Comments for entry "More Apple Ideas" at Dilbert.com Blog

Comment from Shimmerville

TuePMCSTE_Rthth

I thought that this was the way young people are doing it now. Young people have no desire to have computers of any kind, and if they have laptops it's only because school required them. Seems like rather old news, except of course for some of the features that aren't in yet. And, Social Media demonstrates that young people care not a whit about privacy.

Comment from tdcrone

TueAMCSTE_Rthth

Wow, I am late. Anyway, Scott, this technology is called NFC. It is used mostly for financial identification but slowly expanding in the geek set. At least in Android land. I think it can do everything you list above, except you need to be within an inch or two to activate it. Interesting that you are still in a last-decade mindset on what exactly a computer is. Kind of like the guys who envisioned candles that could burn forever, or carriages that would travel without horses.

Comment from GovBert

SunPMCSTE_Rrdrd

I'll up your idea with a better one. Apple should team up with car makers to develop a universal smart phone/car interface. Your phone is now your cars ignition (thumb swipe or other biometric (possibly a print reader in the car) and password to turn it on), your cars media center, your cars climate control ("Siri, make it 65 degrees in here"), of course your phone, also your nav screen, and could double as a back up camera. Then when you take your iPhone with you from your car, the car is inoperable for anything other than your iphone (or another approved iPhone, spouse, kids, etc). No more keys, charging cables, cradles, etc. For the street racers it would be possible to double the iphone as a fuel mapping control system. For the GoPro street racers it can be used to connect to the different cameras to check views prior to recording.

Comment from the_wonderer

FriPMCSTE_Rstst

Lysol stock should also soar, as everyone will need to carry wipes to sanitize all these ubiquitous devices.

Comment from JDArnott

FriPMCSTE_Rstst

What about http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android which could relegate Apple and others to 'just' hardware companies. No, Ubuntu haven't cracked Apple, yet. & there is also an app to unlock your PC when your Bluetooth device is nearby, or lock it when out of range. http://sourceforge.net/projects/btprox/files/ http://bluetooth-pc-lockitnow.en.softonic.com/ etc (and those are just the windows ones) It's no stretch to have it unlock for different people, download a profile from a central server...

Comment from infobd

FriAMCSTE_Rstst

Great post.Some science fiction is good why some is mediocre, but that's the same with any area of literature. SciFi

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FriAMCSTE_Rstst

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Comment from hbmindia

FriAMCSTE_Rstst

Will Adam's Apple soar to the clouds? Currently seems stuck in his throat.

Comment from Raskolnikov

ThuPMCSTE_Rstst

JoetheWebmaster said: Apple is a slow sinking ship... Their future market will solely be "girl" computing. A feminine / trendy fashion type folks product line. I believe you're right. After making the decision that we're a Google family, I gave my wife a Nexus 7 for Christmas, then last night she let loose she'd rather have a iPad "like all her friends". If Apple is sinking, it will be very slow. Gucci has been around since 1921.

Comment from Will Von Wizzlepig

ThuPMCSTE_Rstst

[shackles jingling] [woeful spirits moaning] [suspenseful intro part, where the ghost of options past wakens a terrified octogenarian Scott Adams: skipped] Ghost: "I bet you never saw this coming" Scott: "What's that you say?" Ghost: "That computer embedded under your skin, do you remember? You used to be able to choose a computer, and an operating system, and whether or not to have it embedded under your skin. And the television- you used to be able to turn those off. And nobody said 'double plus good' all the time." Scott: "..." Ghost: "And this all started with your great idea post, a few decades ago. That itchy implant- you did that." Scott: "... crap."

Comment from Uncollated

ThuPMCSTE_Rstst

Scott, You keep on referring to having all software in the cloud. This could be acceptable for home use over a good internet connection. As I carry my laptop around from place to place, I quite often find myself working in places where either I can't get an internet connection, or the connection is poor enough that I have trouble just using Google. If all my software were in the cloud, it would be impossible to do any work in such !$%*!$%*!$%*!$%*!$%*!$%* probably going to respond to the above by saying something along the lines of "Well, I assume that internet will become both more ubiquitous and more reliable in the near future." I can't argue with that. However, the other problem with your vision is that it requires all my files to be stored in the cloud, because otherwise I couldn't access them from some random airport screen. I consider this a separate issue from the software thing, because I just prefer to know where my files physically are, and I don't want to have them deleted because I forgot to pay the rent on the server space they occupy. Now, I already use the cloud to back up a selection of my more important files, but that's different from having the originals stored god-knows-where, and it allows me to keep the same files up to date on multiple of my own hard drives if I want. Also, some files I use belong to my company, and I wonder what my boss would think about having them accessible from any screen I happen to be walking by. I can see why you think this plan is convenient, but I think this is a case where common sense trumps convenience. If Apple does make it, I won't be buying it.

