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Complexity | 297 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Complexity
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, January 21 2013 @ 11:34 AM EST
This definitely applied to the PC world of 20 years ago, and mostly holds
today. It was much less true of the notebook world, which generally had more
specialized hardware, custom designed for a small number of models. There
is more commoditization in the notebook world today, but it is still not on the

scale of the PC world you write of.

Mobile phones are way beyond the performance envelope that notebook
computers were wrestling with. Every cubic millimeter of space matters,
every erg of energy spent is important. In addition to packing in as much
computing power as possible, in as energy efficient manner as possible (the
latter often more important) there are many more expectations regarding
communication than 20 years ago - it is a phone, and must talk to phone
networks with varying standards, it will support WiFi, and bluetooth, and
some physical external connection such as USB. That quite a few antennae
bringing in *and* *transmitting* EM signals that must not interfere with the
operation of the electronics themselves. Remember we are packed into a
small space, made all the smaller by trying to accommodate as large a battery
as possible.

And this is before we try solving the various HMI issues related to not being
able to support a full size keyboard. Even if we can use the aforementioned
bluetooth to link up a keyboard, it is far from the common use case, so we
will need other (primary) ways to communicate with the device. Touch is
simply the latest approach to the problem.

All this in a device rugged enough to travel with its users on a daily basis,
and
for most of the day, where it will be out of sight and not especially cosseted
as a piece of fragile electronics.

The modern mobile phone is an impressive feat of engineering, whether from
Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or any number of other vendors. It is a far cry from
the lego-like PCs some of us assembled 20 years ago.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Complexity - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 22 2013 @ 01:27 AM EST
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