Smart Phone Inspired OS Reform

For a long time the standard for computer applications and operating systems has been "good enough", but mobile device users demand more. More responsiveness, more reliability, more integration, and more ease of use. I am hoping that the emergence of smart phones will result in this demand for increased quality being transferred back to computers in general. Reliability concerns are obvious, so let me give an example of an ease of use issue: change of focus. Frequently when I'm typing in a text field, a program or requester will pop up, changing the focus and resulting in my having to not only hunt for the window I was working in, but also to retype all the text I entered. While arguably a small thing, it occurs frequently and has become a considerable annoyance. This is the sort of easily fixed, idiotic interface glitch that would be unacceptable to mobile device users. Or programs that sit frozen until they have completely loaded. It would be trivial to load enough of the program to allow the user to start working, while the rest of the application loads in the background.

However, I am hoping for more than small improvements. The entire paradigm employed by operating systems is flawed and a legacy of its early days. Right now a file system view model is used, which closely mirrors what's actually going on inside the computer, but is confusing and inefficient for most users. Instead, a greater degree of abstraction needs to be employed. Why is it useful to most users to be able to store their Word documents in strange places anywhere on the drive? The user should neither need to know nor care about such details. Instead of an interface model based on "Here's everything on your entire hard drive, have fun" with some crude tools such as the dock and folders to help organize things, it should be more along the lines of what a smart phone uses: "Here are the top things you do all the time, which would you like?" with a slightly more extended process to access the less common tasks. The user could organize these with an automatic system that tracks their usage habits (although it should never change the interface without user consent). This should be more than a smarter dock, but the primary way one interfaces with their computer, with everything geared towards supporting it. When it comes to using complex systems, less is more. Of course power users will need more advanced features, but they are an extremely small subset and even most of their needs will be met by a simpler, more directed interface. As long as they can step outside of it when required, it should impose no penalty. In general what it comes down to is that comparatively wimpy smart phones have to do more with less, and I am hopeful that the end products of that need will transfer back to general computing.