The Passing of the Personal Computer Era 329
An anonymous reader writes "AllThingsD columnist Arik Hesseldahl noticed another milestone marking the passing of the personal computer era: for the first time since the early '80s, the share of worldwide sales of DRAM chips consumed by PCs (desktop and laptop computers, but not tablets) has dropped below fifty percent. Perhaps a more important milestone was reached last year, when more smartphones were shipped (not sold) worldwide than the combined total of PCs and tablets (also noticed by Microsoft watcher Joe Wilcox). While this is certainly of tremendous marketing and business importance to the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google, Adobe, and PC OEMs, others may reflect on the impending closing of the history books on the era that started in Silicon Valley a little over 35 years ago."
More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:5, Insightful)
You buy a phone once a year vs a PC once every 3 years. I would expect 3x more smartphone shipments than PCs.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. I haven't bought a refrigerator in a while either, but it's not because I don't like refrigeration.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:4, Interesting)
But refrigerators don't double in power every 18 months.
Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:5, Interesting)
Power isn't what matters. Useful power is.
Desktop and laptop PCs have simply passed the point where even an entry-level model is sufficient for everyday home and business tasks like reading e-mail, web browsing, working on office documents and database applications, and playing audio/video files.
As soon as that happened, the upgrade treadmill was doomed. That sucks for the businesses who were happily coasting along knowing that every 2–3 years someone was going to pay them more money just to get a faster PC and all the preinstalled software that would come with it. It's good news for everyone who actually uses these devices, though, at least until the industry responds by doing shady things that build in obsolescence and try to keep the treadmill running artificially.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3, Interesting)
The American Economy thanks you for your efforts.
Would you mind convincing all the people on your block to buy multiple big-ticket items for Christmas as well? Interest rates are low, so it's cheap to borrow!
Useful power (Score:2)
Technology advances will likely start the treadmill up again (although percentages of RAM sold don't exactly spell the end of sales to me... lol)
One example is real 3d displays. Not the stereo silliness they're trying to market now, but fully 3d volumetric renders. This will start out expensive and then drop into the consumer range. You'll need lots of CPU power to drive these; you'll need new display units; you'll need new hardware to drive those display units. There are prototypes now that work surprisingly well, so the light at the end of that tunnel will be something you can sense the distance of pretty soon.
Another *might* be AI. Personally, I suspect this is an algorithm problem, not necessarily a CPU power or RAM problem, but if it requires CPU power and/or RAM, that will also restart the treadmill. Further, real AI might spawn off some new applications as fundamental as the spreadsheet or the word processor... never know how a new intelligence will try to take the world as a problem set. I would bet that real AI would bring about a serious and sudden demand for HD or other high density storage. When Johnny Silicon sez it needs another 20 terabytes so it can learn your problem space properly, are you going to tell it no? If you don't think AI is possible, that's ok, because it's coming no matter what you think. :)
Another is speech input, which may see a solution outside of AI. What we have now is pitiful... like talking to a half-deaf preschooler. You can't seriously use it without double-checking every word. Compare that to talking to a co-worker, where you can speak the argot of your speciality, ask 'em if they have any questions, and then go about your business, knowing that whatever it was is handled. If this requires RAM, CPU power or special hardware, how many will balk when the alternative is being freed from not only the keyboard, but the desk? If you can talk to your machine (and they can already talk back, so that's not even an issue), there should be a lot of cases when you can be elsewhere and still extremely productive. Smartphones and tablets can help here, acting as remote displays for stuff high-power computed elsewhere.
And of course technology could very easily throw us a curve... an invention just around the corner that no one has yet thought of. Or, perhaps it's been thought of and is sitting quietly in some SF work, just waiting for someone to go... "Hey! I can *make* that!"
I think we're looking at an early peak in a multiple-peak technology. Based on power consumption and noting just how sloppy modern programming is in terms of the huge, memory-hungry executables our average dev system chokes out (insert any c++ compiler and its stock classes here), it seems clear to me that the machines that run any kind of serious apps are not going to be squeezed into tablets for quite some time without fusion backpacks and hats that incorporate cooling towers. And as it seems obvious that more powerful apps are inevitable... high powered, fixed machines aren't going to go away.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:5, Interesting)
Power isn't what matters. Useful power is.
Desktop and laptop PCs have simply passed the point where even an entry-level model is sufficient for everyday home and business tasks like reading e-mail, web browsing, working on office documents and database applications, and playing audio/video files.
As soon as that happened, the upgrade treadmill was doomed. That sucks for the businesses who were happily coasting along knowing that every 2–3 years someone was going to pay them more money just to get a faster PC and all the preinstalled software that would come with it. It's good news for everyone who actually uses these devices, though, at least until the industry responds by doing shady things that build in obsolescence and try to keep the treadmill running artificially.
This. There is this weird opinion by many that "less PC are sold" automatically means "less people use a PC". That is not true - personal computers are still being used everywhere, it's just that a.) by now everybody who wants one has one, because they got cheaper and everybody can afford one now and b.) the hardcore upgraders (i.e. those who upgraded their board/CPU/graphics card every 6 months because of new games etc. which benefitted from those upgrades) do not NEED to upgrade as often anymore, because even the CPU/graphics card from 2 years ago can still run the latest games. I sure can still remember that around 2000-2005 or so I upgraded my main machine here every couple months because it actually provided a noticeable speed upgrade, that is not the case anymore. My core2 duo lasted 3 years in my main machine before I upgraded it - not out of necessity, but because I just felt like doing some hardware fiddling again.
