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AMD says "no thanks" to smartphone business

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It is still the limitations of the technology itself that are the problem and nothing inherently limiting about the form factor. The next evolution of the internet is projected by some to be voice activated and use personalized avatars. Since the average person can speak 200 word per minute the portables have the advantage in the long run and I expect at some point MS will have to begin experimenting with versions of windows that combine voice and touch screen. Until then, portables will remain a royal pain in the butt to work on.
 
wuliheron said:
It is still the limitations of the technology itself that are the problem and nothing inherently limiting about the form factor. The next evolution of the internet is projected by some to be voice activated and use personalized avatars. Since the average person can speak 200 word per minute the portables have the advantage in the long run and I expect at some point MS will have to begin experimenting with versions of windows that combine voice and touch screen. Until then, portables will remain a royal pain in the butt to work on.
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meh, I've spent so long on the internet typing and chatting with people that my real world speech travels at approximately typing speed as well.
 
X86 has it's place, ARM has it's own, plain and simple. x86 in tablets I think will come in the form of larger products the size of the x86 Asus Eee Tablet, but with a docking system like available for the Eee Transformer that contains more substantial hardware like a dedicated graphics processor. This would work well with a Fusion APU based system since AMD's CFX tech is already decently mature and I'm sure has provisions for hot swapping connections via a PCI-E xx type cabling solution or dock interface.
 
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Some past players are weighing on this discussion.
IBM: PCs are "Going The Way of Typewriters"

Dean admitted that, like IBM, he too has moved beyond the PC and is currently using an unspecified tablet as his primary computer. "When I helped design the PC, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing. They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs."
You forgot 8-track tapes and cassettes, Mr. Dean.
PCs aren't necessarily being replaced by smartphones and tablets, he claims. Instead, they're being replaced by new ideas about the role computing can play in the progress. He said that the height of innovation takes place within the social realm connecting devices – the space where people and ideas come together and interact – and not on the devices themselves. It's within this very "cloud" of innovation that "computing can have the most powerful impact on economy, society and people's lives."
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When you google non Apple tablet sales, half of the hits are optimistic predictions for the next year and the other half - that currently the sales are somewhat crap. Apple has managed something that almost never happens with electronics: everything they make is "in", fashonable, trendy, whatever you call it. People don't buy iPhones/Pads/Macbooks because they need the provided features, they buy them as toys, as fashion items with some degree of useful functionality.

Once you strip the "Apple" out of those products, you're left with things that are either just decent (iPhones,Macbooks) or borderline useless (iPad). Yup, some artists might use tablets for some quick sketching and thats it. The tablet form factor means you can't carry them around in you pockets, which is the greatest advantage of mobile phones. And if you already need a bag for the tablet, why not carry something with far more grunt and less painful typing?

If I already have a decent iPhone/Android phone and a decent laptop, where the hell does a tablet slot in?
 
wuliheron said:
It is still the limitations of the technology itself that are the problem and nothing inherently limiting about the form factor. The next evolution of the internet is projected by some to be voice activated and use personalized avatars. Since the average person can speak 200 word per minute the portables have the advantage in the long run and I expect at some point MS will have to begin experimenting with versions of windows that combine voice and touch screen. Until then, portables will remain a royal pain in the butt to work on.
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Really? It seems to me that projection of unified avatars always comes tied to some new way of taking advantage of it for profits, without giving anything useful in return (IE, virtual dress-up).

Real work will keep needing real computers for some time, but entertainment and common communication already don't need them; the technology just hasn't quite gotten good enough for everyone to switch over.
 
Arzachel said:
If I already have a decent iPhone/Android phone and a decent laptop, where the hell does a tablet slot in?
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I'll say that a tablet is suitable for people who wants a larger view and larger surface area to work with. It is surely more convenient for an elderly person to look at a tablet's larger screen compared to the smaller screen of a smartphone.
 
Cerb said:
Really? It seems to me that projection of unified avatars always comes tied to some new way of taking advantage of it for profits, without giving anything useful in return (IE, virtual dress-up).

