7 ms·

I think Atwood is right, PCs are on their way out simply because with tablets there is so much less that can go wrong. He mentions tech support in the article:

I think Atwood is right, PCs are on their way out simply because with tablets there is so much less that can go wrong. He mentions tech support in the article: THAT is why they will win, regardless of whether or not they will fully replace PCs, or whether or not they are better suited to writing emails. Millions of people who can't be bothered with anti-virus updates and the like will just find it a much more pleasant experience: "it just works" indeed. (I'm a Mac user and I find myself spending a lot less time on tech support type issues than back in the day when I was using Linux and Windows, still it's hard to deny that iPads are currently the epitome of simplicity, compared to their power.) And that's what I'm worried about: "No user serviceable parts inside". I'm concerned the very reason tablets will take over the PC market will also mean that tomorrow's kids' experience is very different from, and I would argue poorer than, my experience when I got my first computer, a Commodore VIC 20. Ironically, my VIC 20 also was very user friendly. You turn it on, it's on. You put in a diskette -- well, it didn't load automatically but making it load was a very simple incantation, and once the game started, it was started. Things were simple and worked, for the most part, quite well. No tech support needed. But the BASIC shell was there right at your fingertips -- hell, the manual came with example BASIC programs. Quibbling over the merits of BASIC aside, it was a simple experience but it was also tremendously open. Things got much more complicated since then; network connectivity in particular introduced previously unknown threats to users, so of course this is a simplified comparison. Still, I wonder, is giving up the freedom to tinker with the system really the price tomorrow's consumers will have to pay in order to buy simplicity? And if you're thinking about replying with links to IDEs running on the iPad: no, something that runs in the cloud and has no direct access whatsoever to the internals of the machine does not qualify as a modern-day replacement for this experience, no matter how sophisticated.

