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The 'Post-PC Era' Never Really Happened... and Likely Won't (techpinions.com)
Mark Lowenstein, writing for Techpinions: As we head toward Apple's annual device announcement-palooza, it's an interesting exercise to consider where we are in Steve Jobs' vaunted, much quoted 'Post-PC Era.' The fact of the matter is, that era never fully arrived, and it doesn't look like it will, in the near- to medium- term future. [...] Tablets have had a good run, but sales have tailed off of late. I'd say they've had greater influence on the evolution of the smartphone and the PC, rather than leading to a significantly different nomenclature for what most of us carry around today. My Techpinions colleague Ben Bajarin says that Creative Strategies surveys indicate that only about 10% of tablet users have 'replaced their PC' -- a number that has held steady for several years. And that 10% is concentrated in a handful of industries, such as real estate and construction. PC sales aren't exactly surging, but they're steady. Your average white collar professional today still carries around a smartphone and a laptop, with the tablet being an ancillary device, used primarily for media/content consumption.
Tablets have had a significant influence on the design of smartphones and PCs. They ushered in an era of smartphone screen upsizing, led primarily by Samsung, and now reinforced by the iPhone X and the expected announcement next week of a 6.5 inch iPhone model. For those who don't want to swing both a smartphone and tablet, we have 'Phablets,' most personified in the successful Galaxy Note series, and alternative-to-keyboard input devices such as the S Pen and the Apple Pencil. We've also seen the development of some hybrid tablet/PC devices, the most innovative and successful of which is Microsoft's Surface line. But that product is competing more in the tablet category than in the PC category, with the exception of a few market segments.
Tablets have had a significant influence on the design of smartphones and PCs. They ushered in an era of smartphone screen upsizing, led primarily by Samsung, and now reinforced by the iPhone X and the expected announcement next week of a 6.5 inch iPhone model. For those who don't want to swing both a smartphone and tablet, we have 'Phablets,' most personified in the successful Galaxy Note series, and alternative-to-keyboard input devices such as the S Pen and the Apple Pencil. We've also seen the development of some hybrid tablet/PC devices, the most innovative and successful of which is Microsoft's Surface line. But that product is competing more in the tablet category than in the PC category, with the exception of a few market segments.
Smearing greasy prints on a screen, waving your shit around like an idiot, screaming at your word processor that you mean your, no, not yore, no not you're, no for fuck's sake!, or literally walking through a filesystem... All cute gimmicks that last about ten minutes.
And then you pull out the keyboard and get real work done.
Nobody has yet come up with a remotely serious idea that even has a chance at ousting the PC.
...is that devices specifically manufactured and marketed as tablets first and foremost are limited. They don't successfully replace all of the functions of a PC, in that the software written for them and the nature of how they're designed to interact with peripherals and with other systems is restricted. In some senses this can be a good thing, we don't have quite as many problems with poorly written software crashing the OS, but because of the walled-garden approach that both Android and Apple have taken, there's simply less functionality. On top of that, due to the battery-operated, portable nature of the devices, they don't do the CPU-intensive tasks as well as something designed to be plugged into the wall, or even something that carries a lot more mass in batteries.
In an ideal world, I would have a very small device that could interface to any screen and set of input devices that I so chose. It could serve as my phone, it could serve as my book reader, it could serve to watch movies, could serve as a portable computer for business functions, could serve as my full-featured desktop computer, depending on what set of peripherals I'm using with it. Unfortunately desktop computer operating systems don't do the mobile functions too well, and the mobile operating systems don't offer the freedom I need for desktop functions.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Ok, so they both died in the process, but they won. Netscape with its "browser as a platform" strategy, and Sun with its "network computing" strategy, both failed to win their early battles against Microsoft, but in the end, the PC lost its place as "the" platform. Applications are now accessed over the Internet, and they can be accessed using any device. Applications locally installed on a Wintel machine are still around, but they're no longer the primary way we do most things with computers. Remember when you had to install a special Windows program to track a FedEx package? To log in to your bank? To do your taxes? That era is over. We're in the post-PC era now, and we've been there for quite some time now.
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In many senses, it already happened.
No, it didn't. Did you walk through your office and see all the employees typing away on their tablets, getting all that mission-critical business stuff done? No? Me either. Until businesses are able to use tablets to do all their "business stuff," the pc will continue to be king.
Yes, tablets are powerful enough today to do most of what most people want to use a laptop or PC for, with one exception: Sensible input and output. Sorry, but the screen-keyboard of a tablet is useless compared to a normal keyboard. If you don't agree, show me your touch-typing on a tablet with more than 80 wpm and we'll talk.
