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The Passing of the Personal Computer Era
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."
You buy a phone once a year vs a PC once every 3 years. I would expect 3x more smartphone shipments than PCs.
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.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Only 13% was "tablets and phones."
The real threat is 30% "Other" which includes Servers and embedded.
So servers are killing the pc. You know, the cloud thing. Big whoop.
...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.
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!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Most people already have a computer. They also replace smartphones more often than computers, since laptops and desktops that are fast enough for their use have been around quite some time, while the wireless domain is still improving with transitions from 3G to 4G, faster mobile processors, better screens with more real estate, lighter weight, etc. A better question would be: How many people own a smartphone, but no laptop or desktop? My admitted SWAG is that most who own a smartphone also own a laptop and/or desktop or are children in a family with access to the family computer, while a larger percentage of those who own a laptop or desktop don't own a smartphone. So, no.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I can't imagine any day when I won't opt to build my own PC, versus buying some closed retail model.
I really enjoy the experience, it's fun to tinker and put things together yourself.
I also prefer mixing and matching hardware. Not only can I choose what parts to install for budget reasons, but I can decide what video card and motherboard manufacturers to support.
And not least is the ability to upgrade my own damn hardware; something that's nigh impossible with any retail models.
I will seriously turn my life toward the robotics industry if DIY computing actually disappears.
I've had my desktop computer for close to 10 years. I've had my current laptop for 6 years. Every single person I know have a computer at home, either their own or shared with the rest of the household. The era is not passing just because real computers aren't selling as fast as hyper-marketed status symbols.
From wikipedia : "A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.".
So, a personal computer is/(will be soon) the smartphone.
For the basic user, desktop and laptop hardware is now Good Enough and has been for a while. You do not, in actual fact, need dual quad-core processors, 24GB of DDR1600 memory, or the latest Radeon 7000 series or nVidia Kepler video card to check your email, surf Youtube, and edit your TPS reports. So a lot of people have no need to buy a new computer regularly now. Furthermore, computers have gotten cheap. So much so that almost everyone who has any want for a desktop or laptop, has one. Laptops and especially desktops don't have the faux "oh, your styling is out of date! You need to replace your car that will be perfectly good for another ten years!" thing going on that phones to some extent do.
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."
People who use small devices are primarily consumers of information with obvious exceptions like texting, voice, pictures, and video. But specifically these people are not manipulating the information. They might take the video but they aren't likely to turn it into a documentary on their device. As the screens and computing power gets larger the amount of creation and manipulation increases. Thus programmers, video editors, 3D artists, engineers, etc all need powerful systems with good keyboards, mice, and many screens.
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.
The article says that smartphones and tablets are not personal computers. If you consider the "PC" as only in the mold of a beige box with a display and keyboard/mouse tethered to it, then yes smartphones and tablets are not personal computers. However, I disagree. A personal computer is a general purpose computer intended for use by one person. How is a smartphone or tablet not a personal computer? In fact, a smartphone or tablet is, in some ways, more a personal computer than the beige box "PC" because it has more of a one-on-one interaction with the user. The bottom line is that the computing industry as a whole is always changing, perhaps now more than ever.
is no excuse.
Computers are more gravity resistant than phones and tablets. Scientist believe computer's natural advantage is due to the fact that computers being bigger, more useful and more expensive. The computer being natural more resistant to the shortfalls of gravity are purchased less often than phones/tablets and upgraded less frequently.
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!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
We have 4 people in the household that use one PC, but we each have Smartphones. I build my own PC and update one individual part (mobo, cpu, RAM, video card, psu, etc.) every 6 months so I never really show up on the radar of the floggers who write such tripe based on HP and Dell stats, but we each get a new phone at a minimum every 2 years and frequently more often if there's an accident with one. The PC isn't dead it's just reached a saturation point like the tablets will someday. Phones I would expect to ALWAYS have higher numbers because they'll always have more frequent replacement, but they may suffer the same fate if they reach saturation once all the features have been fleshed out and hardware hits physical limits.
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?
