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by emehrkay 4862 days ago
I love the transformations that the OS goes through based on device, very much like responsive web design.

My favorite feature is running phone apps on the side with the Windows8-like split view, great idea. I wonder how that translates to portrait.
2 comments
mtgx 4862 days ago
I still think Samsung has the best idea for such multi-tasking with "Dual-View":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ3krff1JCE&feature=yout...

It's not limited to only one column, like in Ubuntu and Windows 8, it splits the apps even, so you can use them fully, and you can even expand or contract one over the other. I think that's a much better implementation.

But Ubuntu's idea for using the phone apps on the side is not too bad either, but that secondary app seems to be meant more as a "companion" app rather than another full app that you want to use in the same time, and give it equal share of the screen (especially on larger screens).

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WrkInProgress 4862 days ago
If they ape the Windows 8 snap view completely, it won't work in portrait.

It will be interesting how they deal with installing phone apps on the tablet. They might just allow carte blanche or might require a developer to opt in to avoid issues with phone specific apps being unusable on the tablet.

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noahl 4862 days ago
What issues would they have with phone-specific apps, other than possibly lacking a microphone and cell plan? If their security model makes the developer list what sensitive APIs (like voice and location) they use, then they already have enough information to disable apps that depend on having a microphone.

If you mean having apps work on bigger screens, it looks like side stage lets them keep phone apps at a reasonable phone size. They might require opt-in to make phone apps fullscreen - that seems reasonable. (Although it sounds like one of their goals with QML is to make it easy to write apps that grow with screen size, so they're hoping that almost all apps will be able to do it.)

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dhruvmittal 4862 days ago
With Skype around, I'd imagine that microphones are actually pretty standard on tablets nowadays? And it's not terribly uncommon to see tablets with HPSA+ connections (or even LTE), right? Tablets and phones are rapidly becoming one in the same, just with different screen sizes.
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