Are you willing to go all the way back to that (back to original Jurassic Park quality) just to gain a bit of portability?
I can tell you for a fact that many of my scenes nowadays would never render in a timely manner on tablets, that is if it fit into the RAM at all. For starters, you can just forget about microdisplacement and any high-detail production using the new Geometry Nodes.
Even those Mini-PC boxes would be a much better option, and you can still take it with you (with a keyboard, a mouse, and a tiny monitor that can be stashed away in a bike bag or a car trunk).
You are not getting it. Personally would only need to have access to it to make a small change for an asset that works in a tablet hardware. Kids instead can start learning the light stuff enter into Blender family and then go to PC or Linux if need more hardware performance.
One solution you might try is to use your desktop computer remotely (if you have a permanent spot for it). This would require a good internet connection, for both your tablet and your desktop. Iâm not in the loop with tablets these days, and if they have any remote capabilities or not? But it might be a good solution for you? The advantage here would be that you would run the software on the more capable desktop and just use the tablet as a display/input device.
Technically, I use a laptop like a desktop (I never move it from its spot on my desk, the only difference is that laptops supposedly consume less electricity than desktops), but either way, I should definitely look into remote desktop setups. Still, the few decent-ish 3D modeling apps I have found are great for practicing and making base meshes just on my phoneâsort of like how no coder in their right mind would make high-level code exclusively on their phones or âdietâ iPad apps, but if you just want to learn or refresh yourself on the basics of coding languages like C++ Duolingo-style for a few minutes each day, even on days where youâre too busy to really spend your time on a computer and professional coding IDES, thereâs an app for that. My iPad is actually larger and harder to hold than my laptop, and thatâs without getting a Bluetooth Keyboard to go with my iPad, so itâs probably just better in my case to just build the arm muscles needed to carry the laptop and its many accessories around the house.
Plus, these apps are an excellent reminder that limitations breed creativityâsome of the best and cleanest early video game character designs, like Super Mario and Crash Bandicoot, are the result of fighting against the ridiculous hardware limitations of the time. If I can make passable low-poly art on my phone, imagine what I could do on my RTX 3060-equipped laptop with texture sizes WELL above 512 x 512 pixels maxâŚ
So if tablets displace conventional laptops and desktops as the primary operating systems used by the majority of the population for digital work, is there any specific reason youâre concerned Open Source software would not also migrate to those systems?
Donât forget, that next generation of open source users is also the next generation of open source contributors and developers. Theyâre going to code for systems they use first and foremost.
Never mind that Windows tablets have been a thing for years, so even if people drop laptops for tablets, itâs not like thatâs going to kill Windows (unless people also ditch tablets for phones, LOL. That would probably kill Windows unless the Windows phone is re-invented and can get people to stick with it this time).
Now for cloud-based SaaS type software implementations, well obviously that gets a little trickier, but itâs been done. There are open-source software solutions that have their own subscription cloud hosting service or can be hosted on the users own server for the more technically savvy (either hardware at home or their preferred cloud server service).
Well yeah Windows tablets are a minority because most people who are looking for Windows are looking for full fledged PCs. Unless Microsoft and all the PC manufacturers are ran by idiots who refuse to adapt, that will likely change if the consumer market changes.
If portability becomes favored over functionality, or if higher spec functionality becomes the norm for tablets generally speaking, all the things people can do on a Windows tablet they canât do on an Android or iOS tablet would encourage adoption.
And if not, it wonât matter since open source will migrate to the OSes people use, if for no other reason than the people who develop open source will be using them. Though I personally will always prefer an OS thatâs less âApp Storeâ focused when it comes to installing software. (I donât actually like Windows, but stopped using Linux because I got tired of the constant trouble I kept having with Nvidia drivers)
Android: Is perfect for phones, because it can run apps exclusively (not favoring multi tasking). This style of use if perfect while you are on the go, because say you are walking or standing, and you have very focused environment.
Android Tablets: This is about 50-50 perfect in my opinion. Because it somehow limits your abilities as a power user. There is not a wealth of applications (there are a good few, but not everything possible). Also it somehow following the UI phone paradigm, it supposed to be a big phone, thus it prevents you from having powerful-multi-tasking abilities. You can surely multi-task, either by switching apps, either having two open side-by-side, but pretty much thatâs it.
Windows Laptop: You can run all programs you need. For reasonable use of Blender and other 2D drawing software you are OK, provided that you wonât do simulations-rendering and only work between MID-poly and HIGH-poly scenes. You might be able to perform the 80% of the work you need, and then pump up the details later on on Desktop only if needed, reusing the same blend files, synching with Google Drive and other good things.