Children are born (Score:2)
by now everybody who wants [a general-purpose personal computer] has one
Until the hardware physically breaks. After that point, the family PC might end up replaced with a locked-down iPad. Or until more children are born and eventually enter high school without a PC of their own to use, as betterunixthanunix mentioned [slashdot.org].
Re:Children are born (Score:2)
Re:Children are born (Score:2)
My neighbors wife has recently been forced to get a Moto Droid4 by her job, she is mid 50's with a college degree in (somthing) and she told me that she could hardly use it at all! She also has a new (ish) laptop PC that she uses with no problems. Her husband, my old pal Niello only plays Solitaire an answers email.
Not everybody wants/needs a "smartphone"!
Re:Children are born (Score:3)
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
You're forgetting that PCs are now so cheap that you can dedicate them to different tasks. I think I have nine that are used at least intermittently, from my old Pentium-4 box that's booted up every few months to my laptop to my netbook to my HTPC to my home server to the Windows box we keep around so my girlfriend can run iTunes.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:5, Informative)
Dude. We have to educate you about virtual machines. Time to recycle and reclaim!
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
virtual machines are not equivalent to dedicated hardware.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
Alright then. Let's see.
Dedicated hardware, might be nearly 100% efficient. Most machines are not.
Virtualizing sound and video and certain other streams can be difficult with virtualization. Sometimes.
There might be a platform mismatch. First one I'd have seen in a long time, but might be a possibility, remote as that is.
Might need fast disk channel. Yup. We can do that. Same for network and CPU. Ok. Scratch that.
Except for multimedia redirects and certain graphics functions, there's not much left, really. Nine machines is sloth, generally speaking. Might be a reason, but usually it's: can't be bothered.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
Anything requiring precise timing, from multimedia like you suggested, to things like emulation/simulation and any applications that use 100% cpu most, if not all the time, are not at their best with virtualization even on powerful hardware.
Then there's the concept of "I don't want my big core i7 machine idling 24/7 to run a VM install I could run on hw taking 1/1000th the power"
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:2)
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:2)
At least they still have Microsoft to push for more powerful hardware. If the OS requirements climb above what you have it's off to buy a faster PC. Of course smartphones are fast enough for what most users need and want. The average PC has been overkill for the average user's needs for quite a while, it was the OS itself that drove upgraded hardware needs.
Windows hardware treadmill has slowed (Score:3)
If the OS requirements climb above what you have it's off to buy a faster PC.
That's true of Macs: Mac OS X 10.8 wouldn't run on a Mac mini sold brand-new four year before it was released [slashdot.org]. But Windows system requirements stopped creeping so fast when Microsoft realized that people were keeping old operating systems around to run on old PCs. The system requirements of Windows 7 are all but identical to those of Windows Vista. The system requirements of Windows 8 are also all but identical to those of Windows Vista, I've read.
Re:Windows hardware treadmill has slowed (Score:3)
The system requirements of Windows 7 are all but identical to those of Windows Vista.
That's because Windows 7 is just Vista with some of the suck removed.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
Desktop and laptop PCs have simply passed the point where even an entry-level model is sufficient for everyday home and business tasks like reading e-mail, web browsing, working on office documents and database applications, and playing audio/video files.
Sort of. Software hasn't caught up to taking advantage of hardware, in large part because you get glued to compatibility with 7 year old hardware and you can't take advantage of new hardware.
Though I fully accept that some problems just can't get much 'better' by throwing CPU cycles at it. Windows XP was the first 'good enough for everything' operating system from microsoft, and by about 2003-2004 you could do the vast majority of generic tasks reasonably well on affordable hardware. Quadrupling the speed of the computer won't make me type faster.
The problem of course isn't 99% of the applications on my computer. It's the 1% of applications that actually use the most power (or whatever that happens to be, maybe it's really and 80/20 problem). My car doesn't need to drive 100 Km/h 80% of the time, since I usually just drive too and from work, but I wouldn't buy a car that can't do highway speeds at all (unless it was a second car) sort of thing. If you want to play games, or if HTML 6 or some other new application comes along that really takes advantage of a faster computer you'll see people upgrade. Making windows kinda transparent and applications open 25% faster is improvement, it just, as you say, isn't all that useful.
I suspect the next big 'killer' app is going to look at lot like small business for home, which is going to be things like backup and networking tools for multiple computers, a 'home server'. Stuff geeks do now, but non geeks need. Those problems are more storage related than performance however. Games naturally remain the driver of performance for home users.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:3)
Games naturally remain the driver of performance for home users.
But since much of the serious PC gaming industry is dying under the weight of piracy, a lot of the big name PC games today are either console ports or MMOGs, neither of which is even close to pushing state-of-the-art PC hardware to its limits in most cases. It seems unlikely this will change until the next generation of consoles arrives.
