Is it time to end our love affair with R-PI?

The RPi provided a full computer with HDMI and USB ports at a revolutionary price. We need to be grateful that this pushed the price of hobby electronic modules down to consumer price points and proved that it was possible to create a successful product using this strategy. The door is now open to someone (including Raspberry) to take this business model to the next level.

Designing a decent computer module that costs between $20 and $50 is no longer hard to imagine. The next level is probably going to be all about the eco system - both hardware and especially software. Imagine a $25 pocket computer that loads self-configuring applications, dragged seamlessly from an app database. Plug and play peripherals. A software development environment that is simple enough to harness a massive number of users developing proper self-configuring apps automatically published in the app database.

It sounds like a smart phone without the display and that may be how it converges, but the  key is an eco system that enables smart people, who are not programmers, to create polished hardware and software applications in their field of expertise.

There are millions of RPIs bought with this promise, but gathering dust because this missing link has not been bridged.

"Designing a decent computer module that costs between $20 and $50 is no longer hard to imagine. The next level is probably going to be all about the eco system - both hardware and especially software. Imagine a $25 pocket computer that loads self-configuring applications, dragged seamlessly from an app database. Plug and play peripherals. A software development environment that is simple enough to harness a massive number of users developing proper self-configuring apps automatically published in the app database.

It sounds like a smart phone without the display and that may be how it converges, but the  key is an eco system that enables smart people, who are not programmers, to create polished hardware and software applications in their field of expertise."

That's so far from my vision of computing and learning about it  !

To me it sound like one of Dante's Circles of Hell.

Layer upon layer of unkown code wasting billions of processor cycles while stealing your private information !

My ideal single board computer has a small FPGA on it - if you want a CPU then design your own 

MK

This year I have had my first experiences with FPGAs, and I couldn't agree more with that dream. It's the same feeling as when I was given my first meccano as a child, I could build anything. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time and the meccano did not take me to the moon, but I had fun and learned. That's the same thing I look for as an electronics hobbyist.

Yeah I use a lot of FPGAs in my designs - or if you really want a good SoC look at the PSoC range from Cypress - combining a hard core ARM processor with FPGA style configurable logic. Want 12 UARTS? You got it. Want bespoke timers? You got it. Want PWM galore? You got it. PSoC would make a good basis for an MCU based dev kit. Although it won't run Linux ;-)
If you'd like a low cost flexible Linux platform - how about Onion's Omega 2S+ ?

"Layer upon layer of unkown code wasting billions of processor cycles while stealing your private information"

This sounds like you are describing almost every smart phone and connected computer already in existence...

For some reason one or two people still want  their smart phones...

I prefer to be standing on the shoulders of giants

I remember having to do a ton of work to get a mouse cursor to appear on my screen... I for one am very thankful for the libraries and OSs (aka layers) that take care of those details for me - now I can almost just drag n drop UI elements to build a nice interface, I can communicate via WiFi and MQTT with just a few lines of code, I can store and organize data with just a few lines of code too - I did at one point have to build that all out manually! well, not all - I was using a file system for the files at least. I couldn't imagine going back to doing it all myself.

The danger does lie in "what else is it doing", both in terms of privacy as well as efficiency, but with proper Open Source Software, there should be enough scrutiny to keep that in check.

I prefer to be standing on the shoulders of giants

I remember having to do a ton of work to get a mouse cursor to appear on my screen... I for one am very thankful for the libraries and OSs (aka layers) that take care of those details for me - now I can almost just drag n drop UI elements to build a nice interface, I can communicate via WiFi and MQTT with just a few lines of code, I can store and organize data with just a few lines of code too - I did at one point have to build that all out manually! well, not all - I was using a file system for the files at least. I couldn't imagine going back to doing it all myself.

The danger does lie in "what else is it doing", both in terms of privacy as well as efficiency, but with proper Open Source Software, there should be enough scrutiny to keep that in check.