This is fine from a consumer point of view, consuming content on a phone or tablet is really great! But if you want to create, there is just nothing out there that can rival a keyboard and a mouse. For this reason, 'desktop' PCs will be around for a very long time, in business and for anyone who creates (writes, codes, or creates any kind of media) in any way semi-seriously at home.
If you have a tablet, and almost always carry a keyboard to go with it, then really aren't you saying that a laptop would be the right solution?<p>Tablets are definitely moving towards being general purpose computers, but they're not there yet, and if you're willing to buy into a locked down iPad as your main computer, then I feel slightly sorry for you.<p>On the other side of things, I really don't see the point in $1500 laptops right now. Yes, the laptop should be extremely thin and light, but the cheapest intel processor married to an 120GB SSD and 4GB of RAM will work great for huge numbers of users, for both consumption and creation.<p>Frustratingly, it seems only the Chromebooks seem to be taking this approach to laptops, and I really don't want to replace an open device with one which Google works hard to lock down.
I need gcc, vim and a shell and a nice big screen with the ability to type easily, that's why I use old-fashioned PCs. I also don't like how all the pads and mobile devices are locked-down and more focused on tracking user activity <i></i><i>(EDIT: and selling stuff)</i><i></i> than being a computing device. I guess I'm getting old.
Two guys agree on it, so it must be correct! Well, time to chuck this inconvenient clamshell POS and get an Android tablet to do some <i>actual</i> work on.
IMO thinking in terms of power/performance is completely useless if your goal is to figure out where things are going. All these "computers" have enough power now or will have enough power in the next few years (either through better hardware or device specific software) to do all the things most people need to do. If there really is a need for rendering animation in your pocket I'm sure it will be possible, at some price.<p>For that reason, this is not the same as the mainframe-minicomputer-microcomputer transition. What is going on now is new types of computers (tablets & pocket tablets) that are defined by their <i>form</i>, not their <i>power</i>.<p>There is a second reason other than new form factors for the success of these new devices that has nothing to do with power <i>or</i> form factor: new OS/app metaphors & paradigms. The basic metaphors & ideas (desktop, file system, install scripts, desktop shortcuts, trash) behind the PC are 20-30 years old. They were created before grandmothers, electricians and 2 year olds used computers. They were never optimal and they have grown hairs over the years. iOS & Android are a clean slate. This has fixed all sorts of things. Most important (IMO) is tuning applications application into "apps". Apps have a clearer definition than applications. They are self contained, easy to install and easy to remove. Applications are things that your older brother or IT department has to install.<p>This second factor (the clean slate factor) is tricky one because it's very important in the short run. In the long term it's irrelevant to the number of desktops, laptops or tablets sold. PCs will eventually incorporate the features (or the whole OS) that are better in touch OS's. This factor will not affect the ratio of laptops/tablets sold in 2018.<p>Declaring the PC dead is silly. This is just like web based software vs installed software. Power was a bottleneck. Now that it's clearing we can see that for all sorts of things web based software is better but not always. Keyboard & mouse vs touch is similar to this "transition." Things that work better on touch will move to touch, but not everything.<p>This will be a dispersion, not a migration.
I actually tried using my IPad as a primary device for work. I was living in ssh back then so with a Bluetooth keyboard it seemed like I would be able to. What I found was that the software itself, while fine when it's biggest limitation was my ability to interact with it using my clumsy sausage fingers on a touchscreen - was far from sufficient when I had my trusty old Qwerty physical keyboard. My want from the software immediately exceeded its capacity and feature set. Wonder how much of the joy of using a mobile device comes from significant self imposed limitation of the scope of that usage.
This scares me, because of the likely conclusion: people who DO need a desktop will end up paying through the nose.<p>If no-one's buying PCs any more, the price will go up. As the price goes up, all the tasks that you'd do on a PC become more inaccessible.<p>I'm not looking forward to a world where if you want to edit professional video, do 3D animation or do games development, you need to shell out $10k or more for a machine first.
Once Ubuntu for Android appears, it will be copied by other OSes and then the PC will be (mostly) dead. Until then, people will still feel like they need a laptop/PC. <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android" rel="nofollow">http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android</a><p>Edit: please explain the downvotes, I don't see how this isn't adding to the conversation.
<i>What do you do when you have all the computing performance anyone could ever possibly need, except for the freakish one-percenters, the video editors and programmers?</i><p>I think he misses the point, when my computer will boot instantly and allow me to work or when I won't have to wait for a file to copy that's when I'll have enough computer power. We're far from it and I think this applies to anybody, geeks or not. Who wants to wait for his computer to do his thing ?
I always end up going back to my laptop to do any real work. Tablets are great for, as others have mentioned, consuming content. But the PC is "far from over", IMHO.