Windows Tablet: These are supposed to be the evolution of laptops (keep in mind that there are hybrid Laptop-Tablet devices â so more or less we talk about the same ideas). You get the same idea as the Laptop but you go more for a TABLET style. This perhaps is a perfect way to have some stylus-touch-screen uses. Just in case you are interested to buy a 100$ drawing pad, or perhaps a 300$ drawing screen, perhaps it would make sense if you combine all of these features into one device (instead of a laptop + drawing path â you get a windows tablet).
Windows market share seems to have been dropping so there is some credibility that tablet/web devices like iOS, Android and ChromeOS based ones are starting to be the way people interact with computers. Google was extremely forward thinking here, getting chromeOS based devices in schools during the pandemic. Now a lot of schools provide those devices to kids. They are going to grow up and look for the same experience. Microsoft has moved nearly the whole office suite to be a React.js based âapplicationâ.
I donât know if tablets are going to be the thing that displaces Windows or Mac based machines, I think web based devices like ChromeOS though could very well do that. OSS will have to adapt, which is one the strengths of OSS in the first place. So I donât see the situation being a dire one.
All starting at an age where theyâre too young to think about about the long term consequences about how the data being collected on them based on their browsing habits, âprivateâ emails*, and public posts and comments could affect their social, career, and educational opportunities in the future. That data isnât only used for advertisements. I donât think a lot of these kids have anyone teaching them basic internet safety either, so a lot of them are posting their real name, age, hometown, and sometimes even school publicly.
Not to mention information that employers technically arenât supposed to use when deciding whether to hire you, but we all know they do. Or just things that once theyâre older and wiser, they will deeply regret having shared publicly. Lots of adults do these too of course, but an adult is supposed to be theoretically better able to assess risk before taking it, and kids are being opted into these systems way too young. Smart phones play a big role in this too, however.
* Google does collect data from the content of your emails. Theyâre not private.
@thorn and @Nanoglyph:
I couldnât agree more.
And honestly, it triggers a sense of repulsion in me (on something like an intellectual level) if I see someone praise that as
like itâs something to admire them for.
Of course it was also quite shabby to see how readily public authorities hastily rushed to introduce these sorts of digital infrastructures into the schools all of a sudden during the pandemic, this obviously much to the terms of those corporations and for the sake of what, actually?
It was being justified by some handwavy notion of avoiding a further elongated period of classes not taking place at all.
One has to ask though, at what cost, and did resuming schooling a bit earlier this way really make a difference anyway?
Actually our local school district replaced textbooks with ChromeBooks about a decade ago so Google has been chipping away at this well before the pandemic. I do think these digital infrastructures were a necessity during the pandemic, but anything Google or Chrome is a notoriously well-known poor choice for privacy. And since theyâre primarily just a Chrome-based web portal with a little storage, kids arenât even learning basic computer skills unless they have access to a real computer at home as well. Itâs baffling that itâs not more controversial.
Money. I assume thereâs campaign donations involved, and replacing paper and paper textbooks with ChromeBooks and digital books was theoretically supposed to save schools money. Although my kid brotherâs math class saved even more money by having no math book at all - not even digital, relying entirely on lectures he never took notes on, which made tutoring him a LOT more work.
Not sure what kids who didnât have an older college sibling who was good at math were supposed to do if they struggled. Fail, I guess. Or cheat. Replacing pencils, papers, and books with ubiquitous internet access really makes cheating rampant over the long term. From what Iâve seen at least.
And since this has gotten kind of off-topic, I need to stop talking about Google now. LOL. I still believe ChromeBooks are so useless, anyone who wants to do any serious work and not just browse the web will pick a different OS. Android/iOS at least, though Windows/Linux/Mac will likely remain better choices for the foreseeable future. If all computer program access becomes website based, then yeah, Open-Source will be in big, big trouble. However, I think installable programs that work offline will always be more useful and more reliable, and that operating systems that favor such programs will always be a necessity.
I wasnât trying to discuss the politics of it or even if itâs a good thing. Just that itâs happening and that can have an effect on how this generation of kids grow up interacting with technology and computers in the future. They may not have any issues at all with a dumb terminal connected to the cloud. Just like this current gen of 20 somethings have no issues with rent seeking, social media etc. Iâm from an older generation where owning stuff, and keeping your data off of the internet was what was done. Now itâs the opposite and we have subscriptions for pretty much everything, and I look weird when I tell people I donât have Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok account. Overall I think the effect of having cheap ChromeOS devices and a young captive audience is going to bear fruit at some point. What that looks like? Who knows.