Also, it seems like these days it's not so much the graphics limiting gaming performance as the rest of the code. A single core on a CPU today is a similar speed to those of several years ago and gaming software is notoriously bad at keeping up with the potential of multicore systems, so again, there's little in the gaming world that is really pushing the boundaries of today's current hardware, never mind driving further improvements.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:4, Insightful)
Knock it off with the trolling.. Piracy is an excuse, nothing more as console games are pirated all the time too. The publishers want control, something they cannot get on win32 but can on the shitty consoles.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:2)
I think the smartphone has also passed that point. I wouldn't know what to do with the awesome processing power of the iPhone 5.
Re:Those upgrades don't matter so much any more (Score:2)
Very true. If phones are basically still mobile communication devices, and tablets are basically information consumption devices, then the current levels of performance are more than sufficient for most users and will probably remain so. These kinds of hardware aren't well-suited to more demanding applications. While I suspect we will continue to see innovation in different kinds of device and almost certainly in more integration and ease of connection between devices, the idea that the PC era is at an end because someone invented the smartphone is a bit silly, really.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:3)
And if you buy a ice chest, it's probably because you're going tailgating, not because you're embracing a cold-storage paradigm shift.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the PC side, it has been my experience that most people have computers older than 3 years. The Slashdot demographic is probably not indicative of the general population in this case. I would put the average age of a home PC at closer to the 5-7 year range. Same with corporate. Where I work, the main DB servers are on a 3 year refresh, as are the customer facing computers. Everything else is 5-7 years.
So while I agree with you that people will probably buy more smartphones than computers in their lifetime, I would not put the ratio at 3:1 nor would I expect a 3 year refresh cycle. Although I am sure the manufacturers would love it if the consumers did follow your schedule.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:3)
Where I work, the main DB servers are on a 3 year refresh, as are the customer facing computers. Everything else is 5-7 years.
The rule of thumb I give people is that computers have about a 50% failure rate for hardware at 6 years. If you really care about uptime you end up wanting to replace every 3 or so, BEFORE stuff starts to die. For computers that can be replaced without data loss and where 2 hours of downtime doesn't cause mass panic 5 years is fairly reasonable.
Still paying on a loan that's already paid off (Score:3)
"With ATT, you have paid off the hire-purchase agreement on your old phone after two years"
I radically fixed your spelling.
The problem here is that as I understand it, a customer's monthly bill doesn't go down after the hire-purchase agreement is paid off. This is unlike T-Mobile's Value Plan (formerly Even More Plus), which itemizes the monthly service and the loan repayment and then drops the loan repayment from the bill entirely after two years.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:2)
You buy a phone once a year vs a PC once every 3 years. I would expect 3x more smartphone shipments than PCs.
Around here, a lot of phones come with two-year contracts. Terminating the contract early would be very expensive, so I doubt a lot of those people are buying new phone more than once every two years (unless they are replacing their existing phone because they broke/lost it)
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:2)
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:2)
Also, smartphones are a growing market while the number of PCs is mostly stagnant.
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:2)
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:3)
Stagnation doesn't mean no sales, it means no *growth*. Sure, there are some new consumers entering PC market (as you say, by entering the world) every year, but there are also consumers leaving that market. If the PC market is mostly saturated this turnover won't be enough to significantly increase sales, hence stagnation.
Whereas with smartphones and tablets, the market is not yet saturated, so all of the consumers already in the market buying smartphones for the first time is causing a lot of growth in the industry right now.
So, both higher turnover and growth can completely explain the observation from the article, that more DRAM is going to mobile devices than PCs. "The decline of the PC" in no way has to be implied by it, as well. Hence we probably come to the same conclusion, the article is rather stupid :)
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:3)
Phones are at a primtive stage of development compared to PCs, so they are now obsoleted very quickly and turnover is high.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More smartphones than pc's ? (Score:2)
Marvell Commics (Score:2)
But the iphone is the re-incarnation of the newton.
The Newton supported sideloading. The iPhone does not without either A. the purchase of a Mac and a certificate ($748 for the first year, $99 each additional year) or B. a jailbreak that may become unlawful in Apple's home country once the current round of DMCA exemptions expires next month.
Even the Marvel processors derive from this same origin.
Marvell Commics would end up bought by Disneyy, the same commpany that bought Pixxar, in which Apple's Steeve Jobbs had also been involved.
</pun>
Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only sorts of people satisfied with a smart phone or an ipad rather then a proper computer never really used the computer properly in the first place. They do not do the same thing and you don't have the same control over it. That vital in business which is where much of the demand for computers started in the first place.
The cloud has it's uses and I think it will remain relevant for as long as our smart phones aren't powerful enough to do run desktop level applications entirely in their own processors/memory. That day will come though. And when that happens why trust the cloud and a likely unreliable internet connection when you can run the whole thing live?
The personal computer is as likely to go away as the pencil and paper... less likely actually. The iFad is enjoying it's day but in the end it can't deliver the same utility as a personal computer. And even if it could, there are matters of latency, security, customization, etc that are a systemic flaw of the cloud.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3)
What a load of bullshit.
Of course, mobile computing is getting more and more important.
But no one is giving up their PC on their desktop in their office to do their daily work on an iPhone. The number of PCs being sold is still increasing.
