Cloud computing is set to become an increasingly important aspect of daily life, even if many people will be unaware of the transition that has been made from in-house technology to services powered by the collective might of remote server farms. With high speed internet connections widely available in homes, experts are beginning to ask whether devices will be responsible for the management of cloud complexity in a domestic environment or if software applications will bear this load, leaving physical technology as largely irrelevant.
On the face of it, you could argue that applications have already won the war, because ever since the App Store was introduced by Apple back in 2008, people have become accustomed to using bite-sized programs to carry out various tasks. These vary from organising their day and planning their weekly shop to calculating a mortgage and sprucing up their photographs. An interconnected digital home can use applications to share content between smart phones and computers, stream video in high definition from the internet and control everything from PVR recording times to the temperature of the central heating.
But while software applications can transcend the need for a specific piece of hardware thanks to clever programming and the homogenisation of components, there are still many different manufacturers and business partnerships involved in dictating how the cloud makes its way into your home. This means that your device can often dictate the services to which you have access, even if there is no technical reason other than the relationship between a handful of large corporations preventing you from using a broader range of the cloud-based systems.
Third-party software developers might help to get around device limitations and exclusive partnerships which affect the way in which you are able to manage the cloud in your home. This brings the focus back onto applications rather than hardware. While Apple has been phasing out native support for Google services in iOS over the years, there are still apps available for the iPhone, iPod and iPad which grant access to cloud-based features like Google Docs with deep integration for device-specific functions.
Cloud Computing
It is in the interest of the software developers and the cloud-service providers themselves to be as transparent and open as possible. In a competitive market not every customer will wish to be tethered to one particular device manufacturer. This is good news for consumers, because it means that applications which harness the cloud and could be integrated into your home life will not be exclusively available on an iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry device.
The exclusivity of some services, like Apple’s iCloud, is assured because the developer and provider control both the hardware and software. However, even Apple knows that it would be foolish to keep the Windows PC user out of the loop, particularly since many people have both Apple and Microsoft products in their homes. As such, while the mobile industry is going to be subjected to much tighter restrictions on which cloud services can be controlled from which handsets, traditional desktop computing platforms are going to benefit from greater freedom.
There is little doubt that devices have become a little less significant from a hardware point of view in recent years. In particular, the cloud computing revolution will take the burden of processing power away from the device itself, transplanting it to servers and using high speed internet connections so that applications and games can be powered remotely. This will eliminate the need to upgrade your device every few months or years. However, we are still only just on the cusp of having cloud-controlled homes and the battle over which companies will be responsible for the control of all this complexity has yet to reach its conclusion.
About the Author: The above article is composed and edited by Irene Simpson. She is associated with many technology communities as their freelance writer and adviser. In her free time she writes articles related to technology Broadband Expert, wireless internet, etc. For more information please visit http://www.broadbandexpert.com/high-speed-internet/
