Posts by qwarty 248 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2010
@Giles Jones. The theory is by next year Intel will reach a point where the 22nm process can deliver a better or comaparable power/performance story to ARM . If this is accomplished new Win8 devices will work in your scenario and Microsoft will have the OS relased and ready to work with this new generation of hardware.
If Haswell etc. prove more disappointing than predicted all bets are off and we get to talk 14nm.
99.9% ? The Far East supply chain figures suggest factories are currently tooling up for about 15-20% of laptop displays being multi-touch next year. I don't have figures for monitors. Windows 8 has to look to the future not just the installed base.
Its looking like multi-monitor on Windows 8 desktop will be a worthwhile improvement on Windows 7.
I agree with the Microsoft line that once you've experienced touchscreen on a monitor, it feels a bit odd not to have the feature despite the fact that its still mouse/trackpad and keyboard most of the time on laptop/desktop. Most of the criticism seems to come from those who have not tried it but somehow know it will feel wrong.
@Robert. My own guess is that WinRT 2.0 will expand scope beyond Metro, adding desktop app capability with always-on multitasking. The intention to fleshing out its role as the new native Windows API. In this scenario WinRT gradually replaces Win32 on x86/x64 and expands capability on ARM. WPF is not a direct analogy as WinRT belongs to the OS group which is less likely to flip than the dev tools group. However your guess as to the future is as good as mine and you may well prove right about Win9/10.
What a lot of people seem to miss about the whole Metro app deal is even if Windows 8 is a great success, Windows 7 will dominate the installed base for several years especially in corporate, education and other major markets. So it is mostly not an option to replace a software product with a Metro app, even if Metro style works for the app. The best we can consider is adding a Metro style option if we can afford do do the extra work. Considering options, developers will also be looking at OS X, iOS, Android, HTML5 and weighing cost benefits.
The only thing that would change the Win7 dominance would be a dramatic change to the way Microsoft deal with updates. Not impossible but there is zero evidence this will happen before Windows 9.
I agree with you on the lack of consistent support for WPF etc. Microsoft has a poor track record for commitment and the situation for desktop Windows apps is a mess, made worse by poor comminication over recent couple fo years. I'm no fan of Objective C but at least Apple has been consistent.
WinRT (and presumably Apollo) makes a big deal about Async APIs, definitely a step forward in my experience so far in designing to make effective use of multi-core.
Suspend in background WP/Metro style is supposedly about avoiding power drain and for most apps not a problem if care given to time to resurrection. Found it a nuisance for some heavyweight app functionality. Also annoying using apps which don't restore store state exactly, sets the bar higher for design. As far as I know, going native doesn't help.
@Silverburn. Multi-tasking doesn't need multi-core, a matter of fact not opinion in a multi-tasking multi-threaded operating system. A 2GHz core can do as much work as two 1GHz cores and will be more responsive executing bottleneck code that has not been optimised for multicore. Often apps benefit more from unloading work onto GPU for most effective multitasking (why iPad 3 boosted GPU while leaving dual core CPU virtually unchanged). If performance is the goal, memory cache, floating point performance and so on can be more relevant than core count or GHz.
The trend towards dual then quad core on phones is about power usage and manufacturabilty, not performance per se. Certainly WP multicore support is overdue as we look forward to future processing demanding applications on phones (higher resolutions, image processing, games etc.) not viable on most current phone models.
The fact that WP7 competes so well on single CPU core compared with Android 4 multi-core is connected with the way multitasking is done. I expect Android 5 and WP8 will both do better, will be interesting to see how that pans out.
Bought my most recent laptop 18 months ago. Among requirements USB 3.0 and 15" 1080p or better display, unfortunately ruled out MacBook models at the time.
Hope the reports are correct and MacBook is finally catching up to USB 3.0, surprising to me people have put up with the lack of an essential feature so long on premium priced laptops.
Also hoping Apple can shock the OEM community out of the habit of shipping low display resolutions as highlighted in the latest crop of uninspiring Ultrabooks. I've a 6 year old middle of the road Dell laptop with a much better display resolution than most 2012 laptops released so far this year. The technology has been developed by Samsung, Sharp etc.
Why all the other OEMs seem hell bent on giving Apple the kudos of first to market is one of those mysteries of life but fingers crossed rumours are correct about Cupertino moving the game forward with a no-brainer once more.
The point of multitouch on desktop is to augment, not replace, mouse and keyboard input. Useful for some applications, not all. 90% of the time at present I don't find it useful but the 10% makes it worthwhile. Some actions work very well with touch and may help avoid some forms of RSI originating with repetitive mouse operation.
Interesting to read about experiences with touch and 3D, positive and negative, but boring to read comments that come over as the 'I've never used it but think it would be crap' genre.
Agree with the Huawei etc. opportunity for undercut but surely the whole point from the Microsoft perspective is the Chinese vendors deliver Windows 8 or Windows RT rather than some little known (in the Western consumer markets) branded version of Android with a question mark over support.
Whether this is a viable competitor to iPad remains to be seen once we have software and hardware to evaluate, so far all we read is simply speculation.
A variant on (a) would be a TV where the computer part is removable and upgradable. Seems to me most people treat TVs like furniture and keep them for years, so (a) is hardly a followup to the iPhone (2 year perceived write off on contract) or the iPad (three year typical lifetime). Some sort of upgradability feature wouldn't be new or magical but could be marketed as such.