People will be sitting at desks, typing on keyboards, looking at monitors, for the foreseeable future. And using their mobile devices when they're away from the desk.
We still use pens and pencils to write, AS WELL AS keyboards. We still use CDs to play music AS WELL AS MP3s. We still go to cinemas, we don't all watch movies on out 4" smartphone screens. We do all that AS WELL AS using he newer technology. PCs aren't obsolete.
"Passing of the PC era"? Not in my lifetime.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3)
Minis and PCs are general-purpose, unlike iDevices (Score:3)
All throughout this "PC era" we have still used the non-PC computers that preceded it.
Before the PC era we used general-purpose minicomputers that allowed the owner to make, install, and run programs. During the early PC era we used general-purpose microcomputers that allowed the owner to make, install, and run programs; it was just more common for the user to also be the owner. During the later PC era, i386 and i486 PCs stopped being equivalent to microcomputers and became equivalent to minis, allowing multitasking and multiuser operation on Linux and Windows NT just as UNIX and VMS had done on minis. But after the PC era, it is predicted that people will perform more and more tasks on devices that aren't general-purpose computers because only a device's manufacturer, not its owner, has the authority to load applications onto the device.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw in your argument is that you assume that people have to choose between a pc and a mobile device. I'm perfectly satisfied with my phone and tablet, yet I still have a "proper computer". In fact I have many proper computers.
No one ever said that the post pc world would contain no pcs. The point was that a greater share of users would be doing a greater share of their computing from non pc devices.
This is exactly what happened, and the people who were insightful enough to see it coming were able to make a lot of money from their prediction.
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
There will be... to a point. There is a point where the devices will end up with market saturation. PCs got to that point a number of years ago.
The reason why we have seen such a spike in mobile devices is because of convergence. Until smartphones became commonplace, people would have a camera, MP3 player, pager, Blackberry for messages, cell phone, PDA, and GPS unit. Since an average smartphone does more than all these things combined [1], it ends up being a device that appeals for an extremely wide range of users even with the concerns about privacy.
However, there will be a point where smartphones hit diminishing returns where the device made last year doesn't do that much less than the latest and greatest, similar to how a PC on the shelf at a big box store now has almost nothing better than a PC bought 2-3 years ago, other than a faster GPU, faster CPU, and perhaps a tad more RAM. The biggest shift recently was the move from conventional hard disks to SSDs.
The PC market is still viable. It just isn't expanding as other markets are. There are also untapped markets out there. For example, the server market [2].
10-20 years from now, PCs will still be around. Unless there is some new brainwave interface, the best way to enter in data or type is still a keyboard. Yes, one *can* write a term paper on a touch screen, but it is a lot easier for the hands to use a better device suited for that task with a monitor that has plenty of real estate to compare editions and other items.
[1]: Although it may not be as good as a dedicated device. I wouldn't expect to do pro photos with a smartphone's camera, but it is useful to have nonetheless.
[2]: The home server market is definitely untapped. I can see a niche for a mini SAN where all the machines can use FCoE to boot from (with antivirus utilities able to scan the virtual disks which goes a long way to find rootkits), deduplication, centralized backups, streaming game video similar to OnLive. That way, only the server needs the high end GPUs, and everything else on that LAN segment can use streaming video from that.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3)
The flaw in your argument, and in the article, is assuming that because they call it a smartphone it is somehow not a personal computing device. The term smartphone is an artifact. They are personal computing devices that also have the ability to place and receive phone calls.
iPhones are not general-purpose (Score:2)
The flaw in your argument, and in the article, is assuming that because they call it a smartphone it is somehow not a personal computing device.
I agree with you that an Android device is a general-purpose personal computer. Though smartphones and tablet computers manufactured by Apple are computers, they are not general-purpose computers. There exist purposes that Apple bans for the general public. For example, unlike with AIDE, one can't dock an iPad to an HDMI monitor and Bluetooth keyboard and develop iPad apps on it.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Remember that there have been numerous form factors for computers. There have been all-in-one desktop units that were "L" shaped with integrated CRT on top, computer at the corner of the "L", and keyboard protruding, pizza-box desktop units with cabled keyboards and monitors like the 5150-cased IBM PC, square units with the monitor integrated above the motherboard like the IBM PS/2 Model 25 and the Apple Macintosh, computers integrated into the keyboard housing with plugs for external monitors like the Commodores, suitcase form factors like the first-generation Compaqs, and probably dozens of other form factors. There have even been flat computers that integrated the entire computer in the housing with the LCD monitor and had plugs for the keyboard and mouse, and some of those computers were touchscreen.
The iPad is not revolutionary in that it's just a tablet computer that doesn't fold to become a keyboard-equipped laptop like earlier tablet computers did. It's more like Star Trek's "PADD", is less versatile, and more geared as a consumer-level toy than a business machine. That doesn't mean it's a joke, but it also doesn't mean that it's going to dictate the direction of computing in the future either.
