Watch out! The Future is Coming!!

Mike Halsey MVP
May 19, 2011
Updated • Jan 4, 2018
Apple, Companies, Windows 8
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6

There's been so much news in recent weeks about stuff that's going to turn into our computing future that I'm hardly surprised most people have failed to join the dots. If you look at some of, if not all of, the major technology announcements in recent weeks we can see that there is a very profound change in our computing lives that's going to take place in about a year or two.

So what is this change I hear you cry. This will be the move to the computer in your pocket and, surprisingly, Microsoft seem to be ahead of the game this time. I say surprisingly because in recent years Microsoft have long been playing catch-up to their competitors and, frankly, making a bit of a mess of it. Windows Phone is the best example of how the company completely failed to bring the right product to market at the right time. Currently this smartphone sits with little over 3% market share and the company has huge volumes of work to do to catch up with the big boys.

laptop dock

When it comes to computing in your pocket though Microsoft could yet come up with a few surprises, and I fully expect that they will. The first indication of the computing in your pocket future took the form of the Motorola Atrix. This is a smartphone that can sit in a dock at the back of a netbook-style keyboard and screen assembly and be used as a desktop computer.

This Android powered phone has received great reviews as a phone but hasn't been so well received as a netbook. That said it's the first device of its kind and a very exciting prospect. We never expect version 1 products to tick all the right boxes anyway.

Google don't seem to be too concentrated on the prospect of dual devices at the moment. They're OS product line-up has even become a little fragmented with Chrome OS now gearing up for release and Android being steered towards touch-only desktop devices.

Of Microsoft's other competitors Apple seems best-placed to compete in this arena. Their iOS smartphone operating system is already based on their successful OS X desktop operating system and the news that the company is planning to port an iOS-style user interface to their desktop computers could show a hint of the way forward for all of us.

It's with Windows 8 and Microsoft's move to ARM processors though where the most interesting developments lie. In research most people have answered that they'd most like to be using Windows on mobile devices. This is despite Microsoft's disasterous history with phones and tablets.

With an ARM-powered Windows we have the glint that we might just see a proper desktop OS available as a secondary interface on a smartphone when you plug your phone into an appropriate dock, be that on a dumb screen and keyboard affair or on your own desktop instead of a PC case.

Either way we can fully expect not be carrying around slimmed down computing devices in a year or two and instead be expecting to be carrying full computing devices with quad-core processors, large volumes of storage and full desktop apps. This is a hugely exciting prospect and one that futurologists were getting excited about twenty years ago.

This future is now just outside our doors, the question remains will people embrace it?

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Watch out!  The Future is Coming!!
Article Name
Watch out! The Future is Coming!!
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There is a very profound change in our computing lives that's going to take place in about a year or two.
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Comments

  1. The Dark Lady said on July 9, 2023 at 11:19 am
    Reply

    Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.

    Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).

    For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.

    You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.

    If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.

  2. KeZa said on August 17, 2023 at 5:58 pm
    Reply

    AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI

  3. Database failure said on August 18, 2023 at 5:21 pm
    Reply

    Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.

    Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.

  4. Howard Pearce said on August 25, 2023 at 12:24 pm
    Reply

    Don’t tell me!

    Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!

    Bring in the dictatorship!!!

    And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe

  5. Howard Allan Pearce said on September 7, 2023 at 9:13 am
    Reply

    GateKeeper ?

    That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!

    But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!

  6. owl said on September 7, 2023 at 9:50 am
    Reply

    @The Dark Lady,
    @KeZa,
    @Database failure,
    @Howard Pearce,
    @Howard Allan Pearce,

    Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.

    The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
    Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
    >> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
    As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
    How to display only articles by a specific author:
    Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
    >> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033

    By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
    RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
    >> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme

  7. Anonymous said on September 14, 2023 at 6:41 pm
    Reply

    We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.

  8. Anonymous said on September 18, 2023 at 1:31 pm
    Reply

    “Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”

    Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.

  9. sean conner said on September 27, 2023 at 6:21 am
    Reply

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