Try the wikimedia traffic analysis instead: http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportOperatingSystems.htm
Oh no, desktops and laptops are all the way down to 84%. Clearly their time is over.
---
Sent via my PC
Obviously the people who come up with this type of article are not computer people, and consider a tablet/smartphone adequate for the minor computer related things they need to do, and don't understand the market. They see numbers, and then cry wolf.
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.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
According to the data DRAMeXchange, in the second half of August contract prices of DRAM memory decreased even more. It reflects continuation of decline in demand for the PC. In August of OEM suppliers ordered much smaller volume of chips, than analysts expected.
Due to the low demand for the DRAM chips used in modules for desktop PCs, branch players switch the production capacities to mobile DRAM memory and server products. http://www.law-us.blogspot.com/
Not everyone bought a new PC this year. Either the world is crashing and burning, or the previous PC's were more future-proof with regards to specs than anticipated.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The PC market is already saturated, the smart phone isnt.... Not to mention Phones only last a couple of years where PC tend to last longer..
Have fun creating audio/visual content and software on your tablets... Buzzwords and marketing blah ("the passing of...", "a new era...", "groundbreaking, industry leading...") however might work well.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
With the Cloud, people COULD argue that the PC is passing, but cellphones? Cellphones are a crutch you use until you get to a computer.
"At this point, is it really any different than a laptop?"
You bet it is. The majority of PCs are currently generic vendor-neutral platforms.
Manufacturers REALLY REALLY REALLY want to change that to drive up profit margins
and lock you into their hardware. Alibaba/Acer is the latest example. Lock your chiphone
into the Alibaba store ecosystem. Intel and AMD are telling you they are going to lock you
into Windows 8. BE AFRAID!
n/t
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.
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.
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.
Apple computer seeded this when they partnered with Acorn micro to create the ARM company (producing the modern ARM6). It went in to the newton. The newton we all know failed. But the iphone is the re-incarnation of the newton. And it is this that is really responsible for the rise of the RISC ARM processors. Even the Marvel processors derive from this same origin. Their partnership with IBM on the powerPC shows how they still believed in RISC even after they sold off ARM.
It's remarkable how apple is an early adopter. dynamic memory, integrated graphics, mouse, postscript,.... and Risc.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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.
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. 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.
.... saying things to support your agenda doesn't make what you say true.
"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.
YASIFS (Yet another sky is falling story). The overall computer market is still growing.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Apple invented the PC, they led it for years and they recently said that industry is now behind us. Looks like proof that Apple once again, is telling the truth about why they're the most successfull company on the planet. They create and take down their own industries. Slugs like IBM and Dell stood on Apple's shoulders to sell a marketable PC that obviously failed.
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>
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.
... 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.
Yes, we just can't wait that bright moment
when we move our personal data to (i|ms)Cloud and install new application only from (i|ms)Store
...which never seems to enter into the thinking of those who want to claim that "PCs are dead."
We're coming off of the worst economy since the great depression and pre-WWII.
People have a computer that works. Why replace it?
Perhaps it is just that the definition of the Personal Computer has changed and not so much the era has passed.
It seems to me that cell phones and tablets are *more* personal, and that the manufacturers have us hopping through a faster upgrade cycle with them. What's not to like for the industry? If anything, they're getting more lock in and more control than they used to have. How many people build their own tablet or cell phone?
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.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
50% of what? compared to what? where did it go? what's the other 50%? it seems to imply tablets (from the line: "desktop and laptop computers, but not tablets") so should I assume this doesn't include smartphones? dishwashers?
When I occasionally see someone send me a lengthy email ending with phrase "sent from my iphone/ipad" I honestly feel sorry for them.
If we take the word "PC" as meaning what it used to, namely "Personal Computer" one can argue that computers are now more personal than ever:
a/ a computer now holds all my personal data, my contacts and calendar
b/ a computer is now almost always on my person
c/ a computer now serves my personal needs instead of me having to teach it what I want it to do.
IN fact smartphones are more PC's than the PC's of the 1980's, as they are more personal, and more personalized, and always on our persons.