Agreed though, dumb screens rule,
In February Nokia commented at WMC they were working on a WP Pureview phone for release later this year (presumably WP8 as they will want native code for apps). Niche perhaps but would be an interesting competitor in the premium iPhone space, I for one will be tempted if they deliver with a reasonable display. Could be scuppered if Apple or Samsung come out with innovative camera of course. Looking forward to discovering if iPhone 5 finally has a sensible sized screen and any boost to camera capabilities, we should know within a few weeks.
Yes 900p is absolute minimum for a 13" panel in 2012. And once again Dell misses the opportunity to demonstrate its really quite easy to avoid forever playing catchup with the MacBook line. Perhaps its a supply problem, if so long past time for Dell to simplify laptop lineup and use its buying power.
To be fair USB 3.0 is a plus point.
A short shelf-life product, no reason to buy. Dell only have a few months to build a sensible machine for Windows 8 to replace this embarassment of a PC.
Ever increasing company valuation and opportunities for speculators, Apple has been making serious money for people in recent years and Wall Street keeps on predicting further massive increases in market cap. IMO this is Apples biggest problem being set on a track where a period of modest growth and innovation would count as failure and precipitate a major fall in stock value and confidence.
Instance. One genius of the iPhone business model is deals made in the Jobs era with the telecom companies - dramatically more profitable to Apple than for those who deliver the service. Not long term sustainable as smartphones move from high end to ubiquitous and the pace of change in hardware slows. Apple will need to adapt to change. No reason to think they won't execute well and stand up to competion from Android etc. but the maths changes.
A specific - the one size fits all iPhone was good in its time but is now inappropriate as the market matures. The science of human vision makes a 3.5" handheld screen far smaller than ideal for most people over 40. Users are starting to get this despite the hype. Were Jobs here today he'd be dealing with this and we'll never know whether he'd make a good or a bad call. The only thing we can be certain of is if Apple get this wrong, people like Colony will blame this on Cook, Ives etc. and through the lens of nostalgia assume SJ would have got it right were he here today.
With ARM performance increasing and Intel focussed on battery life with Haswell and beyond it does blur this 'inherent advantage' point.
Hybrids further blur the laptop/tablet distinction, although unless Tim Cooke was spreading disinformation yesterday with his toaster comment its unlikely Apple will be leading the way.
The 'Windows without windows' message gets me too. All the same its neat to have a single 'Metro app' that runs on tablet, laptop, and desktop, so long as its one of those applications that suit full screen working, e.g. games, organizers.
Some people get confused by reference to desktop (windowed) apps as legacy, as if Metro is meant to replace these apps. In their enthusiasm to promote Metro, Microsoft themselves are guilty of reinforcing this misconception.
Been tracking Microsoft for a long time and I'd be very surprised if work is not already well underway in Redmond to extend the WinRT framework to add a new class of desktop applications (slogan 'reimagining the desktop') as a headline feature for Windows 9 and a service pack addition to Win8. Understandable that the Win8 development timeframe didn't allow space for this. My guess is we'll start to hear details next year alongside tools in a CP of Visual Studio 12.
@Ben Holmes. Upgrading a Windows 7 system to 8 doesn't really bring anything to a typical 'office worker' of 2012, and unlikely that changes next year and beyond. Not the primary target market for Microsoft. Most apps in this space will continue to be desktop and web-based.
Home office, same goes, although if its doubling as a entertainment/consumer PC, likely be interesting apps in the Windows store that may make 8 a better proposition for some people.
@JDX. One of my laptops, 6 years old, is still perfectly satisfactory. PS3XBox360 is getting a seven year run. Nothing stupid about the observation that technology developments often manifest in price and market changes, not performance. Personally, my own interests make me a performance junkie but not naive enough to apply my own requirements to everyone else.
Beyond quad core, LTE, retina graphics and so on, its not hard to predict the focus on phones will move to cost reductions and expanding the market. Apple is well placed should it choose to change direction and address the lower end with new products rather than marking down older models.
Great to see a low cost lightfield camera on the market .
Negative. Without specifications or API support to see what the camera is actually recording and enable third party software to access the photo files all very limiting. A glimpse of the future maybe but an expensive novelty item ofr the time being.
With $50m invested in the company according to tyro.com, surprising they haven't spent a few quid to develop a Windows UI for their software yet..
Very good point Mike. Pretty likely iPhone 5 launches alongside an iOS upgrade available to iPhone 4, its the Apple way. So if WP8 launches same time without upgrade for current Lumia handsets its really game over for all the Nokia marketing effort this year. Microsoft has been ominously silent on the issue even though they must know that the uncertainty is hitting current WP7 sales.
Facebook spending a billion dollars for functionality that could be created for less than a million. Totally crazy. I've worked on camera apps so can say unlikely Instagram own any valuable patents in the area that app has plenty pror art.
Not a bad app but talk about blowing bubbles.
Very true about back to basics on memory use and processing, within reason.
Of course he knows computers come in all shapes and sizes which is why he was able to joke about 'proper' computers and ,most importantly, understand the humour in it.
No need to Actually I have been trying to teach him, most recently n86 registers using _asm in writing 'beat the compiler' embedded assembler in C++. Much easier in a modern development environment with visual debuggers etc. on an HD display than in the world of 1980s nostalgia.
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