We're integrating computers or computer-like experiences into our televisions, into our telephones, into our notepads, into our music players, and into our cars. That doesn't mean that we're going to do research, read in-depth news articles, play video games, do work, or learn effectively on these platforms. When I want to actually work, my smartphone, my media center PC, even my netbook, are not really the most comfortable tools, my desktop computer, set into my workspace, is. I entertain myself on the netbook, or on the phone, or obviously with the media PC, but none of those are conducive to real work, and that's just at home. At work nothing is as practical as a real PC, and I know because we've tried other form factors and it flat-out sucks. That's why the PC is not dying.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Yes, obviously someone must write programs, but a personal computer could operate just fine with only those programs supplied by the hardware vendor. It's been done that way numerous times already.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
People that use desktop computers frequently use programs that are not approved by microsoft of apple or any other major corporation. An open source group can release a little program. Or some guy can write a program in his spare time that is great. Easily half the programs I use on a daily basis would likely not be approved by apple for one reason or another. If I have to ask apple's permission to run code, it isn't my machine. If it isn't my machine... why am I paying for it?
Either I get control or I see no reason to shell out dime one.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3)
Running your own code isn't the definition of a personal computer or honestly of a computer in general, outside of a development environment. While I agree that it is important to be able to develop one's own software, I see nothing requiring it in the definition of computer.
You're nuts. Running your own code, or choosing to run someone else's without the blessing of the vendor on your own hardware IS the most important right associated with 'personal computer'. Without it, it's no more an example of personal property than a kiosk at a mall.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3)
> Running your own code isn't the definition of a personal computer
Yes it is. That's where the PERSONAL in personal computing comes in. YOU are the one that's in control of it.
The iPad is just a replacement for the centralized control model that existed before the PC. You were not in control of the experience. Someone else was. Apple is the new central IT authority in your "new" terminal based model of computing.
People used the PC to rebel against that old model because it was too confining, didn't allow for innovation, and prevented people from getting work done.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Well, you could always hunt down a Thinkpad W700DS. That was a 17" laptop with a second 10" screen that popped out of the side, as a second display.
I bet it was awfully heavy, though.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
Hehe, my smartphone does everything a PC can do and more. I run Debian chroot on top of Android so I have access to the entire Android catalog and the entire Debian catalog (well, ok X doesn't work very well yet, so the CLI catalog but that will be fixed eventually). With a dual core 1.5Ghz processor and a gig of ram and a decent GPU I have more power than a laptop from just 5 years ago. All that and it fits in a shirt pocket. Now tell me why that doesn't seem like progress.
Re:Nonsense. (Score:2)
I think what will happen is that the touchscreen functionality of the iPad and the functionality of a _real_ computer in laptop form are going to merge--and Windows 8/Windows RT based machines may get there first. Despite what some people think, the iPad in many ways is still mostly a media consumption device, especially since you want a real keyboard if you're going to write anything of length.
Indeed, I would not be surprised that Apple has begun research into a true successor to MacOS X that is heavily touch-based--and with way more functionality than iOS.
Re:Ignorance (Score:2)
Personal means unknown sources (Score:3)
Is not a tiny computer held in your pocket for your games and your data a personal computer?
It's personal if I, personally, dictate what kind of computing takes place on it. It's not personal if only Apple has the authority to do that. And that's why I have chosen to use Android devices.
In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
...more bicycles were sold worldwide than family cars*. Pundits hail the passing of the family car era.
Pffft... hogwash.
* - I have no idea how many bicycles or family cars are sold, but it's at least plausible.
NEWS FLASH: (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheaper products that tend to have shorter lifespans because they have not reached the "good enough" level of performance and because teenagers tend to drop them requiring more replacements are sold in greater quantities than more expensive products that have reached OK performance levels and aren't trashed as frequently! Film at 11!
Re:NEWS FLASH: (Score:2)
Lousy conclusion is lousy (Score:3)
Re:Lousy conclusion is lousy (Score:2)
Re:Lousy conclusion is lousy (Score:2)
It's called "saturation and maturity" (Score:5, Informative)
So color me shocked: A mature and saturated market isn't growing 20% per annum, and is in fact shrinking relative to its size at the peak of growth! Meanwhile, servers always need MOAR POWAH so hardware there is more likely to keep churning. It's not like this isn't a predictable curve for every not-freshly-disrupted market (surprise: There's only 1 maker of gigantic utility-size power transformers anymore. I guess utility transformers are dying too), and yet it seems that every month this year there's been a breathless "Oh, let us lament the passing of the PC and the Laptop, for they are dying!" article posted. PCs are "dying" like file sharing is "dying": it's saturated at "everyone has one and does it."
Re:It's called "saturation and maturity" (Score:4, Insightful)
True, but we don't need to worry, because Microsoft is working on solving that problem as we speak!
Re:It's called "saturation and maturity" (Score:2, Funny)
Not an Apple customer I take it?
(ducks!)
Consumption vs Production (Score:5, Interesting)
A good example of how this trend is understood by the hardware makers would be the increase in video cards with more than one DVI port. Your average email/websurfer doesn't need dual screens. Even apple, which makes the vast bulk of its money from consumer devices, still makes the Mac Pro. I suspect that they don't make enough money from these to make it worth it. But if they were to loose that tiny core audience of hardcore users to another platform then those hardcore users might start recommending that other platform.
In a way this whole reduction of the lower end users might help us who would prefer some more powerful machines as the manufacturers will waste less time making machines that are one step up from toasters.