Real work will keep needing real computers for some time, but entertainment and common communication already don't need them; the technology just hasn't quite gotten good enough for everyone to switch over.
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I agree it will be quite some time before this becomes a viable alternative for many people and desktops will be around for decades to come. However, we will see an increasing number of jobs that can be done on portable devices and the demand will drive the development of avatars as more then mere virtual window dressing for portable devices. Eventually little Johnny's avatar will insist he do his homework first, and then let him play games. His teacher will tell it what lessons he needs to work on more, and it will be able to contextualize such things as internet searches according to his personal taste, reading level, etc.
 
wuliheron said:
I agree it will be quite some time before this becomes a viable alternative for many people and desktops will be around for decades to come. However, we will see an increasing number of jobs that can be done on portable devices and the demand will drive the development of avatars as more then mere virtual window dressing for portable devices. Eventually little Johnny's avatar will insist he do his homework first, and then let him play games. His teacher will tell it what lessons he needs to work on more, and it will be able to contextualize such things as internet searches according to his personal taste, reading level, etc.
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Yeah, and in 10 years we will have speaking refridgerators that remind us to buy milk, as was predicted in 2000, 1990, 1980 etc.. I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at posts like this.
 
lol123 said:
Yeah, and in 10 years we will have speaking refridgerators that remind us to buy milk, as was predicted in 2000, 1990, 1980 etc.. I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at posts like this.
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Instead we have talking cars that give us directions. Laugh all you want, but when it makes a real difference and doesn't cost an arm and a leg people make it happen. Then they have the last laugh at the old grandpa's still sitting on their rocking chairs complaining about progress ruining young people today.
 
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lol123 said:
Yeah, and in 10 years we will have speaking refridgerators that remind us to buy milk, as was predicted in 2000, 1990, 1980 etc.. I'm sorry but I can't help but laugh at posts like this.
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You forgot to add Hover-cars and flying skateboards 🙂
 
notty22 said:
Some past players are weighing on this discussion.
IBM: PCs are "Going The Way of Typewriters"
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I don't agree with that analogy based on a tablet is a PC evolved into a small factor or innovative way to bring computing. A PC doesn't necessarily have to be this huge box sitting on, near, under one's desktop. The wonder of the PC has been its flexibility and the way it evolves into so many devices for so many needs. The PC evolves; that has been its biggest strength.

When I think of the original PC's -- I think of this and had the pleasure of talking to a retired engineer that worked in the lab:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
 
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SirPauly said:
The wonder of the PC has been its flexibility and the way it evolves into so many devices for so many needs. The PC evolves; that has been its biggest strength.
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Right, but no keyboard means far less flexibility.

It s not like suppressing other features, since the ability
to enter alphanumerical datas is at the core of the flexibility,
rather than using a forcibly limited drop down menu that is
reminiscent of closed standards that are hardly flexible...
 
it needs to be keyboard + mouse bluetooth
and it's a phone that plugs into your tablet

phone has 4GB RAM and is quad core
and you no longer need a PC
 
Idontcare said:
What makes the dilbert funny is because it is true. This thread is full of dilbert's who can't fathom getting "serious" work done on anything less than a desktop/laptop and at the same time there is a whole generation of employees out there (I work with them everyday) who can't fathom tethering themselves to a grandpa box.
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I will stick to my granpa box that can actually get work done. While you technically CAN work on a smartphone or a tablet you will be a vast disadvantage to someone using a real laptop or desktop. Ideally you would have access to all of those. If you are in the store and you get an idea or need to check something up, smartphone go!
If you are actually in an office and you have a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, then your actual productivity is:
Desktop > Laptop > Tablet > Smartphone

A bigger screen, a proper mouse, and a more generous keyboard just means more productivity, no joke comic will change that fact.

The debate isn't whether or not smartphones are displacing desktop/laptop in the workplace but rather the debate is are you going to give up your sliderule after having used it for 20yrs and learn how to use one of these newfangled toys (some might call it a fad) that is the electronic calculator?

Progress marches on, it is the duty of every aging generation to dismissively refer to the younger one's tools of productivity as the next fad.
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A calculator is much faster, requires less specialized knowledge (easier to use), and smaller.
The problem with your analogy is that as you go supermobile you give up ease of use (smaller screen, worse input systems) and performance (MUCH slower performance, slower internet). Which is the exact opposite...

