Does last sentence rings any bell? Have your applications and data wherever you are. Tell it to somebody, and he will probably think that you are talking about cloud services combined with HTML 5 applications. Both solutions are competing for the same market. What is the advantage of one over the other?
Cloud services are becoming well established technology. It will work on any device, no matter do you have your smartphone near or not. Storage is probably larger that your SD card. Data is backed up. If your device is broken, lost, or stolen, you will take another and continue your work. Additionally, cloud is hot with many heavyweights supporting it.
Smartphones are more private - data will not leave the device. You can access it even without network (e.g. no coverage, restrictive firewall) and free of charge.
These days we are leaving classic desktop solutions attracted to advantages of cloud. Ubuntu for Android is back-to-desktop concept, where we rip big screens and keyboards from our laptops and take what's left with us. Although some advantages of their solution sound compelling, I just can't see it fly.
Note: I made some assumptions about smartphone and cloud data security that are not necessarily true in the real world.
I actually like the idea of carrying my computer (not just data) with me. Where cloud solutions fail me is the UX aspect. "Cloud" usually means web-app, and they're all horrible. Even technically best ones (Google stuff) is still miles behind native apps. And I guess they never will be the same. And even the best from visual and usability perspective (e.g. iCloud, Wunderkit) are still awkward.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Ubuntu for Android is neat idea. But just that. Eventually, it all comes down the execution. Will transitions between phone, tablet and laptop be seamless (I hate that word)? How will input methods mix? What about apps? What about screen size? (no, automatic resizing will not "just work") I don't want Ubuntu to be just another app on the phone, I want total integration.
A lot of unknowns. And judging by Canonical's track record, a rocky road ahead. But I do hope it succeeds. It would be interesting to see how would big boys respond
Most of the cross-platform mobile applications are HTML 5 anyway. With unification of mobile, tablet, and desktop operating systems, we will see more of these in the future. Even with fully fledged Linux you will probably run cloud web app.
DeleteTrue. Then again, most of the women are almost plastic these days. I don't care about most of the applications. I care about the best ones.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Reply button does not work.
Mobile applications for some of the most widespread services are HTML 5 (Facebook, probably LinkedIn), so you don't really have a choice. Some of them are good. Hopefully they'll become even better in the future.
DeleteReply works, but not behind some corporate firewalls.
Perhaps I wasn't clear the first time. Let me try again:
DeleteI don't care about most of the applications. I care about the best ones.
(￣▽￣)
Reply button just illustrates how borked the whole "web app" concept is. (@_@)