Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Begs the question. What will be the preferred usage scenario for a desktop run off of high end smart phones? We've established its not a replacement for a workstation. What will it be good for? And more important how much extra crap do you have to buy in terms of peripherals to actually have a good experience. Once you invest in external storage, keyboard mouse display etc...etc... does the price point actually going to make sense for the capability? Compared to just buying a middle of the road laptop and a phone? All completely valid questions that the market will have to answer once we get devices out in the wild.

The CPUs have to be good enough to carry some sort of workload that needs the desktop experience to compete in the marketplace at a premium pricepoint. If all the workloads of interest require more muscle then this offering might be a little too ahead of its time to catch fire and build a business on.

I say all of that like its doomed, but in reality I still think this is pretty innovative and its really the right way to move computing forward. OEMs just have to get behind this idea. And I think I could make it work for a lot of my day to day home computing. Work would be tougher. My problem for work is that i travel so much(to low bandwidth locations) that i need a pretty beefy laptop to carry my full workload with me. I won't be able to rely on a cloud-centric based desktop..ever. But for home I could make a desktop dockable phone work probably. The lapdock concept into a larger display however is just braindead.

Case in point. This comment entry (and all the other blog comments I write) Do I need anything more than Ubuntu on Android offers as an experience to be able to write comments pointing out the business risks to the Ubuntu on Android strategy? Nope. Canonical may have come up with the perfect technology which makes it possible for me to more efficiently and perhaps more cost effectively continue to write critical comments about them. And I for one really appreciate how they are finally focusing on my particular needs instead of going after the median consumer market. When I'm in the market again for a new phone, I'll actually take a serious look at this sort of feature offering. and see if I can make it work. However if the cost of the dock and peripherals ends up doubling the price of the phone..that's going to be hard to justify to the household financial officer. We'll have to see where the pricepoints comes out.

-jef