This is how smartphones will replace computers

[Intervenient]

And until we reach 1Gbps fiber ISP networks, this is not feasible. Period. And ALL computers will still need all the parts they do today.

IOWA, I was thoroughly enjoying the debate between yourself and QXQ. Perhaps you'd like to respond to his post?

 

[IOWA]

Photoshop doesn't use OpenCL, and until CS4 it didn't even use any sort of Hardware accelerated graphics. Even now they use OpenGL, but the improvements barely extend beyond the UI. Here is an actual list of the changes:
GPU and OpenGL features and preferences | Photoshop and Bridge CS5, CS4


I think you may be confused. Laptops rarely have GPUs that aren't directly soldered onto the motherboard. RAM on the other hand is something can be bought off the shelf and upgraded yourself. An increase in RAM would allow you to work with larger files in photoshop without constant drive writes. You can buy SO-DIMMs of newegg, where as you can't purchase laptop GPUs much less replace them.


I don't think you quite understand how X11 forwarding works, since the files are kept locally on the server. VNC also doesn't transfer files, infact, it literally transmits frames from the desktop of the server.


I didn't show you any disrespect and I'm not interested in a flame war. Perhaps you should do some research into the actual technologies I'm talking about?

And the fact that cs4 is two generations old and things will only get more complex and powerful, thus needed more power in general. Which again, just to achieve TODAYS speed and quality it would require trillions of dollars of infrastructure work. Not to mention who's going to pay for all this? Are they going to have tiered processing packages? You can process a terabyte of data per month?

It is simple not possible, or feasible, at least in this lifetime, or maybe the next

 

[QXQ]

And the fact that cs4 is two generations old and things will only get more complex and powerful, thus needed more power in general.

What does that have to do with GPU's? The vast majority of the work is CPU bound. I completely agree with the need for more power, however all of that power doesn't need to be used client side. All the smartphone has to be able to do is display content, and render a usable UI.

Which again, just to achieve TODAYS speed and quality it would require trillions of dollars of infrastructure work.

Since I didn't mention anything that you could be referring too, I'm going to assume you're referring to bandwidth. At which point, I would once again recommend you look into the technologies I mentioned. The benefit of X11 forwarding is that bandwidth is a smaller issue in comparison to latency. X11 was finalized in 1987, before even 28.8k , much less 56k, were even around.

Not to mention who's going to pay for all this? Are they going to have tiered processing packages? You can process a terabyte of data per month?

I'll assume you're referring to private clouds, in which case I'll point out it makes more sense to run a desktop at home, and then use it's processing power (since it's apparently efficient enough for your use at home) on the go. I'm not a fan of the private cloud idea, I simply brought it up as an option. I'm not a fan of another company being in control of my personal data and how it's processed.