For development, design and other forms of work, the current generation of smart phones and tablets are clearly not up to task. But it makes you wonder how long before one of these things can run an XCode, Eclipse Visual Studio while wirelessly connecting to a monitor (or 3), keyboard and mouse. I think the biggest issue is really the lack of a traditional file system and ability to host a local web or database server on one of these machines. Neither of these are impossible to overcome given enough clever engineers, especially if the face of server side computing itself starts to change. As long as I don't have to type code on an iPad virtual keyboard I'm pretty excited to see whats coming.
I say it's time for the notion of things "being over" to be over. The PC is absolutely going to diminish in mass-market relevance in favor of devices, but there will always be a PC market for hobbyists and power users (though the economic factors may shift, potentially turning commodity parts into luxury items).<p>There's plenty of room in the computing ecosystem for both web sites and apps, for both closed and open platforms, for both PCs and devices, and whatever other divisions you can think of. Even if one thing "wins", it doesn't mean the other is automatically erased from existence.
I've been unemployed for more than two years. I use a prepaid dumbphone. While it's great that Jeff has an iPhone 5, neither I, nor any of my other 20-something friends, can afford one.
News flash: land lines still exist.
However, unlike land lines, you don't pay a monthly fee to keep your desktop, and the software powering it is growing less and less resource hungry.
Hmm, I dunno. I still can't quite come to terms with the fact that with tablets, we've essentially got the equivalent of overlaying our keyboard on our screen every time we want to type something and obscuring half of the visuals on the screen in the process. I find that quite annoying for anything other than trivial input scenarios and I'm not quite sure I can envision the ideal solution to it, other than perhaps projecting a keyboard onto the table in front of me.
Owning an iPad 1 and an iPad 3 ("new iPad") I'm always thrilled to see how they perform side by side. It's like night and day - unreadable, low-contrast vs. superb, super-high-resolution display; 5 seconds for opening Mail vs 0.5 seconds; almost tripled battery life (at least for me). For some aspects, it's an improvement of an order of magnitude within only 2 years.<p>I don't think such an improvement will be possible in the next 2 years, and the only incremental improvements in the iPhone 5 seem to support that. You can't really upgrade a tablet (yet - there is at least USB host support in most Android tablets), but consumers won't be as hard-pressed to buy an iPad 4 and 5 as they were with earlier versions. There is already the highest-sense-making display resolution, apps open almost instantly, and superlong battery life. What more can you ask for given its restricted use case of media consumption? It will again all be about software (Siri for iPad, tighter TV integration, perhaps OSX on iPad?) soon.
TV is coming. Radio is dead!<p>Actually, radio is as big an industry as it ever was. Mobile phone and app sales may eclipse PC hardware and software sales, but the products are just too different to expect one to replace the other. Perhaps there is more money to be made in Mobile/TV, but that's just because it's a plain old risk/pay-off trade-off.
I think that laptops are the perfect migration away from desktop<p>I've just brought a laptop as my next main programming computer, rather than a desktop.<p>Laptops are the new portable desktops.<p>You can't type on a tablet.
This article makes me wonder if, for power users, someday there will be an iphone sized device that devotes its entire form factor to performance. That is, it goes without a screen, packs a ton of ram and cpu power for "general purpose" computing, and you can put it in your pocket and carry it around. When you get to work you can just plop it in your "workstation" and it will use monitors, keyboard, whatever as interface devices. I guess anything's possible. Now that I write this, I feel like it's sorta already happened, though I can't fit a Mac Mini in my biggest of cargo short pockets.
Yet another article about this? The PC is not going to die. Maybe it's the wet dream of the vocal minority who lives in the apple-bubble. But for me and many others, they are devices that serve distinct, non-overlapping purposes.<p>When I'm at home, I pretty much forget about my tablet/smartphone, because a desktop PC is <i>much</i> more comfortable to use than a mobile device.
Mobile computing has definitely changed my life. I just realized the other day as I tossed my busted up laptop from 2008 that I no longer own a magnetic hard drive. I also don't have a desktop computer, anything running Windows, TV, a CD player, a DVD player, or a landline phone (technically I do w/ my DSL line, but I've never once used it). I live my e-life via a 13" Macbook Air and a 2 year old Android smartphone.<p>I don't consider myself bleeding edge anymore. I still don't have a tablet, although there is the occasional day I want one. Diablo 3 will be played on my next laptop, my 2010 era Macbook Air doesn't have quite enough horsepower to power point and click monster bashing for my taste. And while I've been pushed into going touchscreen on my phone, I still yearn for a physical keyboard on a mobile device.
For consuming content and creating very basic content a tablet is great. On a train or on the sofa a tablet is very nice for reading reddit and HN, watching some Youtube, Skype with the family, writing emails and basic document creation.<p>However for any <i>real</i> content creation a laptop is my primary choice. I would love an ultrabook like the Asus Zenbook or Samsung Series 9. An ultrabook will most certainly be my next computer when I buy one some time next year. I am waiting for them to hit the 10 hour mark which I am hoping they will do next year (already very close with the Samsung clocking in around 9 hours). I am happy to sacrifice some CPU and graphics power for an extra hour or two.
