Doors

The way we use computers (and nowadays, tablets and mobile phones) has always been based on metaphors. First there was card-punch - automatic loom served as a metaphor, then teletype - communication with the computer like with a far away partner, keyboard - music equipment, screen -  television, multiscreen - filofax, desktop - writing desk.  We seem to be stuck there, even the newest smart phones use the desktop metaphor.  The result is growing screens with any computers or telphone alike. This is probably a dead end.

More powerful mobile devices and the desktop metaphor drive screen size upwards which decreases mobility (bigger devices are less mobile).Newest smarphones are at the verge of usability, at least if you have a small hand.

Why we have to follow a metaphor at all? Inventors before could find out new way of interaction, only the computer industry can't invent something really new? 

The last fundamental invention I remember was the Doors GUI from Xerox (I can't found any reference to it). Doors was actually an extension of Windows and allowed to have different "rooms" all having different desktop. The "rooms" had the same applications but you could arrange them differently e.g. have a "room" work, hobby, development, administration - according your preference. 

Maybe this concept could be reused. Your "computer" - which shouldn't be a computer at all but a cloud based service - could realize where you are  (home, at work, on a plane or in a restaurant), what are you doing (working, playing, communicating...) and adapt itself to it. It even should adapt to the device you just use - computer, notebook, tablet, smartphone, television or a music player - always providing the applications in the form which is most appropriate. (An mp3 player won't do word processing, but it could do voice recognition, have a calendar and some basic functions.)

 Naturally I can't and don't expect that an app support all of kind of devices. In the future services and apps will be separated. There will be new business models; e.g. you subscribe a service and then buy the apps (maybe from different vendors) which let you utilize the service on your various devices.