Well, my second sentence was “the world is not ready”.
Think about how much we’ve moved to the cloud already.
I used to have a 60GB iPod with all my music. Now I have Spotify.
I used to burn DVD’s, buy empty boxes and print covers. Now I have Netflix and 2-3 other alternatives.
I used to remember passwords, buy paper tickets, print boarding cards, save receipts, receive bank statements… now I have Gmail.
I used to lose touch with half of my friends every time I lost a mobile phone. Now I can pick up a brand new phone and have all my contacts back in under 60 seconds, not asking a single one what their number is.
Next step is unloading the computing power. It has been happening on workstations and terminals for a long time now. I can run photoshop elements, word, excel, powerpoint on my cellphone by logging into a virtual desktop through Citrix. That is what I’m getting at with the inevitable way forward, also on mobile platforms. But for me to cut the cord and rely on the cloud the network coverage should be 110% reliable, 110% coverage, much faster, and much cheaper. We’re far far from there.
Regarding sensitive data… It’s a big issue. But that is one thing that could actually be stored locally. In some way that the data is useless without the app (if you lose you phone) and the app is useless without your data (if someone hacked the cloud storage). The data could be stored at some third party you trust - your bank perhaps? Or maybe the encryption will improve dramatically? Again - the world is not ready, yet.