Is the Home Desktop Going Away?

fishdan asks: "I recently wrote a lengthy reply to Doug Barney who had written an article saying that Apple and Linux were not trying to compete on the desktop. I saved my reply in my journal, if anyone is interested. However, this got me to thinking. Game makers have said that they are going to be developing for consoles like the Xbox or Playstation, first. Rich web applications like Writely are moving much of the standard functionality of the desktop online. Email is moving rapidly to mobile devices. Given your integrated Web/Media Center/TV that runs through your high resolution screen (that everyone will have in 10 years), what is the future of the home desktop?"

Comments

Homework (eew!)

[Spy der Mann]

'Nuff said :)

Same old same old

[Siguy]

We've been hearing about the death of the home desktop for the last 15 years it seems, and it never seems to get any closer.

I'm sure that EVENTUALLY with media centers and portable tablet/handhelds getting move advanced it might become a reasonable notion, but until we're all walking around with Star Trek-esque super computers the size of a notepad, I'm not sure I see any obvious reason for the desktop to disappear anytime soon.

Evolution, not destruction

[Rapter09]

The desktop will only evolve. Eventually, of course, it may evolve to the point where it's no longer recognizable for its original form but I don't believe anything will dethrone the computer in its functionality and its versatility, despite how many can-do-great-things devices will be made. Hybrids will be made, and very niche-devices will be tailored to this-executive, and that-mother-of-four but I can't see anything just up and throwing the desktop computer way from being the central system to which all of these crazy devices are linked. A lot of people could argue quite strongly that gaming is far from "going away from the desktop." In fact, at least for me, and notably millions of others as well (I would assume), it's the ONLY way to game. I firmly believe that. Gaming isn't going anywhere fast. Gaming is leaving the PC, and gaming is leaving the console. I live in a household with two xboxes, a cube, a ps2, a DS and PSP, and 1 computer (soon-to-be 2) and all are viable gaming platforms. It's definitely a natural human thought device to latch onto an individual concept and have it bleed through your thoughts until it's the proverbial "last man standing." But for me, although I like the occasional dosage of Halo 2 and KOTOR II, I can't pull myself away from the desktop. It puts me in contact with friends, family, chat, media, news, games, and too much others. Desktop's are the backbone of the world today. Maybe i'm just behind on the times but I can't see myself playing games EXCLUSIVELY on my television. I can't see myself switching my email to some crappy 1.2" LCD screen on a mobile phone that has a service provider that's charging me up the butt for emails and text messaging. But hey, that's just me. For me, PCs are a hobby and a lifestyle. Despite all the griping and the groaning about this OS and that OS, and how much it costs to upkeep this computer to be top-of-the-line, or near it, I still love doing it, and I'll keep doing it until I can't anymore. I know a lot of other folks will as well.

Re:Evolution, not destruction

[CsiDano]

I tend to agree, PC is the only game system to me. The only thing that concerns me when a new game comes out is when will it be out for PC. I find that sitting back in my comp chair, mouse in hand is much more comfortable than controller, hunched on the couch. I will never buy another console again. One other point, how can the PC die when so many people love them for more than just games, my penchant for upgrading borders on addiction. I love building systems and then tinkering/fucking around with them.

Physical locations?

[fractalrock]

"Given your integrated Web/Media Center/TV that runs through your high resolution screen (that everyone will have in 10 years)"

An "integrated Web/Media Center" that runs a high resolution screen sounds a lot like a personal computer. Are you simply inquiring as to the physical location of the typical home computer in the future? I'm guessing many people would be happy with only one computer, hooked up to a T.V....but any user who is even *remotely* hardcore will always have a computer at their desk. It's a tool, just like a pen or stapler.

Plus, I doubt LCD TV or Plasma screens will ever be low enough that the average income...such as myself...can afford multiple displays (which I *need*) on their Media Center.

Re:Physical locations?

[voidstin]

This is an excellent point. I like to do work in the office. I like to watch movies in the living room. Most likely, I'll need 2 boxes, and will buy boxes that suit my needs.

That said, the idea of a tivo/cable box/media center thin client that runs firefox/writely/zimbra seems like it would work for a lot of people. That gmail thing seems to be catching on, too.

Most likely, everyone here will have a destkop (or 2 or 3 or 4) for the forseeable future.