The fact that the computer no longer sits on my desk, but rather in my pocket, really is not that important in the long run. The fact is the PC is more personal than ever before. Dividing up statistics according to what kind of units sold might be useful for marketeers, but the reality is that the PC is stronger than ever.
why watch a tv when you have a smart phone?
I've ditched the desktop. One laptop works for me. I don't even have external screens and such anymore. It was just easier to learn to use it well just as it comes. I will, on occasion plug in a mouse, or other specialized input device, and those are carried in my backpack.
Older laptops get purposed for specific things. Media server, or development machine for micro-controllers and such.
The only real PC that I have now is my Apple //e! (and I wish it were portable) And it's a nicely equipped //e, with a USB card for storage, serial, etc...
Blogging because I can...
To say the PC-era has ended you need to look at application usage. For example: What percentage of web browsing is done via PC, cell phone, tablet, etc? I would guess the overwhelming majority is done by the PC.
Likewise look at email, word processing, games....
Anyone have these kind of numbers?
As often is the case with these sort of things this is based on misleading and miss-interpreted data. Smartphones are personal computers. Sales have never been better. Usage has never been wider.
I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously a tech writing which contains lines like "pronounced 'DEE-ram'".
Otherwise, personal computers and personal computing is not dead, it just has several form factors and platforms at this point in time. It's not dead, it's extending, growing and evolving. Of course they might only mean desktop computers as PCs, but then again the whole thing is stupid, since buying a lot of portable crap won't ever mean workstations and servers are dying. It just means there are more portable computers (tablets, phones, whatever) being sold, than - let's call them as - classic PCs. Nothing more, nothing less.
So, now let's find another two numbers which are not equal and write an article about why one is higher than the other, it might be fun.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I do not like how Apple chooses to go about the installation of third-party software, but my answer to that is to not buy Apple products.
I don't like how Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo go about the installation of software on their video game consoles. So what's the appropriate answer to that?
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.
I've ditched the desktop. One laptop works for me.
Your laptop is more like a desktop than it is like the tablets popular in 2012. Most laptops run desktop PC operating systems, except for Chromebooks (rare). Most tablets do not run desktop PC operating systems, except for x86 Windows tablets (rare outside healthcare) and Android tablets with a Debian or Ubuntu chroot (also rare).
No one ever said that the post pc world would contain no pcs.
But it's easy to imagine a family where the kids have easy access only to locked-down devices, not PCs. You can't do homework for your computer science class on an iPad, as betterunixthanunix pointed out.
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.
The need to upgrade computers is almost non-existent if you didn't buy the cheapest, lowest spec'ed machine. Mobiles and tablets have the benefit of contracts and or lower specs that mean people will upgrade them more often. But the fact is as well most people are not geeks and they don't really care about the hardware. They care about the tasks. They want something that works like a VCR and not something they can hack and tweak.
Everyone uses computing devices of some sort now so it only makes sense most hardware goes towards devices that the average person prefers which would be a self contained easy to use device.
"Computers are dead," he writes, on a computer.
I can't imagine any day when I won't opt to build my own PC, versus buying some closed retail model.
Is that because you drive to and from work? People who take public transit are more likely to own a laptop because it lets them get something done during the commute, and people who build their own laptop from barebone kits are an extreme edge case.
I doubt for example that you can run a compiler on that thing.
Thanks to AIDE, an Android tablet is a personal computer, and an iDevice is not.
[You don't need a hardcore gamer PC to do common office tasks]
Microsoft is working on solving that problem as we speak!
As I see it, system requirements have increased far less from Windows Vista to Windows 8 than they did from Windows XP to Windows Vista. In fact, Windows 8's system requirements are explicitly exactly the same as those of Windows 7. Part of this is that Microsoft doesn't want the 10" laptop segment to go back to Ubuntu.
Early 8-bit home microcomputers booted to a BASIC interpreter, encouraging the user to make a program. Apple's iDevices, on the other hand, go out of their way to discourage this without an additional payment of $748 for the first year and $100 each additional year.
That's another title we see here once every [n] months. I still work on what I used to call a mainframe ("Enterprise Server", or "Big iron", or "my baby") and I expect to still be using a PC for many years.