Likewise, output is atrocious. When you're used to 22" screens as your display real estate, trying to get used to screens not even 1/4 the size is really taxing.
It's a neat tool to check your mail while on the go. I give you that. But getting any sensible work done is next to impossible on them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Questions to be disgust:
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I always wonder what would have happened if Apple had decided that a keyboard and more importantly a mouse was an acceptable iPad peripheral.
I mostly liked my iPads (1 & 3) but over time felt hemmed in by the lack of a mouse. I had a keyboard case which made text input a lot better, but the lack of a mouse and the clumsy nature of screen touch made editing anything an impossible chore and even the promise of RDP to desktops unappealing for anything more than basic status checks or the most marginal of activities.
If Apple had allowed mice, would the iPad have gained more ground from PCs?
You know there's more to computing than games, right?
True, but for many users, there isn't more to local computing than games. I've gathered through conversation with other Internet users that many of them use only two categories of application: 1. web applications and 2. native games. They don't use any native non-game applications not shipped with a device's operating system. They could be satisfied with an Xbox One and a Chromebook.
I strongly agree with that. You still own your device. You can seize control of it at any time.
I like how Google has done this on the Chromebooks. You CAN put it in developer mode, if you want to. You still get to run Chrome OS (and Android). Yet the device is effectively rooted. You can install a Linux desktop (or several at once) via Crouton. And run all the untrusted code to your heart's content. (Tip: Since the "Downloads" folder is mapped to "Downloads" in each Linux desktop, put a lot of persistent stuff there, and then symlink it into each desktop Linux from where it is under "Downloads".)
In the mode I just described, you only get to run authorized code under Chrome OS and Android -- but you can run all your favorite untrusted code under Crouton. Or ignore Crouton. From the crosh shell you can simply type 'shell' and have root access.
Furthermore, for people who want to jump through even more hoops, you can replace the firmware. You can dual boot. Or you can simply wipe Chrome OS entirely and install Linux.
Finally, to people who say they want to have 100% control. Yes, you do. In principle. But in reality do I have 100% control? Unless I personally vet every single line of code, do I really know everything I'm executing in Ubuntu Unity, or Xfce? If I use the self-update features in Linux, do I really have 100% control any more than poor Microsoft schlobs?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
What I see in 90% of homes are families that have a laptop for the mother, tablets for the little kids and smartphones for teens. Dad tends to be in the "man cave" drinking, or uses a work provided laptop, typically both.
It has become extremely rare to see desktop PC's in a home unless the person telecommutes or operates a home business on the side. Gamer's are really the only group left that stick to PC's but there is a growing trend to go with gaming laptops since they are easier to take to a friend's house/dorm.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
The problem is that when those fools refuse to learn, they hurt those of us who do learn. Whether it is allowing their machines to become part of a DDOS attack, or leaking all their stored data (which can include our private data), or becoming penetration points for our networks, or whatever. There's a need for some sort of "herd immunity", to borrow a concept from vaccinations. I don't know what that looks like, but the phones are much more secure, and I've often wished desktops had some security rails like the phones. Something like training wheels that you have to consciously remove.
In many senses, it already happened.
How many programs did you download to your PC? My mom uses a browser and mostly nothing else...
Just the ones I can recall of the top of my head...
Firefox
Thunderbird
Turbo Lister
Libre Office
Star Trek Online
VLC
Audacity
VirtualDub
Arachnophilia (for my HTML editor)
GIMP
Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Mumble depending on what group we are running with
Celestia
AviDemux
Calibre
And that is just a small sampling.
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And how much "heavy weight work" does an average family do?
What tablets and smartphones did was reduce PC usage. It never quite eliminated it. (And even Steve Jobs admitted it - in the post-PC era, there would still be PCs becaues they're like trucks - and there are plenty of tasks a truck can do that a car can't).
But instead of having to have a PC for everyone, usage slipped a fair bit. You still have to have a family PC for homework and probably Mom or Dad brings home a work laptop to work from home, but for light web browsing, and of course the inevitable netflix and facebook and all that stuff, the kids will just use their smartphones and tablets and be done with it. (Sharing photos on social media is much easier on a smartphone/tablet than on a PC).
We'll always have PCs. The reality is, we don't need as many PCs as we used to since many tasks that were once done by PCs (e.g., web browsing, reading, netflix) have moved off of them and onto more specialized devices like phones, tablets, or set top boxes.