Worse: screen real estate. What’s an iphone? A couple hundred pixels squared, maybe 2mp if we’re lucky. It’s not so much the size of the screen (although it helps to have a larger screen), but the limited number of pixels. I have two monitors, setup with twinview, and when I’m browsing the web, I almost always have my web browsers maximized on at least one screen (sometimes both). Web pages are big, screen-wise, and they can’t be shrunk without redesigning almost the entire site — which would then remove any benefits of having a larger screen.

Another nail in the coffin is processing power (already mentioned): there is no way an iphone can compete with my laptop in terms of processing power. I am a programmer, and I tend to need to run a compiler quite frequently. Even small- to medium-sized programs take significant processing power to compile. Did I mention interpreted programs? How about Java applets? Flash?! (ok, skip flash. But for an average web user, flash is important). These things just can’t run in that limited of an environment.

How about repairs? If my computer’s monitor breaks, I go down to the local computer shop, and buy a new monitor. If my video card breaks I buy a new one, pop it in, and problem solved. Even on my laptop, most components can be replaced if I get hold of them – which, if you know the right words to say, is not all that hard, really. And I don’t need to hire an expert to do this. What happens if an iphone breaks? You send it back to Apple. If you’re lucky, they send your phone back with your data intact and you’re good to go. You still lost a week or two waiting for the repair, and possibly lost your data in the process (if it were a laptop, you could grab the data off of the hard drive before you sent it away, at least).

DATA! That’s another thing. iphones don’t have enough space. I mean, they’re OK, but I have 800gb of storage space on my desktop, 200gb on my laptop, and that exceeds all iphones I have seen. Saving data? Well, sure. But I carry with me — on my laptop — maxima (for my calculus class), which requires an entire common lisp implementation to run, I carry my entire music collection, I carry several videos, mostly of lectures that I need to watch, several e-books, saved copies of web pages that I would like to browse when I’m not near wifi and I’m not stationary enough to use Clearwire (a local wireless ISP). Basically, I need storage space, and lots of it, to do my daily activities.

How about typing? It’s hell to type on tiny devices. You can succumb to blackberry thumb if you use one of the thumb keyboards (it’s a form of tendonitis in your thumbs, similar to carpal tunnel syndrome). You have major accuracy problems if you try to use palm’s handwriting recognition. Severe speed penalty for on-screen keyboards. Privacy concerns for voice recognition (as if these devices were powerful enough for that!), or you have to buy very expensive and delicate keyboards to attach to these things — a (failed) attempt to compensate for a clear problem spot. I’m finicky about my keyboards. I type at about 75-80wpm on my desktop, 50-60wpm on my laptop (posture makes a difference), and that is almost fast enough to let my thoughts flow onto the keyboard. I couldn’t stand it if I had to spend 45 minutes typing out an e-mail!

I also have privacy concerns. I use open source because I don’t trust companies who won’t tell me what their software does to write software that I can trust. malicious software, microsoft and apple’s DRM, and so forth are exactly why I don’t use proprietary programs. I don’t know if the iPhone will phone home every time I listen to a song — it’s possible that it does, and the MAFIAA could get wind of it. I like to encrypt my e-mail, at least between me and the server. Does the iPhone do that? I don’t know, but I have my doubts.

Yeah, there is no way toys could replace my laptop. For work, or for play.

I am not doing computing or browse the internet on an iPod or an iPhone!

No way! It is too small and not powerful enought.

hello!

No way!