Slow news day at Slashdot HQ? I bet we see the "can anyone be a programmer or does it take special skills" one soon. (Oh, wait...)
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
We have 4 people in the household that use one PC
So how do you play multiplayer video games together? I was under the impression that not enough PC games supported multiple gamepads. Or does your household stick to tabletop games?
Intel and AMD are telling you they are going to lock you into Windows 8.
Nope, just Intel. AMD has clarified that its "Windows 8 chip" will also run GNU/Linux, just not Android. From this article: "However unlike Intel, Belt said AMD's software engineers are working on Linux support, though that doesn't necessarily mean Android."
Geeks need much more than consumers and a tablet isn't going to be enough for them.
The trouble is that without "consumers" providing economies of scale, geeks are going to have a harder time finding a general-purpose computer at an affordable price. This is especially true for high school students enrolled in programming classes.
If you have Windows 7 on your netbook, it would take 1-2 seconds to resume
I have Xubuntu on my laptop, and it indeed takes only about four seconds to come back to the unlock screen after I open the lid. The trouble is that it always turns off the Wi-Fi circuitry while suspended, meaning it has to reassociate every time I open the lid.
My admitted SWAG
Your link was broken in two ways. For one thing, it says "tech.slashdot.org/en.wikipedia.org". For another, after I fixed that, I discovered that Wikipedia was down ("The connection was reset") at the time. So based on the rest of the link, I'll assume it means "hypothesis".
My admitted [hypothesis] is that most who own a smartphone also own a laptop and/or desktop or are children in a family with access to the family computer
Given that "family computer" also happens to be the name of a video game console manufactured by the company that invented cryptographic lockout and region coding of video games, I wouldn't bet on it. See betterunixthanunix's idea for how it might play out.
95% of real computer-based work continues to require a good keyboard and pointing device.
In the world that smartphone fanboys describe, a smartphone will be docked to an HDMI monitor, placed next to a Bluetooth keyboard, and used as a trackpad. The sticking point here is Apple's refusal to make the iDevices into general-purpose computers.
I don't purposely "stalk" anybody. I don't open people's posting history, and I hardly even look at a post's byline before replying to it. What steps do you recommend that I take to stop "stalking" you?
...So...that essentially means therell be no more "This is going to be the year of the Linux on the Desktop"? Sheesshh....
think of the pc gamers that will be forced onto consoles, tablets,and da cloud, OMG! Think of all the tablets thrown against walls, stomped on and punched when wow players are forced to raid on a puny tablet using nothing but fat greezy fingers! NOOO! Wheres da porn stash gonna go huh? da cloud? NOOO!
Yes because computer prices rise up every year.
PC prices have been falling because of price competition among sellers trying to attract a lot of buyers. Once there are fewer buyers, there will likely be less profit left, sellers will exit the market, and prices will stop falling. This has already begun to happen in the 10" laptop market segment, which Dell left in December of last year. If a PC becomes a niche product that only businesses are expected to have, PC makers are likely to price PCs for business users rather than for home users.
The $500 I paid to build my own computer last year was so much more than the $1500 I paid for my first computer more than a decade ago.
I bought a Linux netbook at Target for $300 in the fourth quarter of 2008. Prices for netbooks haven't fallen much since then, and now I have to pay for shipping too because they're not sold in stores anymore. And which netbooks come with Linux, or even claim complete compatibility with Linux even if they do come with Windows?
would you people stop predicting the"end of the PC era" already just to get attention and drive traffic to your site? Until there are fewer PC sales in a given year than there were at the time you call the beginning of the PC age, it's not the frickin end yet, okay? it's like declaring it the end of the western cutlery age because there are more chop sticks sold than there are forks, or saying that it's the end of the tv age because there's the internet. actually that's a lot closer to being true than the other things.
The smartphone seems to be far more of a "personal" computer than a desktop or a laptop. The desktop computer might be becoming less popular--but two things have happened. There is no need for a faster PC--the four (or even 8 year old) desktop computer does what most people need--why buy a new one. And with smartphones that rival the power of those 8 year old computer--the personal computer is simply changing shape. Just as laptop sales surpassed desktops--so will smartphones--after all now everyone in the family can have their own--no need to wait while someone else hogs the keyboard.
