Multiple machines, multiple OSs, narrowing apps?

Posted by Simon
Jul 17, 2019 at 09:35 AM

I’m not so sure about narrowing. Outside of the workplace, most I know are in one Eco system.

> It’s the big greedy tech giant corps vs open communities plus other big corps funding open source platforms to kill off MS/Apple/Google.

> I’ve never succumbed to saying this before over the last twenty years, but finally I think the future of desktops is going to be Linux.

I actually think Desktops are on the wane. They certainly won’t be dominant if they survive. Tablet computing is replacing laptop computing which has replaced desktop computing for many. Walk into any café and see laptops replaced by tablets (certainly in my area). My iPad Pro has 1TB storage. The missing piece is coming this autumn with file transfer via USB-C (finally Apple! Only 10 years behind everybody else).

I can handle a whole meeting on my iPhone using the excellent Drafts 5 and 2Do. At the end of the meeting I can email out the minutes from Drafts 5 to all present and I can move all actions to 2Do 5 min after the meeting and I’m job done.

> I’d argue that the general theme is convergence.

I don’t think the separate vendors will allow that. It benefits them to make it as hard as possible for you to move your data and it is. Try moving from Android to iOS or vice versa. You will lose data or need to store it as it become to time consuming to copy.

> I’m just not sure in what domains “Linux will be king”.

I agree. Linux is missing one key component - mobile. Many people remain with Apple for one simple reason. It works. My contacts are on all devices as are my photos and music. That alone will never allow Linux to be king.

> Huawei is a state owned military Intel corp in disguise as a private company. Yesterday Spain said yes to 5g infrastructure by Huawei.

That’s the truly concerning thought. I’ve never approved of using China or India as trade partners. Their oppressive regimes and human rights abuses are sufficient a warning. Plus China is only after one thing and that is espionage. I know a number of clients who will not allow their business partners to install any Chinese or RuRussian apps on their devices whilst working with them.

- https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/bloomberg-super-micro-motherboards-used-by-apple-amazon-contained-chinese-spy-chips/
- https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/huawei-employee-accused-of-spying-for-china-was-arrested-in-poland/
- https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/03/chinas-democracy-includes-mandatory-apps-mass-chat-surveillance/

This is also a reason I’ve cut my tie with Google. Google has no moral ethics in its practice and no values as an organisation. They profit by snooping and recently helped China oppress its people further through their restrictive search engines. Absolutely appalling for any democratic based business to help oppress others.

Interestingly in talking to family in Germany there is still quite a widespread boycott of Windows 10 amongst government officials due to its controversial key logging feature.

> Basically they’re thinking of killing off office and making office only cloud based

I think office apps are on their way out anyway. I do nearly all my writing in multimarkdown (or some markdown variant), I then PDF the document and send it off. The only reason I have office around is to open all those office files I’ve had since the early 90s

I work in a completely macOS/iOS eco system. I could realistically just use Emacs and most of my needs would be met. There is sadly no iOS Emacs system. However, I now spend 50% of my time on iOS and desktop only apps are a problem. Especially when they do something that could easily be done on an iPad. I do my graphics on affinity on iPad, all my teaching/preaching is compiled in plain text and I use [Ulysses](https://ulysses.app/) for that. My Zettelkasten is in [The Archive](https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/). My Zettelkasten archive is stored in iCloud and accessible with [1Writer](http://1writerapp.com/) on iOS. [Drafts 5](https://getdrafts.com/) has been a game changer for me. It is the most useful app on my iPhone. In fact, it has become so central that I normally only need my iPhone for any meeting I go to. It has a permanent place as the first app on my taskbar.

I used and loved Workflowy. I now use Dynalist, but am massively disappointed. Their mobile offering is worse than woeful. I hardly open it anymore as I just cannot get productive using it on iOS. I am unlikely to renew my subscription as mobile should be a priority in my opinion, especially for an outliner and text based system.