Comment from JoetheWebmaster

ThuPMCSTE_Rstst

Apple is a slow sinking ship... Their future market will solely be "girl" computing. A feminine / trendy fashion type folks product line.

Comment from gbeeton

ThuPMCSTE_Rstst

"In this vision, Apple's computer products disappear..." And there was much rejoicing.

Comment from dknull

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

I'm having trouble seeing how I would use an iPad, let alone an iPhone for the typical projects I work on: spreadsheets that span several pages wide; schematics that require multiple pages; reviewing designs while referring to detailed specifications in several separate documents; etc. No matter how many pixels they cram into small screens, my eyes are now officially the limiting factor. I barely get by with a 17" screen on my MacBook Pro. When Apple dropped this screen size from the notebook line I immediately bought the last 17" model. Maybe I should have purchased two of them. The sales person tried to talk me into a 15" with Retina display, and I explained that it was *my* retina, not theirs, that established the user interface requirements. Furthermore, the idea of building keyboards and iPads into airplanes sounds fine in theory, but I have flown on a lot of planes where 1) the tray table was so broken it would not even hold my dinner, let alone a useable keyboard; 2) the in-flight entertainment system had defective or vandalized buttons and controls. It would be a disaster if I was counting on having a functional in-flight computer to finish a critical project, no matter how good the "cloud" environment was.

Comment from isonno

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

AAPL's down a little over 2% today. Clearly, The Street liked your ideas from yesterday better.

Comment from nasch

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

Besides the security concerns, there's the issue of network reliability. Do I really want to be without access to any of my files if I can't get a network connection? Maybe in some parts of the world that isn't an issue. It wouldn't work for me because I'm a software developer and a phone is not going to have the capability to do that, but otherwise it sounds awesome. I thought of this about 10 years ago and still nobody has tried it. I'm sure it's not because of privacy concerns, so what do you think everyone? Is there an entrenched business model that would be threatened, or just judged to be too small a market, or what?

Comment from leololezone

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

I think this idea is bette than your last one and I'm fully onboard for an all smartphone IDed future. A couple of comments: Walking into a store and having your picture pop up for payment is something Square has already announced they are trying to bring to Starbucks: http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/14/technology/startups/square-dorsey/index.html Starting your car with your smartphone is in the works too. There's this: http://gizmodo.com/5380504/your-iphone-is-now-your-car-keys But it misses the point of keyless entry like I have on my Prius: not having to take my key out of my pocket. This will come soon though not soon enough. iPhone to enter and customize your house is possible now as well though it's still in the realm of hobbyists for the most part. You can do it with a number of home automation setups. I'm about to attempt to do just this using Insteon: http://www.smarthome.com/_/ProductResults.aspx?Ntt=bluetooth door I wouldn't call this ready for mainstream just yet. Walking up to any computer and logging in as yourself has been toyed with for years and was actually a feature Apple announced and then retracted before release (sorry, can't find a link but it was 5 or 6 years ago). At that time, your more personal settings, like the Dock, were saved and synced between computers and the idea was that you could go up to a strange computer, type in your ID and password and it would log in and look exactly like your home computer. Log out and it's all erased. I don't know the details of why it was abandoned but with iCloud a lot of synced information was dropped so parity is harder now. It's not impossible to bring back but they seem to be moving away from the idea. The rest I fully agree would be nice though I doubt full fledged computers will go away completely. They are already being surpassed by smaller personal devices like the iPad and iPhone but there are always cases where you need the extra power and/or deeper control. It used to be that you got a laptop to augment your more powerful desktop with a less powerful portable. Then laptops became powerful enough to replace the desktop for most people so even though it wasn't as powerful as the desktop it was powerful enough. Now tablets and the like are pushing a shift back the other direction with the option of having the full power on a desktop at home and the much less powerful personal tablet taking over the portable role. So in that sense you are right that laptops are being forced out to some degree. Though it's worth noting that Apple still sells far more laptops than desktops so perhaps they are becoming the home computer of choice due to their unobtrusiveness.

Comment from whtllnew

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

@AtlantaDude Cant help thinking the day will come, not too long after this security is implemented, when it will be easier to get a fake thumbprint for somebody than it will be to disguise yourself to look like them.

Comment from AtlantaDude

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

For added security on the payment related stuff, you could take a picture of your thumb when you first set up your phone. Each cash register in the store would have a thumb print reader. As long as your live thumb print matches the one sent from your phone, the transaction goes through.

Comment from Kuvuplan

WedPMCSTE_Rthth

[Apples next monitor should include the technology that allows sound to be focused on one user. That way you could listen to your music without headphones while the person next to you hears nothing. That technology already exists. It needs to be in my monitor.] This is the first I've heard of this technology, where can I find it, what are keywords to use for a proper Google search?