When I can burn a DVD, do a decent graphic work (with real things like photoshop), program php and test it with apache with a phone or tablet I would be worried. Otherwise is just FUD.
More consumers than producers. More eaters than farmers. News at 11.
Tablets and phones are great output devices. You can tweet 149 (or 143 or whatever) characters at a time, but I wouldn't want to develop an app on one. To test an app? Oh, absolutely. But not code one, that would be hideous. PC's are great for creating content: lots of power, low cost (lower bang for the buck than phones/tablets or even laptops).
Netbooks sold like crazy until people realized they sucked, the screens were too small, and they were slow as hell. Everyone said it was the end for laptops. Now my shop hasn't gotten a request for a netbook in over a year. Now they made something called a tablet which is a netbook with a like 2" larger screen. They're like a netbook in that they're not amazingly fast and they don't have an optical drive but these have the added benefit of being impossible to type on. Netbooks just made it hard but tablets require telekinesis to beat 30WPM. I can blast out some serious WPM on my phone's physical keyboard but still under half the speed of my PC keyboard. You add complete incompatibility with 99% of all software ever written due to a lack of x86 capability and you've got a real winner there. With Apple, you might as well just hand them your wallet if you want to use your ipad for anything. With android, you just have to download virus-rigged free versions of apps to lose your money (when they steal your financial login creds lol).
People are still at the "ooh, I want a tablet. They're so neat looking" stage. As in LOOKING. 1 facebook wall post typed on a tablet later and they hate it. Hurray for marketing and unwise people. Can't wait for them to crash.
Something tells me Microsoft Metro designers didn't actually fall for it either. Windows CE was a joke, remember? They're counting on tablets being a flop just in time for Windows 9 so people jump on it for a double dip purchase over like 2 years.
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.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
TO make calls, and receive calls or to manage contact lists are UBER EASY in android.
Maybe she just needs to watch a how-to-use android video, because reading is so boring.
Today you might not need a smartfone, but months down the road, you might need to read that email, or have your documents accessible in the cloud, or really need to browse the weather site for that incoming hurricane when you are stuck on i55.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If you display is tripple buffered.
one thread can be doing the 3d objects
another piping it to the 3d card
yes, you have a sequence of functions.
but doit as follows;
Each column is each core, doing funcs A,B,C,D in order, every step has a new result D. But 4X faster than 1 core.
ABCD
BCDA
CDAB
DABC
Trivial.
On a side note, look what you can do with JScript, on learningthreejs.com
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Go to http://android-sale.com/hdc-galaxy-s3-i9300-phone.html
You can get some nice S3 clones, on par to a S1, but using ICS.
more here http://www.chinaecarts.com/samsung-galaxy-s3-12ghz-dual-core-48inch-mtk6577-android-41-16gb-phone-p-3095.html
http://micgadget.com/28057/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-knockoff-unveiled-with-720p-display-and-android-4-0-videos/
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
As a network engineer with 30 years experiance, I can honestly say this story is full of it.
The PC market is not dead, nor will it be anytime soon.
The sales comparison is, for lack of a better cliche, "Apples to Oranges". Typically, a person buys one or two PC's/Laptops every few years. Smartphones are bought and sold like candy.
Smart phones and tablets simply do no have the horse power and convenience of functional keyboards, mice and larger displays that a PC or Mac has.
Maybe someday Smart Phones may replace PC's. But not today.
I don't disagree.
There are a few layers to this discussion. One is the stationary computer. For me, that's gone for all but that old Apple.
The second is "The end of the PC" discussion, and I don't think we are anywhere close to that. Tablets and phones are growing very potent. Lots can be done on them, but they are not the general purpose computing devices "PC" devices are. Some of them can be, and I see people attempting to do that.
I myself am looking at a basic droid device for that purpose. I also use portable Linux distributions a lot, along with virtualization to decouple from hardware.
