##ebay

Oh yes, I've seen that. It's pretty slick.

LjL: I suspect Android is just a fad.

LjL: I think eventually we'll get full PC's again in the future. Either Android will go out of style and PC's will make a come-back, or all PC's will become Android, or something like that.

badon, there are some things about the way Android (but also iOS) works that will have to stay around. applications need to be more sandboxed than they are in "PCs", because you totally can't trust applications not doing what they shouldn't anymore. attention to energy usage will be at maximum, because people won't be using plugged-in desktop much anymore for sure.

and i'm a big proponent of touchscreens, on most kinds of systems

Right, and I think all those features are pretty useful on regular PC's too.

So, they'll eventually get crossed-over, in one direction or the other.

badon, yes, but, in which? it's important, because "PCs" can currently be used in a relatively "free" manner, while mobile terminals, not so much. will we have more freedom, or less?

Yes :)

With the hardware standardization that comes with mobile devices, it makes it easier for different OS's to support it.

So, you can use a restrictive OS that emphasizes security and low power consumption, or you can put something else on it that does whatever you want. It's possible a single OS can be configured for all of those roles.

badon, are you sure you meant mobile devices? because there's hardly much hardware standardization on them. custom Android firmwares always require ad-hoc modifications to run on every model, and in all cases, there are (usually many) proprietary drivers involved

I'm talking about the future.

PC's and mobile devices will change such that we'll get mobile PC's again. Exactly how that will go is speculative, but there's multiple possibilities. I just gave you a few I could think of at the moment.

badon, mobile devices have been around for a while, and i haven't seen them converge towards more standardization and less proprietary-ness, hardware wise. so i'm not sure

badon, well, i'm using a device that's a bit like that right now

Mobile devices are still very new. They have only come to prominence in the last 5 to 10 years.

badon, it's a "convertible" (i call it laptop), a touchscreen-based 10" tablet with an Intel processor, that has a keyboard dock that can be attached to it, turning it into something much like a laptop

err, i call it a laplet*

Basically, the Samsung Q1UP was replaced by the iPad, which in turn was replaced by the iPhone and Android.

badon, before that, there were PocketPC-running devices there acted as phones

Right, but they never had much dominance, and certaintly not enough to push out PC's, like the iPad did.

and Symbian devices (which were pretty capable, despite looking much like "normal" phones) are old

not to push out PCs, no, that's a relatively new thing... it's more tablets doing that, than phones. of course the OS is the same on tablets and phones.

Right, they're sharing hardware too.