Big Roadblocks

[HunterZ]

I'm somewhat opposed to the home desktop being replaced by a dumb terminal, mostly on the grounds that it will reduce user privacy and artifically limit the scope of possible use. There are a couple of factors to consider, however:

1. At least in the U.S., there just isn't a good enough broadband Internet infrastructure to handle the bandwidth required to drive a dumb terminal and provide anything near the current desktop experience with games, movies, etc.

2. Even if point 1 wasn't an issue, it'd still be a gradual process to get people to switch to something like that, plus it would take time for various service providers to come up with the hardware and software infrastructure to do it, and finally there'd be a big market war.

3. There's also the point to be made that Microsoft still maintains its industry presence largely via Windows, and a move to dumb terminals plugged into a server-side experience would cause a dramatic shift in Windows' - and thus Microsoft's - role (if not toss it right out the window, pun intended).

Bottom line: I give desktops at least another 10-20 years before someone vaulted into the future from today would have a hard time recognizing a home computer.

We can only hope.

[aprilsound]

The idea is that for many many internet users (eg computer illiterate moms and dads keeping in touch with the kids and grandkids), the entire set of applications they use consist of a web browser, an email client, and solitaire. ... For a few extra dollars a month, the isp would provide them with a thin client (either a complete hardware and software package or a cd that would boot on an existing pc)

Remember WebTV? It was supposed to be the internet for people too dumb/old/poor for a PC. I remember we got it for my grandmother. It sucked pretty bad, and the fact that it only did the basic things was still too much for her. The problem was that no one else knew how to use it either, since everyone else has a PC.

Now she has a PC that's riddled with spyware. What she should have is a machine with a smallish(5G), noexec hard drive + smaller (1G) HD for swap space, in a $100 box that runs BOOTP or something to her ISP. Every morning, she turns it on and it pulls down the OS image, in fact the same OS image that every client of the ISP gets. Tech support becomes "Reboot the box."

That's all 90% of home PCs need to be. But then those semi-tech literate kids at Best Buy wouldn't have anyone to lecture about spyware anymore. Very sad.

That may be sooner rather than later.

[C10H14N2]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/20/151424 4

With that, "ubiquitous computing" may morph into personal computers merely being interfaces for The Grid, essentially providing the basis for _all_ applications to scale like Seti@Home. Perhaps that's also why Google is interested in electronic micropayments...and it could all happen very, very quickly.

Re:That may be sooner rather than later.

[yog]

The desktop is not going away any time soon. These amazing handheld all purpose gizmos are not about to replace the desktop until certain technologies are enhanced big time:

- batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time; current drain scales up proportionately. You are going to need a couple of orders of magnitude better power sources to replace a desktop; 12 hours of continuous use per day for several days, I would guess.

- data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and accurately than any other method. Having used a Palm handheld and mobile phone for years I can safely conclude that the keyboard is in no danger of being replaced. Speech recognition still sucks and that's the one possible alternative.

- display. Desktops have awesome displays; it's not uncommon to have 19" or 24" displays these days, nice crisp LCD screens. Nothing compares to this. Teeny little 3" screens are not going to replace these any time soon.

- storage. Desktops start at 40G of permanent storage and go up to terabytes. Nothing else can compare. What's more, our storage needs are growing, not shrinking. We're not going to switch to Pocket PC/Phone/consoles that have maybe a 10G memory card or a 30G hard disk and give up our 250 giggers.

- connectivity. A desktop is on DSL or Cable or T1 or dial-up and is a reliable way to access the internet. Handheld devices have to be in range of a wireless hub or in network for cellular connections. The widely available connectivity for broadband handheld devices simply doesn't exist yet. My previous apartment was in some kind of Verizon dead zone, in a big suburb next to Boston so it would have been impossible to have handheld broadband or even handheld slow dialup. THere's a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be built, just to displace an existing infrastructure that works pretty well.

As storage is further miniaturized and as voice input and battery technology improve, we will doubtless see a displacement of casual desktop/laptop use with handhelds, such as Blackberry-style email reading and Palm/PPC-style organizer functions, but for heavy lifting, the desktop will remain. When 8 megapixel cameras are the norm and everyone's using digital video cameras with their huge demand for disk space, we're going to want those capacious, fast desktops even more.

Phones will probably get a little smarter but convergence tools such as the Treo can only do so much. People still want phones to act like phones. It's going to take a lot of tech to move us to the next level.

Re:That may be sooner rather than later.

[MikShapi]

I agree with the grandpa post.

Laptops will only replace desktops so long as they (unlike desktops, today, here in Australia) are recognized expenses for tax purposes. Otherwise, most people won't buy them because most people don't need them.

