Feedback on desktop convergence changes

[Peter Rauhut]

My point was that convergence of the two may limit the ability of design 
and development to a point where useful features may be blocked due to 
how they would affect other types of devices.

One of my biggest criticisms of Windows 8 and Unity have been that they 
force the desktop users into a touchscreen friendly environment. This 
type of design decision makes sense for tablets and phones because that 
is their primary input device. For a laptop/desktop, however, it is not 
as easy to use or as intuitive when your primary inputs are a keyboard 
and mouse.

For the use case you mention, though, where you use your phone to 
control what your computer is showing on a big screen, that would be 
accomplished with an adapter of some sort, think Chromecast. Where your 
phone makes a call to the computer and the computer is listening for it 
and receives the instruction. Convergence isn't necessary for this to 
occur. This would be accomplished by another app. I would think that 
feature would be ideal for MythBuntu, if it doesn't already exist.

On 8/20/14, 3:03 PM, George DiceGeorge wrote:
> But as phones get more powerful wont it become more common to connect 
> them to big screen and keyboard somehow (maybe via usb to a pc) and 
> then control the phone software with mouse keyboard and big display? 
> And conversely I want to control my desktop computer to play movies on 
> a big screen via my phone when I'm in bed. This could be an argument 
> for convergence.
> [george]
> *From:* Peter Rauhut <mailto:dabeor at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 20 August, 2014 15:56
> *To:* xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com 
> <mailto:xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com>
> *Subject:* Re: Feedback on desktop convergence changes
> Even if we remove the concern about where Unity will go, convergence 
> of Phone/Tablet and Desktop code means that all changes that are made 
> for the phone/tablet must take the Desktop into account and 
> vice-verse. Phones and tablets are essentially used in the same way 
> and making design and technical decisions for those type of 
> environments to match is fine.
>
> However, desktop environments are used in a very different way. The 
> decisions that are made for a desktop environment should not be 
> limited by how it will affect a phone/tablet. My opinion is that these 
> two different things should remain separate.
>
>
> On 8/20/14, 9:01 AM, Alistair Buxton wrote:
>> On 19 August 2014 22:19, Michael Hallmailto:mhall119 at ubuntu.com  wrote:
>>
>>> The appearance of Unity on the desktop should remain functionally the
>>> same (it'll get a visual update though). It will still function as a
>>> desktop, the way Unity 7 does today.
>> I think the concern here is that the converged applications will be as
>> bad as Unity, and not that Unity itself will get any worse.
>>
>> This does not affect Xubuntu however as we only use a couple of Ubuntu
>> applications which could easily be replaced if they go south.
>>
>> A much bigger question is whether Xorg will continue to receive the
>> same level of maintenance as it does now, since there is very little
>> chance Xfce will be ported to Wayland at any time in the next two
>> years. (Since it would require a total rewrite and either the removal
>> of several features or a massive effort to reimplement the missing
>> required APIs in a cross-desktop way.)
>>
>> --
>> Alistair Buxton
>> a.j.buxton at gmail.com
>>
>
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