The one wildcard in this whole mix are the gamers. To a certain extent gamers may have driven the leading edge of hardware development for years with servers driving similar but different high end hardware. So I suspect that instead of the lower end causing problems for the average high end user like developers that the gamer and server market will keep things cooking along at the extreme end and things will trickle down to the rest of us.
So to say that the desktop is dead is wrong. I would say that the crappy desktop is dead.
Begs the question: what is a Personal Computer? (Score:3)
Re:Begs the question: what is a Personal Computer? (Score:3)
The phrase you need to be concluding on is "general purpose computer". Tablets and Smartphones are, by design, NOT general purpose computers. The companies making and selling them do not want you to use them as you would use a PC. They want you to consume media, which they can charge you more money for, and then share that media with others so that they can in turn charge them as well.
PC is not redefined based on how people use their PC. Just because the majority of the people today who own a PC only use it for browsing webpages, listening to music, and watching video does not mean that any device that can do these things is now a PC.
Re:Begs the question: what is a Personal Computer? (Score:2)
Re:Begs the question: what is a Personal Computer? (Score:2)
I dont follow, early computers gave you everything you needed out of the box to make everything you wanted, as they didnt have software and hardware to do anything
Re:Begs the question: what is a Personal Computer? (Score:2)
You are saying you designed that "no" yourself? Bravo. You did an excellent job!
I wish! (Score:2)
I wish, desktop computers were not used by "mainstream", so I would be able to buy an expensive (really, I am perfectly ok with it being expensive) workstation that is something other than a cheap consumer product that contains only cheap consumer components, and is expected to run the greatest engineering failure of the 20th century -- Windows. I would be also overjoyed if people who use computers for business and engineering, did not have consumer crap and Windows shoved down their throats. And if it prompted CAD and EDA software vendors to drop Windows as a supported architecture, and purge their software of all Windows-isms, I would stop recommending to turn Redmond into an art installation that involves river of blood flowing between hills made of crushed bones of Microsoft employees, topped by skulls of Gates and Ballmer.
But the truth is, desktops and their twin brothers laptops, will be popular among consumers for ages and ages to come. So river of blood it is!
Re:I wish! (Score:2)
Can't be customized like a real workstation should, HDs/SSDs are still consumer crap, and it comes with OS that I don't care for. This is the result of "workstation" market combined with "consumer desktop". I want to pay for quality, not artistic layout of the case.
Saturation and life-cycle (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems like every time a new iDevice is released... (Score:4, Insightful)
We get a story about how the 'PC era' is over, even though there is no evidence for it. The mobile device is a supplement to a PC, the fact that people are turning to the mobile device for entertainment (web browsing, etc) isn't indicative of a mass move away from the PC.
Everyone still needs their laptops for college classes, all companies still require work to be done on a laptop or PC, they aren't going away any time at least in the next decade. I can see the tablet possibly becoming the new laptop (once it runs a 'normal' OS and not a watered down one), you bring it to work where you have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse there... then you just bring the tablet home where you also have a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. At this point, is it really any different than a laptop? Is that really a post PC era, even though the computer is just a different form factor?
It's a nerds paradise! (Score:4, Interesting)
I never really dreamed of the day when I could pick anything I wanted without being a millionaire.
Well, these days I can. The only thing I have to be concerned of now, is my personal health and well being (physically, that is!).
Who's complaining? I only pity the kids who's only gripe on technology is an xbox and a smartphone, but they're not complaining either, they have no clue what we "the old dinosaurs of personal computing" grew up with, I pity them because they'll never have the in depth knowledge that we (40+ something) have.
I grew up with a Philips Electric Engineer 2003 electronics kit where I learned to follow schematics and make modifications (eg my own police radio) with these kits, later on I got a Commodore 64 in 1981/82, and since there where literally no software for it back then, I had to code my own, and BOY was that frustrating...and ultimately VERY much fun later on. It was like going exploring in an incredibly interesting new world, unseen and uncharted. I just only WISH kids could experience what I experienced back then, I know David Braben is trying to do this with his Raspberry PI, but it just seem to fetch the interest of old timers like me...he he...no wonder, btw. one can dream and hope, and of course...inspire.
I look at the world in a different way than kids do. Me? I live in a wifeless super-electronics-complex, totally mad science with 1000000's of components from the 50's to today, so many gadgets and computers you'd break into my house if you knew where I lived (and of course suffer the consequences of my analog gadgets that awaits such a culprit, oh straying off the subject here...). I have microcontrollers, I don't think about getting the latest smartphone if I feel like programming an APP, I actually make the darn thing from scratch with libraries, a few MCU's and sensors...and voila...new thingy that no one can explain, but most ...enjoy.
The kids wonder if I am some kind of mad magician that can come up with stuff from gizmos (to them, totally unknown world...of components) laying around and just make it do cool stuff?
Thank god for the MAKER movement though, it IS slowly but steadily arising, and maybe once again, we'll get kids curious enough to dive into this basic, simple, from-scratch kind of DIY world that we once took for granted.
Re:It's a nerds paradise! (Score:2)
I think the 3D printing environment has much of that same freshness that computing had in the late 70's and early 80's. What a rush that era was.
Re:It's a nerds paradise! (Score:2)
I agree!