Otherwise, given you move between an office and your home and don't really need a PC anywhere else, why pay for a machine of a family
[a] inherently more expensive due to their monolithic construction
[b] underpowered as compared to desktops (cpuwise, gpuwise, whether comparing strongest models of each or same-costing models of each, you name it)
[c] much-more-expensive-to-fix (tried replacing the fan on your laptop CPU lately?)
[d] mechanically expire much sooner (from the keyboard to the optical drive to the plastic shell)
[e] more limited in storage capacity (you can stick in less drives, which are also smaller (and more expensive) due to form factor)
[f] unupgradeable in some avenues (CPU, in most cases GPU, etc).

When you can just buy a desktop?

Desktops are cheap, easily mainainable and have a longer expiry time.
It's 747 vs Concorde all over again. Less drastic, as unlike the concord, the laptop definitely has its applicaitons for the price it costs, but replacing desktops? Bah. Nowhere on the horizon.

Re:That may be sooner rather than later.

[Deorus]

> - batteries. You can run a heavy, hot laptop for about 2-3 hours before needing a lengthy recharge. You can run a handheld PDA for roughly the same amount of time; current drain scales up proportionately. You are going to need a couple of orders of magnitude better power sources to replace a desktop; 12 hours of continuous use per day for several days, I would guess.

Laptops can connect to outlets too, but unlike desktops, they have their own battery in case no external power supplies are available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad a laptop's battery is, desktops don't even have one to compete.

> - data input. The desktop/laptop has this amazing invention, the full size keyboard, that lets us enter tons of information more quickly and accurately than any other method. Having used a Palm handheld and mobile phone for years I can safely conclude that the keyboard is in no danger of being replaced. Speech recognition still sucks and that's the one possible alternative.

Laptops can connect to desktop keyboards and mice too, but unlike desktops, they have their own input devices in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage, because no matter how bad the builtin laptop's keyboard or touchpad is, desktops don't have them to compete.

> - display. Desktops have awesome displays; it's not uncommon to have 19" or 24" displays these days, nice crisp LCD screens. Nothing compares to this. Teeny little 3" screens are not going to replace these any time soon.

Laptops can connect to desktop displays and televisions too, but unlike desktops, they have their own displays in case nothing better is available, and that's an advantage for two reasons: 1 - no matter how bad the laptop's builtin display is, desktops don't have even have one to compete, and 2 - with a desktop monitor or television, the laptop's display can be used as a second monitor for a dual head setup, so you can drag the least important applications there and use the desktop display or television as your primary display while a desktop would require you to buy a second monitor to achieve the same functionality.

> - storage. Desktops start at 40G of permanent storage and go up to terabytes. Nothing else can compare. What's more, our storage needs are growing, not shrinking. We're not going to switch to Pocket PC/Phone/consoles that have maybe a 10G memory card or a 30G hard disk and give up our 250 giggers.

Portable hard drives are the solution for your storage problem, and unlike desktop hard drives, they are portable.

> - connectivity. A desktop is on DSL or Cable or T1 or dial-up and is a reliable way to access the internet. Handheld devices have to be in range of a wireless hub or in network for cellular connections. The widely available connectivity for broadband handheld devices simply doesn't exist yet. My previous apartment was in some kind of Verizon dead zone, in a big suburb next to Boston so it would have been impossible to have handheld broadband or even handheld slow dialup. THere's a tremendous amount of infrastructure to be built, just to displace an existing infrastructure that works pretty well.

Laptops can connect to DSL, Cable, ISDN, and Dial-Up too, but unlike desktops, they also have the ability to connect to the Internet from anywhere as long as wireless services are available. and this is an advantage, because it doesn't matter how bad their connectivity outdoors is, desktops have nothing to compete.

In the end laptops win, because they do everything desktops do and more. At the moment my laptop is replacing at least 2 desktops: one at work and another at home, with the added advantages of having my work desktop at home, my home desktop at work, and a usable computer at meetings, holidays, etc.

I agree that the modularity of desktops makes them better in some cases, but since you didn't mention that I can only disagree with evertything you said.

No, but few people need much more than a terminal.

