What are we going to do about mobile? [OT]

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 12 April 2017 at 19:20:27 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:
>
> I *strongly* agree with the notion that 
> mobile/ARM/iOS/'droid/etc needs to be a major part of D's 
> immediate future.
>
> However...
>
> On 04/06/2017 01:24 AM, Joakim wrote:
>> I have been saying for some time now that mobile is going to 
>> go after
>> the desktop next
>> (http://forum.dlang.org/thread/rionbqmtrwyenmhmmggx@forum.dlang.org),
>> Samsung just announced it, for a flagship device that will 
>> ship tens of
>> millions:
>
> If you look into the details and current reality of the S8's 
> docked mode, *at best* it's equivalent to Windows 8.0 and will 
> remain so for at least a couple years or so: It's connecting a 
> keyboard/mouse/monitor to a software ecosystem that is still 
> 90% tailored for handheld formfactor.

I'm guessing you mean that it's equivalent because most Windows 
apps were never redone for their mobile platform, but the S8 and 
Nougat are ahead in one key area: their docked support actually 
has full multi-window, unlike Microsoft's similar Continuum 
docked mode which only supports using apps in fullscreen (that 
may be changing with the just-released Creators update).

> Ie, at best, it's going to be awhile before it's docked mode is 
> realistically usable as a Win/Lin/OSX replacement (as opposed 
> to a mobile projected onto a 20" screen). And by then, they'll 
> be building hype for Galaxy S10 or so.

No, the mobile apps run in their own smaller windows, so they're 
not projected to the full 20" screen, unlike with Continuum.  
You're right that most mobile apps haven't been redone for this 
docked mode, but you can usually use them just fine with a mouse 
and keyboard.

I'm doing it right now: Chrome for Android has had keyboard 
shortcuts for a long time and Android has long supported mouse 
pointers.  I'm typing this into an Android tablet with a 
bluetooth keyboard, and Alt-tabbing back to the Termux app to 
look at D code:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux&hl=en

It's been usable for me since I installed Termux in late 2015, 
which is why I didn't bother buying anything else when my Win7 
ultrabook died then.  With Android 7.0 Nougat, which builds 
native multi-window into every Android device, you'll be able to 
screencast even budget phones like this:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/moto-g5-plus-review-still-good-and-cheap-but-not-the-bargain-it-once-was/

though it requires an app to enable it:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/08/27/taskbar-lets-enable-freeform-mode-android-nougat-without-root-adb/
http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/19/taskbar-updated-version-1-2-can-now-completely-replace-home-screen/

> Not saying it won't happen at some point in the near-to-mid 
> future, but time has proven that each of these attempts, 
> individually, only each have a modest chance of really taking 
> off (and frankly, I've seen other attempts that did a better 
> job - namely the abandoned one Ubuntu had been working on, 
> which ran the *actual* Ubuntu desktop when you plugged in 
> monitor/keyboard/mouse). Even if Samsung does succeed in making 
> the Galaxy a genuine desktop option, it's definitely not going 
> to happen within the S8's lifetime. This is just the "early 
> adopter tech-preview" device.

Sure, but we're talking about an attempt now with a software 
platform that sells more than a billion devices per year, and 
with a device, the S8, that will sell tens of millions.  That is 
a first compared to the previous efforts you list, and make this 
more likely to succeed.

>> D is currently built and optimized for that dying PC platform.
>
> This is just hyperbole. Declining != dying.

"Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to 
depend greatly on our own point of view."

 From a certain point of view, you could say PC sales are only 
down 25% from their peak, that's not dead yet.  But the chart I 
linked shows their share of personal computing devices, including 
mobile, has dropped from 78% to a little less than 14% over the 
last decade.  I'd call that dying.