When it comes to authoring things, the PC is still king. For information consumption and some light manipulation, tablets and phones are rapidly filling that niche. There will be fewer PC's, but no end to them anytime soon.
Blogging because I can...
So people are buying other than PCs.. and??? and??? Do you own a PC? Does everyone you know own a PC? DO you plan to go on owning a PC? Does your PC give you the premium user experience? Does your PC "do stuff" that your phone and table can't? Do you do serious work on your PC?
Certain business interests would like to see the end of personal computers because those interests have bet big on computing as a service models where you pay every time you use a computer... it's a metering business scheme where once PCs are no longer financially viable, they start ratcheting up the rates and rewriting the TOS to formally exclude any kind of data privacy at all... this would be of course long after any kind of data privacy had been defacto wiped out.
So periodically, we have to hear more stories about how the future of computing is in the cloud - only partially true - and how "the network is the computer" .. and this kind of crap.
Some business interests who just GET OFF on thinking they are controlling the direction of society and try to plan and shape the choices society has and makes have it in for your home PC. People who get going on this kind of jihad are fundamentally imbalanced and more than a little fascistic.
You don't sit around and hatch plans that involve you maintaining and having unfettered access to everyone's information except the very rich who can afford PCs and therefore private data . You don't daydream about what kind of power over other people's business efforts you'll have once and how you'll be able to shape outcomes and pick winners and losers once everyone has to submit the details of those business aspirations to you and your buds. But that's because you're not psychotically fixated on acquiring a much power for yourself as you possibly can, which is to say your chromosomes are normal.
Fuck the author of this article and the fucking horse the guy who fucking paid him to write it fucking rode in on.
... as we look to the next book in the series which was opened in Silicon Valley a little over 10 years ago.
Tablets and phones are growing very potent. Lots can be done on them, but they are not the general purpose computing devices "PC" devices are.
I agree with you with respect to the iPhone and Apple's tablets (iPod touch and iPad). But any Android device is a general-purpose computer, and one can add an Ubuntu chroot to make this even more obvious.
When it comes to authoring things, the PC is still king. For information consumption and some light manipulation, tablets and phones are rapidly filling that niche.
The problem as I see it arises when someone's needs grow from "information consumption and some light manipulation" to "authoring things". Someone who doesn't already own a PC will run into a $400 barrier before he can start "authoring things". As betterunixthanunix pointed out, this barrier can be fairly hefty for a high school student.
The article says that smartphones and tablets are not personal computers. If you consider the "PC" as only in the mold of a beige box with a display and keyboard/mouse tethered to it, then yes smartphones and tablets are not personal computers. However, I disagree. A personal computer is a general purpose computer intended for use by one person. How is a smartphone or tablet not a personal computer? In fact, a smartphone or tablet is, in some ways, more a personal computer than the beige box "PC" because it has more of a one-on-one interaction with the user.
Yeah, a smartphone surely is a "personal computer" but not a "PC". The term PC (or "Personal Computer") has a very specific meaning.
Almost all of these discussions boil down to a confusion about a description ("a personal computer") and a name for a very specific kind of personal computer ("a PC").
Why is this so hard to understand?
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I have NEVER used such phones AT ALL. I abhorr tablets. PCs are just... stopping from being truly useful. But no one here would believe in worldwide conspiracies, governments spending covertly against countries s advantages, populations composed of near morons, etc. Coupled to excess advertisement to a limited product, media hype, excessive trust on market forces... Say s Law! Markets can be distorted and corrected, etc. Too long to explain, but YOU here should try organizing or those ridiculous phones will ALSO pass and bye bye, say good bye to mass transport, international communications, international transportation, mass population, welcome to baronies, secret knowledge societies, oscurantism... Probably we can still do better than the laptop without falling into limping tablets and minusculous phones.
I own a smartphone and I use it to make PHONE CALLS and pretty much nothing else!
I use my PC (which I only just newly build a month ago) for everything else - gaming, web, skype, etc. As long as I can't play games like Diablo 3, Rage and Crysis on a smartphone, I don't see why I should stop using my PC!
But that's just me...