[AEther141]

I bought my current laptop several years ago and can't see myself ever needing anything more powerful. I've recorded an album on it, I've edited high-definition video on it and photoshopped 22 megapixel stills. 99% of the time however, I use it simply because it's convenient and fits in with the rest of my life, it's little more than a marginally intelligent terminal. Anything of any importance comes from somewhere else - most of the time the laptop is just a box with a KVM, a web browser and a terminal emulator and wildly overspecced for that role. The personal file server stashed under my bed holds my record and movie collection, my colocated virtual server holds my work files, runs my mailserver and provides mutt, vim and everything else I really need via SSH. Fingers crossed, 'normal people' will start switching on to the idea that they're better off leaving someone else to run their software and store their files, a glorious return to the mainframe era and a huge leap towards computing that 'just works. Services like Gmail are spreading the meme, I reckon the next IT boom will be in web-based apps.

I have no problem finding public terminals in libraries, friends houses and coffeeshops that I can boot from a USB key or a businesscard CD, so perversely don't take my laptop on the road. I could be rendered homeless tomorrow and my clients wouldn't notice. It's a barely perceptible but immensely powerful change in the world - net access isn't ubiquitous, but it can be found for free or at nominal cost just about anywhere in the developed (or even semi-developed) world, as easily found as a public restroom or a dumpster full of yesterday's bagels. People like the homeless guy are as much a part of the information age as the rest of us. That's world-changing stuff that no-one really notices.

nope

[illuminatedwax]

It's not going to happen, not in America, ever. Maybe the "desktop" will disappear, but the "home computer that contains everything " will not. Why? We don't like not being in control. There are problems with having a computer based on network computing: 1) It requires constant access to use; 2) You don't keep your data. Everyone likes having their Own Stuff, and desktops are not going to disappear for the same reason that people will never completely stop driving and start using public transportation. You want the freedom that desktop computers allow you: privacy, ease of use, and personalization. Who wants to be tethered to the internet all the time? What I do see in the future is an easier way to store data online so that it is retreivable everywhere. Already many people don't use portable storage anymore - they just save it on the net and download it from wherever they are going. If network speed increases faster than our average file size, portable storage will disappear completely. And what's more is that you will probably have a large portion of your hard drive mirrored somewhere, or alternatively, people will learn to run servers (or they will be made easy to use) so they can download files themselves. Although this should be obvious already.

Divergence that leads to Convergence

[superkpt]

Split the desktop computer into various parts. These parts then combine to give us a fuller, more powerful computing experience.

My ideal world (in terms of computing):

My PDA (not much smaller than today's cellphones) has the ability to display a keyboard on any surface (this exists today). It can somehow emulate a screen in the air (holographic technology) or transmit video signals directly to my retinas (this exists today as well). The wireless network (WiMax anyone?) will be powerful enough to pipe all my hideously large data to my home 'computer.' In fact, the PDA could be devoid of a harddrive. The battery system will be much more powerful than today's systems. I can also use the PDA as we do today.

Once I'm in my home, I simply put the device on a table and it can wirelessly communicate to anything in my home. So it pumps a video signal wirelessly to my TV. I have a wireless keyboard in the living room that talks to the device as well. Somewhere, in the basement or in a closet, I have a large array of hard-drives. Better yet, quantum technology has advanced to the point where a small crystal can store gigabytes or even terabytes of data. Don't forget that all the data gets between the keyboard, the TV, and the harddrive(s) wirelessly. Yet the interface systems never lets me remember that.

In other words, take the different parts of the computer today (CPU, display, input, storage, etc.) and separate them. Have each independent part wirelessly communicate with each other. As time progresses, each part could be revolutionized in its own way (i.e. E-Ink in the paint on your walls, your walls turn into a giant screen, or harddrives that actually use the spin of quarks as bits, or input devices that tie directly into your brain....)

That's where I think this is all headed.

For most people, desktops aren't needed.

[Arcanis the Rogue]

I can see this happening, however I do not think that desktop computers will become totally extinct. I do think however that they will become less-used. These days, many people who own full desktop computers don't even need all of the things they have. Many people are quite satisfied with a web browser, email, and maybe an IM client or a data organizer. Depending on their needs, office suites might also be needed.

But really, that is the extent of many peoples computer usage. I hear this a lot when people preach about going to a different OS, saying that you can do all the things you do with your old OS on this new one minus the stuff you don't like, and I think the same ideal can be applied when switching to a smaller mobile device from a full desktop computer.

I see this in my family also, even though we have a family desktop, noone uses any more applications than FireFox or AIM or iTunes. A less powerful device is great for them, but for someone like me who needs bleeding edge graphics for games and processing power for compiling applications and the like, I don't see desktops going out of style anytime soon.