A lot of my friends are onto the 3D printing / CNC thing right now, personally I'm the "modelling" guy now, that does 3D models in software, so I'll just have to purchase the CNC from them :)
Toys dont replace tools (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder how many tablets are nothing more than multimedia devices... I know that's the only appeal they have for me, and every time I think about it, I realize my old, $100 netBook does the job better than any tablet could in most cases. Would we be so excited about these sales figures if, when PC sales slowed down, it was portable DVD players sales that went through the roof, and started requiring a big fraction of chip production? Would we still have the same doomsday predictions for PCs?
From what I've seen, the only places where tablets replace laptops, is where folks just about only used them to launch Citrix, making it just a thin client, with some games, music, and movie watching built-in. And even there, you're buying a keyboard to go with it, and this is nothing a real laptop couldn't do, and better.
Re:Toys dont replace tools (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Toys dont replace tools (Score:3, Informative)
every time I think about it, I realize my old, $100 netBook does the job better than any tablet could in most cases.
Boot time, battery life, and hot laps
I have a netbook with androidx86 installed on it so its basically a keyboard equipped tablet. Doesn't get too much use compared to the ipad because:
Pickup and go "boot" time of androidx86 netbook is about 180 seconds, "boot" time of ipad is about 2 seconds to hit button and unlock
Battery life of netbook is 2 hours, ipad is ... I donno but its apparently way longer than I'm willing to work on something in one sitting. Every time I use the netbook I have to plan, OK, now when the battery dies I'll either switch to ... or plug in to charge there... or ...
Netbook is too hot to handle, literally, after an hour or two. Fan is loud and completely ineffective. ipad never gets too warm to handle and no fan and no cooling vents to block.
I would assume an android tablet is equally useful, not ipad specific... basically my android phone with a bigger screen would be a really nice tablet.
I find I task switch with the ipad a lot. Not switch apps inside the ipad, but in real life. I would not be patient enough to boot up a desktop / laptop / netbook to check the weather. Would I pick up a ipad and "button" "swipe" "click" to check the weather, sure, it only takes 5 seconds. You don't talk about a geographic location in theory, you just google map it. I've got a, one, minute this morning to check my email. Do I spend three minutes booting the desktop or fifteen seconds on the ipad? Lots of little task switching like that.
Re:Toys dont replace tools (Score:2, Troll)
every time I think about it, I realize my old, $100 netBook does the job better than any tablet could in most cases.
Boot time, battery life, and hot laps
I have a netbook with androidx86 installed on it so its basically a keyboard equipped tablet. Doesn't get too much use compared to the ipad because:
Pickup and go "boot" time of androidx86 netbook is about 180 seconds, "boot" time of ipad is about 2 seconds to hit button and unlock
Battery life of netbook is 2 hours, ipad is ... I donno but its apparently way longer than I'm willing to work on something in one sitting. Every time I use the netbook I have to plan, OK, now when the battery dies I'll either switch to ... or plug in to charge there... or ...
Netbook is too hot to handle, literally, after an hour or two. Fan is loud and completely ineffective. ipad never gets too warm to handle and no fan and no cooling vents to block.
I would assume an android tablet is equally useful, not ipad specific... basically my android phone with a bigger screen would be a really nice tablet.
I find I task switch with the ipad a lot. Not switch apps inside the ipad, but in real life. I would not be patient enough to boot up a desktop / laptop / netbook to check the weather. Would I pick up a ipad and "button" "swipe" "click" to check the weather, sure, it only takes 5 seconds. You don't talk about a geographic location in theory, you just google map it. I've got a, one, minute this morning to check my email. Do I spend three minutes booting the desktop or fifteen seconds on the ipad? Lots of little task switching like that.
If you have Windows 7 on your netbook, it would take 1-2 seconds to resume, matching the iPad. If you had a decent netbook, your real useable screen-on-and-doing-stuff battery life on the netbook would be 10 hours, comparable to the iPad. You'd also be able to do a hell of a lot more than you can on the iPad. Typical netbooks are also comparable in temperature to the iPad and have no fans whatsover. In fact, were netbooks ever made with fans? I never saw one so now I'm wondering whether you're just making this up. Everything you describe as slow on your netbook should actually be at least as fast on a netbook as on a tablet.
I don't think tablets suck. Tablets are awesome because of the form factor, the generally awesome displays, and the examples you didn't choose (like reading a book or using a variety of specialized apps to do things netbooks don't do as well). Your examples, however, just show that you're worse at computers than the average dude on the street.
Re:Toys dont replace tools (Score:2)
They made netbooks without fans? All of the ones I've seen have fans. Small ones, and generally pretty quiet. Until the bearings start to wear out.
My Eee 701 had a fan, my Eee 901 has a fan (that's wearing out and moaning like the souls of the damned.)
The only time I got anywhere close to 10 hours of battery life out of my Eees was when I used a huge aftermarket battery that stuck way out.
Three or four hours out of the 701 when it was new, maybe five out of the 901.
Re:Toys dont replace tools (Score:2)
I think almost all smartphones are used for facebook, twitter and other social media and little else. I did watch a guy editing a movie on his iPad. iMovie works much better on my mac mini however.