A better analogy is that you have the serious workers with their calculators and then those newfangled youth comes along and uses a slide ruler made of gold studded with diamonds that make "cool" beeping noises to impress the ladies (it doesn't work)

The real modern users don't abandon their desktop for a smarphone, but find a way to seamlessly sync them. What I forsee 20 years from now is people carrying a mobile device that does phone, but is also a powerful computer, and it can dock (wirelessly) into a base-station that provides a proper monitor, keyboard, and mouse (and nothing else) to get real work done. Said base station would only have a tower with CPU/GPU of its own if is a hardcore gamer's computer. For the average users it would just be the 3 peripherals.
This is because a tiny 4 inch touchsceen will never replace the monitor, mouse, keyboard holy triumvirate. We will be with it until the day we get neural implants.
 
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LOL_Wut_Axel said:
No. For content creation anything other than the Windows tablets are horrible. This applies to all of them: they're horrible for simple productivity and simple multi-tasking (except WebOS in multi-tasking). The Windows tablets could be useful for things like graphics design. As a general rule, tablets are mainly content consumption devices.

As to your second paragraph, part of it makes no sense. ATI DID have a graphics division for very portable devices: Imageon. They sold it, so they'd have to make a new GPU architecture for these devices. That costs a lot.
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Multitasking has a lot to do with the os. What makes you think that ARM cannot run a decent operating system ? X86 has very wide data paths at high clocks. ARM SOC's do not since that consumes power. X86 has more cache, ARM SOC's do not since that consumes the most power. ARM as multicore with dedicated processors is a real threat to x86 at low power. There is a reason x86 manufacturers are integrating the gpu. ARM MCU and SOC's have had one or more dsp's as number crunchers for years. ARM architecture allows to add separate coprocessors with any ability a SOC designer wants to. The issue is power consumption.

I do am interested where you got the information about how ATOMS are much faster then ARM. To an degree it makes sense, since there are so many ARM arch versions out there at different clocks.

What i do wonder about is how much advantage there is, about having everything as a single core such as x86 (sse unit, fp unit, integer units.) and ARM with a separate processor (same die but separate cores) on the side. I think the Communication is key here. How the data is transported in between the cores. And it is true that X86 has had more experience with this to get as much parallelism with multiple cores. I mean a lot of cores are of no use if the cores need to wait at each other for data to become available. What i noticed with X86 is that the biggest issue is to keep all the execution units active. There does also the power consumption come from if i am not mistaken. Keeping track of all that data and dependencies.
 
William Gaatjes said:
Multitasking has a lot to do with the os. What makes you think that ARM cannot run a decent operating system ?
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to expand on this.
Windows 7 and lower, MacOS, Linux, Solaris, and BSD all run on x86
However
Windows 8+, Linux, Solaris, and BSD would also run on ARM
Solaris also runs on powerPC (IBM architecture, old macs, as well as current consoles are all powerPC) and sparc.

Etc... basically it comes down to the OS and lots of OS are multi platform capable and windows is already planned to be available for ARM starting with win8
 
tommo123 said:
depends on what you use your pc for
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Agreed . I can just see myself and others who have all those downloaded free songs going to the clouds as the IBM guy said . And my movies that I never watch all going to the clouds . . Have to go someones at the door . LOL!
 
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amd would be crazy not to get into the phone/tablet business. they should do what nvidia did and get into the arm business also while its still early
 
I just have to interject that I am an older person, but I dont think that all older people (myself included) are resistant to embracing new technology.
I am very into computers, and think tablets are cool. I admit that I have not gotten into smartphones, but I really have no need for one, and dont want to pay the monthly charges.

That said, I really see no substitute for a true keyboard (full size too, not tiny like a slide out smartphone one). Therefore, I dont think the computer will be replaced anytime soon. I could see a place for a touch screen interface on a laptop if it could replace the mouse effectively. (i.e. full size keyboard and touch commands to replace the mouse). Even voice commands cannot replace a keyboard for productivity. Can you just see an entire office full of people talking to their computers???


And to the original thread, AMD probably said "no thanks" to smart phones when the truth was "not enough expertise or R and D resources". I would be happy if they could just get their CPUs out on time.
 
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