So recent thread by Daniel about the Panos phone (formerly knows as Surface phone) reignited a lot of talk about the device on the forums. Just like everyone else I'm really excited about the device, however not because x86 architecture but because it will be phone designed by Panos and his very talented team of engineers. One thing we all can expect is great hardware with great design and awesome software utilizations. However I don't share the same enthusiasm as others about the Intel chip, and let me explain why.
First we need to talk about continuum, which in my opinion is amazing future (I haven't used it in person just yet, but I've seen a lot of videos), however people try to portray is as much more than what it actually is. It is not a mystery that continuum is still at it infancy stage, and at the minute I wouldn't call it a gimmick but more of a taste for what is to come in future. I think within year maybe 18 months this will be very capable tool to do some light office work, and indeed could replace computers for some (people who use computer pretty much for light work like office, mail and lot of web surfing, just like my mother does). Within couple of years from now I do believe we will be able to do some medium work using continuum on phones as well, like light photos editing etc. however replacing the PC entirely is completely different story. Sure computational power of mobiles increases every year, but so does demand for computational power in professional environment. I believe devices like Surface can soon replace all Pc needs, but not phones , not just yet.
Now lets talk about Universal apps, concept which in theory could be revolutionary. At the minute most of the universal apps are already very capable programs like outlook mail and calendar or office suite, however with better development they could become equivalent to their desktop counterparts. An this can be said for many more apps, however some apps like Photoshop or Solid works are different story, these are big power hungry programs which should be left for professional grade hardware such as what surface has become. However I think development of light version of these apps could be viable option (maybe not Solidworks but Photoshop for sure). So development in Universal apps would allow for good amount of medium work being conducted on the phone with continuum support.
Now lets talk why I (it is my opinion after all) think using Intel chip on phone would be bad idea.
- First of all it would hurt concept of Universal apps, If you could run Photoshop from your phone using continuum, why would they create universal app, after all you would most likely use Photoshop on big screen (I'm using Photoshop as example a lot but you know what I mean). However Photoshop light could be very powerful tool even on smaller screen device with pen support (just look at note 4/5 with things like speed drawing and photo editing - very capable light weight software are available)
- Power; sure Panos can put intel chip in the phone, however how well would programs run on this thing. We all remember surface 3 ruining on atom chip, a lot of people complained that the tablet is underpowered. If you put chip like that in phone the same situation occurs, you can run x86 software but it's not like ruining it on ?300 i3 laptop. For reference apple a9x (arm architecture) in iPad pro is apparently more powerfull than m3 in surface 4 (I'm not sure how well these benchmarks represent the raw computational power, but I'm pretty sure a9x is more powerful than intel atoms). Not only power but also battery life, arm processor are much more power efficient compared to intel, and I want my phone to last at least full day.
So here is my opinion I would rather have phone with snapdragon 820 (or maybe custom arm chip) running well designed universal apps on continuum and being able to do some light work and using phone as it was designed to be, phone first, rather than having intel powered phone which can run some legacy programs which average Joe won't care about (I mean most not techy people will use word, sometimes powerpoint, browser 90% of time, spotify an not much more). I think if Panos creates phone with intel processor now, Microsoft will have to go back to drawing board with app situation once more (sure people will create some apps, but we can forget about powerful universal apps).
Let the discussion begin, what do you think of x86 on phone, and ask yourself how much would you really use it (is it usability you are attracted to or just idea of running x86 programs)
First we need to talk about continuum, which in my opinion is amazing future (I haven't used it in person just yet, but I've seen a lot of videos), however people try to portray is as much more than what it actually is. It is not a mystery that continuum is still at it infancy stage, and at the minute I wouldn't call it a gimmick but more of a taste for what is to come in future. I think within year maybe 18 months this will be very capable tool to do some light office work, and indeed could replace computers for some (people who use computer pretty much for light work like office, mail and lot of web surfing, just like my mother does). Within couple of years from now I do believe we will be able to do some medium work using continuum on phones as well, like light photos editing etc. however replacing the PC entirely is completely different story. Sure computational power of mobiles increases every year, but so does demand for computational power in professional environment. I believe devices like Surface can soon replace all Pc needs, but not phones , not just yet.
Now lets talk about Universal apps, concept which in theory could be revolutionary. At the minute most of the universal apps are already very capable programs like outlook mail and calendar or office suite, however with better development they could become equivalent to their desktop counterparts. An this can be said for many more apps, however some apps like Photoshop or Solid works are different story, these are big power hungry programs which should be left for professional grade hardware such as what surface has become. However I think development of light version of these apps could be viable option (maybe not Solidworks but Photoshop for sure). So development in Universal apps would allow for good amount of medium work being conducted on the phone with continuum support.
Now lets talk why I (it is my opinion after all) think using Intel chip on phone would be bad idea.
- First of all it would hurt concept of Universal apps, If you could run Photoshop from your phone using continuum, why would they create universal app, after all you would most likely use Photoshop on big screen (I'm using Photoshop as example a lot but you know what I mean). However Photoshop light could be very powerful tool even on smaller screen device with pen support (just look at note 4/5 with things like speed drawing and photo editing - very capable light weight software are available)
- Power; sure Panos can put intel chip in the phone, however how well would programs run on this thing. We all remember surface 3 ruining on atom chip, a lot of people complained that the tablet is underpowered. If you put chip like that in phone the same situation occurs, you can run x86 software but it's not like ruining it on ?300 i3 laptop. For reference apple a9x (arm architecture) in iPad pro is apparently more powerfull than m3 in surface 4 (I'm not sure how well these benchmarks represent the raw computational power, but I'm pretty sure a9x is more powerful than intel atoms). Not only power but also battery life, arm processor are much more power efficient compared to intel, and I want my phone to last at least full day.
So here is my opinion I would rather have phone with snapdragon 820 (or maybe custom arm chip) running well designed universal apps on continuum and being able to do some light work and using phone as it was designed to be, phone first, rather than having intel powered phone which can run some legacy programs which average Joe won't care about (I mean most not techy people will use word, sometimes powerpoint, browser 90% of time, spotify an not much more). I think if Panos creates phone with intel processor now, Microsoft will have to go back to drawing board with app situation once more (sure people will create some apps, but we can forget about powerful universal apps).
Let the discussion begin, what do you think of x86 on phone, and ask yourself how much would you really use it (is it usability you are attracted to or just idea of running x86 programs)
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