Mobile phones are not Desktops
While John C. Dvorak generally writes flamebait that you shouldn’t pay attention to, there is usually a nugget of truth in his writing. This time Mr. Dvorak points out that iPhones are not desktops. He says iPhones but he really means all mobile devices of various shapes and sizes from mobile phones to laptops. The idea that mobiles are not desktops might seem obvious.
“Duh, a desktop is not mobile” you might think but the point is really about building applications. Are people willing to trust putting their personal data into a mobile device that is easily lost, stolen, dropped in a toilet or otherwise damaged? Recent research demonstrated that we can’t even trust laptops where the hard drive has been encrypted if it’s turned on or in sleep mode. I’m not sure how many criminals carry around aerosol canisters to cool memory down or have the technical know-how to take advantage of this flaw. That sounds like the work of more organized crime; most stolen laptops in the news so far seem to have been stolen by regular thieves who aimed to sell it on the black market. But how many individual people actually have an encrypted partition on their personal laptop? I have heard of a few instances of people doing that on the GnuCash mailing lists but I would venture to guess that the answer is not many. And an encrypted partition on a mobile is out of the question. Many phones have a key that they use to lock the phone but how many people turn it off or lock it when they aren’t using it?
Security isn’t the only concern with mobile development either. Mobiles, almost by definition, are conspicuous devices that allow us to stay connected even when away from the computer. This is powerful but understanding that a mobile device is mobile is critical to properly managing the data that’s on it as well as our behavior when using the device. Depending too much on the devices for normal work that should be done on the desktop is most likely not going to work well. Dvorak makes a number of points about why the desktop computer is the best platform. Essentially the desktop is better at everything compared to the laptop except in portability. Portability is a big factor but essentially it means that when you are at home or at work, use a desktop and when you are traveling use a mobile (A hammer for a nail, a screwdriver for a screw etc.). Use the best tool for the job.
Update: Dvorak forgot one more advantage of mobiles, energy efficiency.
In the end it feels like the tech industry is jumping to mobile simply because it’s unexplored territory (read not monetized yet), even when the desktop hasn’t really been fully explored yet.