More Oreo Cookies Sell Than Smarphones! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sick and tired of people trying to bury personal computers. Just because smarphones sell, and there is a lot of money to be pried from their users, does not mean that we should abandon computers that we can actually get work done on!
I own a tablet, but I use a laptop for word processing. I use a desktop for CAD and video editing. Because devices are small, they can be a marvel, but I remember when computers were much more useful with less hardware. Business did not want to spend the money for a 386DX 33MHZ, but if they did,they could run their whole business on it; smarphones are tablets are much more powerful and their are relegated to playing angry birds and small applets. People are amazed if they can write a single page of text on a smartphone, but were angry if they couldn't lay out a whole book on a 1GHZ desktop computer.
RISC processors might be the way of the future, but my laptop is still 10x faster than my tablet, for now, and there is no reason to make them faster if we don't expect better software. AMD's failure in the marketplace means that intel has gone dormant like a sleeping bear--stagnating the desktop market. Microsoft is trying to wall-in the open PC garden. Ubuntu screwed up by trying "Unity." Gnome screwed up by turning its back on desktop users, and for removing too much usefulness.
I like that people network more and can collaborate on projects more easily, but we have grown too dependent on single points of failure. To some, Google is the internet; that scares me. We are building too many card houses, and sooner or later, they will fall.
Re:More Oreo Cookies Sell Than Smarphones! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been 30+ years since the Mainframe was going to be replaced by personal computers, why do we imagine tablets will replace personal computers any time soon?
For those unaware, the mainframe is doing just fine - a solid, profitable market for IBM since the early 1950's?
Have fun (Score:3)
The thing we have to understand ... (Score:2)
The thing we have to understand is that the vast majority of people bought personal computers because of what they could do. This means that the personal computer is very much replaceable in the lives of most people, especially if the replacements offer greater convenience.
That isn't to say that the computer is going to disappear entirely. Things like tablets are going to become more computer like, up until the point that they reflect the needs of most consumers. There will also be a market for personal computers, albeit a smaller one, for those of us who want something more than a digital appliance (e.g. higher performance or capacity, better options for I/O devices, more sophisticated tools). The market for business, education, and industrial applications won't die off either because they also place greater demands upon computers.
Personal computers aren't going to pass away any more than trains passed away due to the development of the airplane. But the personal computer era is passing because it will no longer be the most significant device that people use to communicate.
Misses the state of the industry entirely (Score:2)
The state of the industry is that even a 5-8 year old PC can still do everything most people need a PC for.
I'm writing this post on a Dual-core Athlon machine I built back in 2005. This machine does everything I need a PC to do, from standard office type stuff to running Cadence for schematic capture and layout.
New PCs stopped being necessary for anything other than games YEARS ago. Nothing the remaining 99% of the PC market does requires modern horsepower.
Re:Misses the state of the industry entirely (Score:2)
I'm most familiar with Intel CPUs, but IMHO there is very little a Core 2 Duo with 4 or 8 Gigs of RAM can't handle, and since Intel integrated graphics satisfy the vast majority of users, what is the motivation for most people to upgrade?
My local school district uses 8 year-old Dell hyperthreading P4 systems with 2 Gig of RAM, IDE HD and integrated Intel graphics (Optiplex GX270) running Win7 and while I wouldn't call it a "great" system, it certainly runs MS Office and other mainstream apps and browsers just fine. Pump it up to 4 Gigs of RAM and it can be very responsive (but 4x 1 Gig PC3200 sticks of RAM is quite pricey, esp. compared with DDR3 RAM right now).
What a load of rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
What a load of rubbish.
What has happened is that there is a singularity on "good enough" PCs.
Most of the people I know have PCs that are 4-5 years old because they are absolutely fine with what they have and it still works. They rarely go out and buy new stuff. The same is true of the company I work for. We bought decent quality dev workstations 4 years ago and they are still spot on now. Same for standard desktops.
People aren't buying stuff as much because what they have works fine.
I live in an expensive bit of London, UK and you'd expect it to be Apple everything. It's not. It's 5 year old ThinkPads everywhere.
Windows 7, Windows 8 will run perfectly fine on a machine designed for Windows Vista.
The PC is dead. Long live the PC! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The PC is dead. Long live the PC! (Score:2)
Please mod parent up.
The number of PCs sold has been constantly growing from 1996 to 2011. No end of the PC era is in sight, just some slowing down of the total growth due to tablets and, probably more of an effect, the current economy.
And The Paperless Office ... (Score:3)
... is just around the corner. That's another "finding" that the technoworld pundits root out every few years to astound their readers. I view crap like this article to be in the Mark Twain "lies, damn lies, and statistics" category. You could probably show that left-handed red-heads buy more PCs than ambidextrous bald winos, but so freakin' what? This is clearly a move-on-nothing-to-see-here story.
not surprising (Score:3)
no surprise here! people bought computers because it was the only way to access the net and play games, now they can pay less and buy a phone or tablet and not have to have a space available for a computer. And computers will still be bought by people who still need the flexibility and apps that can't be provided by a 'smart' phone. It's the way that the market has gone. My guess if that it's the end of crappy cheap computers as people invest more to get the power that isn't available in a phone or tablet.
Re:don't panic! (Score:2)