Long live the PC, and by that I mean the phone/tablet that I will connect a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to when at the office or at my desk at home.<p><a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android" rel="nofollow">http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android</a><p>If this was in stores today and handset manufacturers had good compatibility, I would make my next PC whatever the newest, top of the line Android phone and be relatively happy.<p>That said, this headline is sensationalistic nonsense. That setup would still be a PC, in fact it would look remarkably more like a PC than our current laptops we are lugging around (external monitor, keyboard, mouse, connected to a tiny "tower").
My thoughts are that a logical change will be a smartphone that without peripherals will be just what a smartphone is today. I also think that we will have a "station" that is a monitor, keyboard, and mouse that all wirelessly connect to the portable device when it is in the near vicinity and is turned to "computer mode". All the extra data storage that towers have will be wirelessly linked in a base home server that sits on the desk next to the other peripherals.<p>I love a desktop because it is a stationary place I can always count on, but as soon as that becomes more easily replaced and can still run games and media editing at the same scale, I will keep my desktop
A lot of these comments comment on the fact that development is not available 'on the go'. Obviously one wouldn't carry round a keyboard and a tablet.<p>What I find interesting is the fact that powerful computing systems can fit into your pocket. I may be crazy, but couldn't we fit 2 projectors to this, get rid of the display completely and require two surfaces to project a display infront of you, and a keyboard/mousepad at your hands.<p>Maybe have both - a small display for simple tasks and projection for tasks that require a bigger display. Could we see a shift towards holographic display investment in the future? It's already available for keyboards...
Oh god, what a news!))<p>Consumers are using smartphones and tablets while professional are using macbooks. Samsung is new Nokia, Apple is new Microsoft (even worse). Linux is server and Rails is PHP. What news what news..<p>btw, the burst of Wintel (and Java) bubbles is really a good thing - it is for a new wave of Arm/Android/Linux.<p>Of course, there still will be x86_64/Linux server market for long (because its so cheap in terms of Price/Performance) and tons of MS/Java based enterprise crapware still need to be maintained, but that wave is gone long ago.<p>Surfing is a very nice model of IT business, btw.)
For a while I've really wanted tiny portable "thin" clients. You have a nice keyboard, mouse, and monitor at work and home. You have a portable version (maybe even a tablet) for on the move.<p>Most people only need a couple of hours of battery to or from the office.<p>Most people only need something powerful enough to do word processing and spreadsheeting, with a bit of accounts-package-nightmare and specialist-industry-nightmare software on top.<p>It'd be interesting to see Google drive this, or maybe even Canonical. Have a 5 year plan, with plenty of iteration and wiggle room.
I think of it as a step migration. With desktops you get the ultimate workhorse, best for heavy duty work (and this is now a small niche left with graphics and rendering tasks) You step down a bit and you get a portable laptop (its an ideal compromise). Tablet is a third step down with a lot of features cut down and as many pointed out its more of a content consumption device as opposed to creation.<p>Laptops will stay for a while as they sit brilliantly in between.I do see no evolution in laptops but I do see tablets catching up.
I am using iDevices since they have been available to buy.<p>The machine that I use most and is the most fun is the latest MacBook Air. I would expect that 'Ultrabooks' are similar useful.
I can just imagine how he dreads having to type those long blog articles on a keyboard. Clearly it is so much more convenient on a tablet.<p>(Sorry - I like codinghorror actually...)
Interesting to me that people here and in the post are expressing a desire for a tablet/mobile device that transforms into a desktop/workstation when brought near a keyboard. Probably more a reflection of this audience, but I just hadn't heard a lot of people express this desire.<p>Interestingly, to me, that's the problem that Window 8 seems to be trying to solve - I didn't know many people had it! And, of course, a few Android tablets that become laptops, etc.
So what? The trend of our computing devices is that they get smaller as they are getting faster. As they get smaller, we are able to create new form factors. The tablet is just another form factor.<p>I imagine battery tech is going to be holding back tablets and smart phones from being true desktop replacements for a while. The markets want long battery life, not a desktop replacement.<p>Lots of link bait over an article for a trend which is as old as computing.
When XBox came out, someone declared that gaming on PC is/will be dead. Fast forward today we have 2 ecosystems that are thriving. Now someone declares PC is dead. My prediction is that in reality these two will coexist. We don't have the tools yet (want application for web, desktop, mobile? you better learn programming language x,y,z, framework x,y,z etc), but future hopefully will be brighter.
Another take on PCs: I used to keep a few Linux boxes around the house for CPU intensive processing. Then I started to prefer EC2s or Elastic MapReduce. Earlier this year for a side project I decided it would be cheaper and take less of my time to rent a large memory server for about a month.<p>I got rid of my last desktop years ago and have not missed them.
Sorry but bollocks. And I'm fed up with this utter crap being spewed at every available moment.<p>The day the local pc repair shops shut, the day the local electronics store shuts and the day that people pry my universal computing device out of my hands and the 3-4 billion other people let it go, I'll believe it.<p>Until then, this is a fad.