4 ms·

Mobile, Ecosystems and the Death of PCs

15 points by shawndumas 11y ago

tw04 11y ago
I keep hearing that, and yet everyone I know despises creating anything on a mobile device, and everyone I know still owns a PC as well as a mobile device. Mobile device sales are massive because you need a new one every 2 years, because the old one sucks so horribly. I can still run Windows 10 on my 7+ year old computer and it works just fine if I'm not playing games or doing video editing.
- chipsy 11y ago
  That only proves the point of the article: Mobile is still bad and has fundamental barriers to overcome. In the 1980's, the "obsolete the moment you buy it" and "expensive paperweight" jokes were commonly encountered for PC's. The nature of what will cross those barriers is still up in the air, though: It could be plugging the phone into a dock to access the traditional peripherals; it could be used in tandem with a novel display technology like a VR headset, and likewise use novel interaction methods. The market hasn't started proposing serious solutions yet.
  - scholia 11y ago
    He's more interested in being exciting and controversial than being accurate. However, it's not a bad broad-brush picture if you don't look to hard at the details. The thing is, it really is hard to predict the future. For example, when the microprocessor appeared, we all said Wow, we can all have a PC! And the mainframe is dead. I don't think anybody said we'd be papering the world with giant server farms based on microprocessors, or that most of the Fortune 500 would still be running on mainframes 40 years later.
mwcampbell 11y ago
It's been a few years since ARM processors had any inherent power efficiency advantage over the equivalent Intel processors. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myt...
michaelmrose 11y ago
Article has a plethora of problems. "Each generation of technology goes through an S-curve of development - slow improvement of an impractical product, then explosively fast improvement once fundamental barriers are solved, and then slowing iteration and refinement as you solve every last issue and the curve flattens out. PCs are on that flattening part of the curve," There is no reason to believe that the non mobile form factor will go away in the coming years nor that we have perfected the "PC" a concept the article can't even seem to nail down. "just as the move from command lines to GUIs was" The gui became the de facto way for non technical users to interact with computers the command line didn't go away in fact the number one way a lot of users interact with their computer or mobile looks a little like a command line we just call it google or siri. "Second, iOS, ChromeOS and (debatably) Android have a fundamentally better security model" Than what windows? "No-one is going to found a new company to make Win32 applications" I'm sure we could find a recent one "And fourth, the broader scale advantage - the ARM/iOS/Android ecosystem is moving towards selling 10x more devices each year than the Wintel ecosystem." People pretty much implicitly need their own phone, they wear out/get broken quickly, and they are advancing so quickly that it makes sense to upgrade frequently. PCs are often shared, or at least less than 1 per person, are often seen as good enough for years, don't break down quite as quickly, and are often upgraded on a more leisurely schedule. This quantity of mediocre phones dumped onto the market doesn't allow you to infer their relevance and doesn't necessarily allow you to predict future differences in market share. https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/ In short reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated --PC
deleted 11y ago
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15 points by shawndumas 11y ago

tw04 11y ago

I keep hearing that, and yet everyone I know despises creating anything on a mobile device, and everyone I know still owns a PC as well as a mobile device. Mobile device sales are massive because you need a new one every 2 years, because the old one sucks so horribly. I can still run Windows 10 on my 7+ year old computer and it works just fine if I'm not playing games or doing video editing.

chipsy 11y ago
That only proves the point of the article: Mobile is still bad and has fundamental barriers to overcome. In the 1980's, the "obsolete the moment you buy it" and "expensive paperweight" jokes were commonly encountered for PC's. The nature of what will cross those barriers is still up in the air, though: It could be plugging the phone into a dock to access the traditional peripherals; it could be used in tandem with a novel display technology like a VR headset, and likewise use novel interaction methods. The market hasn't started proposing serious solutions yet.
- scholia 11y ago
  He's more interested in being exciting and controversial than being accurate. However, it's not a bad broad-brush picture if you don't look to hard at the details. The thing is, it really is hard to predict the future. For example, when the microprocessor appeared, we all said Wow, we can all have a PC! And the mainframe is dead. I don't think anybody said we'd be papering the world with giant server farms based on microprocessors, or that most of the Fortune 500 would still be running on mainframes 40 years later.

mwcampbell 11y ago

It's been a few years since ARM processors had any inherent power efficiency advantage over the equivalent Intel processors. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myt...

michaelmrose 11y ago

Article has a plethora of problems. "Each generation of technology goes through an S-curve of development - slow improvement of an impractical product, then explosively fast improvement once fundamental barriers are solved, and then slowing iteration and refinement as you solve every last issue and the curve flattens out. PCs are on that flattening part of the curve," There is no reason to believe that the non mobile form factor will go away in the coming years nor that we have perfected the "PC" a concept the article can't even seem to nail down. "just as the move from command lines to GUIs was" The gui became the de facto way for non technical users to interact with computers the command line didn't go away in fact the number one way a lot of users interact with their computer or mobile looks a little like a command line we just call it google or siri. "Second, iOS, ChromeOS and (debatably) Android have a fundamentally better security model" Than what windows? "No-one is going to found a new company to make Win32 applications" I'm sure we could find a recent one "And fourth, the broader scale advantage - the ARM/iOS/Android ecosystem is moving towards selling 10x more devices each year than the Wintel ecosystem." People pretty much implicitly need their own phone, they wear out/get broken quickly, and they are advancing so quickly that it makes sense to upgrade frequently. PCs are often shared, or at least less than 1 per person, are often seen as good enough for years, don't break down quite as quickly, and are often upgraded on a more leisurely schedule. This quantity of mediocre phones dumped onto the market doesn't allow you to infer their relevance and doesn't necessarily allow you to predict future differences in market share. https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/ In short reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated --PC

deleted 11y ago

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