back to feature-phones like Nokia Asha and cheap Samsungs recently, it's unreal.
Hmmm.. isn't the problem that Windows 8 is facing at the moment that the consumers are rejecting the notion of a mobile style interface on the desktop?
Why retool Android for 'desktop use' when they already have ChromeOS which apparently sold very well this christmas in the guise of Chromebook's and is already a desktop oriented OS.
Whenever I speculate with colleagues on what replaces Windows in businesses in five years, it's a Dell or HP machine that's just monitor, keyboard and mouse, running an upsized version of Android that accesses a cloud based office suite. That would keep me up at night, at MS.
They might still do ok on the corporate desktop. Windows rt is competitive with android in functionality and price (when you look only at the sort of tablets corporations would buy.) The lack of apps is not a showstopper for tablets that will be locked down anyway.
Also, the PC market is getting replaced largely with tablets, so PC vendors who aren't big players in the tablet space face an uphill battle. HP is done for. Dell has some tablet expertise, and betting on windows 8 is smart in case it succeeds, but they will have to fight hard to not be driven out of the market by asus, samsung and google.
Replacing Office is really the fatal blow, and that's where I wonder when we'll see someone like Dell or HP selling a cheap, business class iMac-like running Android on Arm in an effort to restore margins on high volume business channel sales. The obvious drop-in replacement in that case is Google Apps, and I'm sure Google would be happy to partner with an OEM to develop such a complete device.
The trick there is that the OEM needs to feel like MS won't or can't crush them. The aura of invulnerability of MS has to be broken, and when I look at the extended pratfall that is Windows phone and tablet, I can't help but think that OEM execs are feeling a bit drooly.
Aside from the collaboration functionality which is now present in Office 2013, Google Apps is about where Office was in 2000. It has a long way to go before it is a suitable replacement for anything except the simplest business uses.
I wonder though: with the new mini android pc's(starting at $35)[1] that you can connect to your HDMI, even just a simple bundle and some marketing and maybe some playing with the software could be parts of interesting experiments by display vendors or some other company.
And then part of scaling this process , it might make sense to integrate android into the display.
Android is great for touch screen devices but I am not so sure about using it on a desktop with a mouse without all my software running on it.
I spent almost a month with just my Galaxy S III on a trip up the Amazon River. I grew to really love the Android experience in general and my S III in specific. Great interface, great for reading eBooks, great for communications when around a wifi hotspot, great for taking pictures and videos. When I got home, it took me a while to start liking my iPad again.
I have been looking at Android docking devices. With more powerful devices and future software Android support for Emacs, IntelliJ, etc., why not.
Actually, wireless docking, Bluetooth keyboard, and using the phone for a touchpad would work. Still need Emacs, IntelliJ, good terminal, GNU utilities, etc.
"I’ve no information on the likelihood if an Android OS will ever have an official desktop version, but then neither does Microsoft."
Pumping up Android into a desktop OS, although it is theoretically possible, makes as much sense as dragging a bulky decades-old desktop OS into tablets and handsets.
The article also lacks technical depth: The speculation might have even been fascinating, though still baseless, if it compared, for example, what it took to make Android multi-user versus a hypothetical desktop multi-window UI with all the attendant lifecycle modifications.
Um. Doesn't anybody find a little funny that the word "linux" does not mentioned in the article? I mean, considering android is built upon linux kernel, a linux on a desktop pc can be called as android on the desktop technically, right?
