iPad, Surface, Ultrabook: Are we there yet?

On the other hand, it's not a super enjoyable platform for programming just yet. Emacs-ing into an AWS account works great, but the 10" isn't big enough for two buffers side-by-side. A 13" screen is just perfect for two 80x25 buffers.

I ended up getting an Air to supplement. It doesn't replace my iPad--reading and marking up PDF's (which I do a lot while researching cases) is just a joy on an iPad between the Retina display and touch manipulation.

This arrangement doesn't achieve the dream of consolidation, but: 1) together they're no heavier than my 13" MBP; 2) it's super handy to have the second screen.

I'm not thrilled about the combo devices. They all involve substantial compromises, which is why I assume Apple has stayed away so far. And as a practical matter, I think a 3 pound MBA + 1.5 pound iPad, with a combined 16+ hours of WiFi-enabled battery life, is more manageable in practice than a 3.5 pound convertible with 4-5 hours of battery life.

Out of the combo devices, I think the dockables actually have the most promise, though there isn't a good one yet. I'd love to see something like the Asus TF810C (dockable Clovertrail Windows 8 machine), except without the garish spun metal backing and with a Retina-class display: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/en_US/pd/ThemeID....

I've tried the 11" macbook air and simply couldn't get over the fact that the screen is too dense/ small. The ipad, or even the mini, are fine, but that's because apps are designed for low information density / large font sizes. Desktop OS's simply don't fit well on screens below 13" unless you have excellent vision, which I don't. Windows 8's solution of lowering information densities to cope with small screens is a non-solution, because the reason to use a proper laptop is to be productive, and productivity requires information density. I expect the tide to turn and screens to become larger again. 13" is the bare minimum for me.

> The touch keyboard on the iPad is excellent, really

Again, not for me. I can't type properly on it. I'm using it right now and not liking the experience. I agree that it is as good as touch keyboards are going to get, but that simply is not good enough. I'm glad the tide is shifting and people are realizing that a proper keyboard attached to a tablet makes sense.

Everything my mega-Linux DAW workstation at home can do, this thing can now do. I don't need Apple; the ultra-light solution I can stash in my pocket, plug into my friends HDMI screen, or hook up to a lapdock, is all I need ..

I don't think touch screens were a mandatory feature of ultrabooks. shrug

This is basically what Windows has done with laptops and desktops with touch screens. I don't think I'm alone in feeling that it's weird and awkward.

TrackPoint has been the most efficient way to get cursor around the screen. Touch interfaces are somewhat there but as per professional software development they are not. And so for other areas. Touch interfaces are inefficient, moving hands around is more difficult then fiddling with track point - as what we weirdos do.

Anyway. Its stupid. What you want doesn't matter, what is amazing will come and bite you and you will be surprised. Thats how it works. Period. "Or Revolution will not be televized" etc etc..

I agree with you that it's not possible, but not for any of the reasons that you listed in your sizable blog post. Most of the things that you listed could technically be combined into a single, extremely expensive device. But the reason it is not possible to make "the perfect computing device" is not technical, it's philosophical.

General-purpose computing devices have such a wide range of uses and every day humans are coming up with so many new ways to use such devices, that it does not make any sense to cram them all into a single "perfect" device. "Perfect" is relative. Perfect for whom? A Ruby programmer who likes to hang out at Starbucks? A graphic designer who juggles $10K worth of Adobe software? A photographer who backpacks around the world, often in rugged terrain? A scientist who needs a way to visualize the latest data from his particle accelerator?

Give me the most perfect Ultrabook that you can find, and I'll still complain that it doesn't come with multiple screens. Give me the most perfect tablet/keyboard combo that you can find, and I'll still complain that it only comes with 1 terabyte of storage. Or that the keyboard doesn't have a numpad. Or that I only get 30fps on my favorite game. Or that the pixels are too large. Or too small. Or whatever. Because anything you think is good enough to count as perfect will be seen as terribly deficient by a lot of other people who have different needs, and vice versa.

For a while, I hoped that the success of data sync tools such as Dropbox would make ideas like "the perfect computing device" irrelevant. Because people in wealthy countries would just buy several devices, from 27" desktops to 7" tablets to 11" ultrabooks to 3.5" iPhones, sync them all, and use whichever device suited their needs at the moment. It would be the combination of all of them and the way a person makes use of them that would be perfect, not any individual device. But it seems that some people are still looking for the One Device to Replace Them All.

I know Hanselman is very sophisticated and tech savvy, but this is utterly naive. We won't be "there" for years and years, this is still just the beginning. I suspect that the computers that people use in 2030 will be more different from the computers of today than those of today are from those of 1996. There will be many familiar elements of course, from desktop, laptop, and mobile hardware and software, but there will be just as much that is unfamiliar to us today.

The system-on-a-chip based computer is as much a revolution as the cpu-on-a-chip "micro-computer" was, and this will result in people using computers in new ways, people owning and using computers who never have before, and an explosion of innovation in computer software and technology.

Smartphones are too small for a lot of tasks now, tablets are mostly used for consumption and when you're mostly static, not mobile, hybrids have a lot of compromises between weight, mobility, price, size, etc, and laptops will be mainly used for work. Plus, look at this trend - we've been using more devices, not fewer.

If anything the ultimate computer will end up being the smartphone, because you have it all the time with you, if certain technologies make it a lot more flexible in what you can do with it in the future, like say holographic stuff. But by the time the smartphone can do that, we may see those technologies in totally new devices, like smart glasses or watches, or who knows.

If you look at the whole computing industry since mainframes until smartphones, we can see at least 3 trends that seem to always be true, with each new generation of "computing device". They are cheaper, smaller, and easier to use. So the next generation of computing devices, whatever that is, should also have those three attributes. And with each generation, we'll probably continue to use the past 2-3 generations for stuff the new one isn't very capable of, although less and less.