victork2 15y ago
I think the whole question Tablet vs Computer is pretty dumb in the first place. It's not a versus, it's a peaceful cohabitation, only some evangelist and/or journalists want to push us to believe there's a war but that's really not true. Tablet and PC simply correspond to two totally different use of media. A tablet is consumption centered whereas the PC is able to produce complex goods and services than then can be consumed by a tablet. Will the tablet push away PC usage to very low level in some areas? Probably! Will it replace a PC for every usage ? Are you kidding me: Development, 3D Effect, Advanced Audio Processing, Advanced Photo processing. That's just as stupid as saying that photoshop is dead because Instagram can do sepia... PS: I will absolutely never buy a tablet, I fight every day to stay on the creator side of society, with a tablet I would just give up!
- prsimp 15y ago
  It's not impossible to remain a creator while using an iPad (or other tablet) - at least not when it comes to development. There are certainly people who are happily developing on an iPad (albeit with a more powerful remote backend)[1]. I think we are likely to see even more of a shift in this direction as these devices become even more capable. [1] http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
  - victork2 15y ago
    Ok, granted, it seems to work but when you look at the configuration: iPad 2 (16Gb, WiFi) Apple wireless keyboard Stilgut adjustable angle stand/case iSSH Linode 512 running Ubuntu 11.04 Apple VGA adapter This is basically the same configuration as an iMac! I'll take an example, most of the programmers I know when doing some serious coding have 2+ monitors because it's always good to run on the side, get the result live. Or just because you need to compare two files. On such a small screen, it's close to impossible. Also for a programmer a lot of the wasted time is browsing through long files, with an ipad and, again, a small screen = nightmare.
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    To be fair , that one article is the only evidence I have seen thus far of anybody using an iPad as their primary development machine. Wonder how he is getting on with it?
  - dinkumthinkum 15y ago
    This is just not really that serious. There is not going to be widespread adoption of serious programmers doing this in anger. I promise. It's not going to happen. It's fitting a square peg in a round hole. This attitude wants me to have this overly complicated setup to have a really horrible version of what I can do swimmingly well with a little Thinkpad or whatever notebook you like. Done and done. No nonsense.
  - dinkumthinkum 15y ago
    This is just not really that serious. There is not going to be widespread adoption of serious programmers doing this in anger. I promise. It's not going to happen. It's fitting a square peg in a round hole. This attitude wants me to have this overly complicated setup to have a really horrible version of what I can do swimmingly well with a little Thinkpad or whatever notebook you like. Done and done. No nonsense.
jiggy2011 15y ago
I think the current "PC" paradigm needs to die because the things that we do with our computers is just so different now. Regards the "no serviceable parts" issue, there is nothing stopping manufacturers from building systems that are more open in addition of course it may be the case that kids grow up without access to one of these. However that was probably also the case in the 80s for the most part, most of the kids I knew growing up didn't have a computer but they probably did have a SNES or Sega Genesis. Of course what might happen is that all the geeks and hackers buy the "open" hardware and build cool things with it, once the general population sees these things then perhaps they want the open version too. Free market economics dictate that competition will create innovation after all and there is only so much you can lock a platform down without stifling that.
grannyg00se 15y ago
"hell, the manual came with example BASIC programs." I think part of the problem with people and computers is that most wouldn't even bother to read a manual no matter what was included in it. People expect it to be so intuitive that they don't even have to figure anything out. As though this highly complex machine was purpose built for their own expectations. How far would today's typical computer user have gotten on your VIC 20 if they put a diskette in the drive and nothing happened? The incantation that seems so simple doesn't just summon itself. So there's an entire market for highly intuitive and trouble free systems that is now being catered to. But there are tradeoffs in building these systems. They're not as flexible and can't be used for all the things that a PC can be used for. I just bought a tablet and have been trying to figure out a use for it that justifies the price. (laying in bed watching youtube doesn't cut it) It doesn't replace my PC, and it doesn't even replace my phone. I don't see it replacing anything. It actually does the opposite. Overall it increases the ubiquity of computing devices in people's lives.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Computers of that era were very simple to use. I never had a Vic 20 , but in Britain "BBC" computers made by Acorn were popular, especially in schools. If you wanted to start the computer up you pressed the button on the keyboard and it was booted and ready in under a second, ditto for switching it off (no hibernate/shutdown/suspend etc). If you wanted to run a program , you put the floppy disk in the drive and typed "RUN" then pressed enter. I literally learnt to use one at age 6 without much trouble, so did my school peers. Even our aged school teachers could operate them. They were pretty much impossible to screw up since the entire OS was loaded onto a ROM chip so no viruses ,config files etc. Even BASIC was very easy to use, the shell and the basic interpreter were the same thing. I don't think there were many people who didn't know how to do: 10 PRINT "SCHOOL SUXXX" 20 GOTO 10 They were also very extensible machines, you could add joysticks, mice, modems and it even had an analog output board you could plug into the back and control robots arduino style (we were doing this at age 8!) The idea of being "computer literate" didn't really spring up until Windows 95 (or maybe 3.1) and people suddenly had to worry about C drives and "programs" etc. I remember moving from programming text games in basic on my BBC into trying to understand OOP and Visual Basic for Windows and thinking "why does everything have to be so complicated?". To be honest I think if I hadn't had that taste of magic from the BBC I wouldn't have had the will to carry on learning to program.
Anechoic 15y ago
I apologize in advance for the dreaded car analogy but: I'm concerned the very reason tablets will take over the PC market will also mean that tomorrow's kids' experience is very different from, and I would argue poorer than, my experience when I got my first computer I don't think that's any more an issue than today's car owner's have a poor experience because they don't have to worry about setting the fuel/air mixture in their carburetors like I had to with my first car. I think you are right that the closed environment is a barrier, but I live in one of the poorest cities in MA, and yet there are no shortage of computers on the curb on trash day that can happily run Linux/NetBSD/etc. The young hacker culture will live on. Ironically, my VIC 20 also was very user friendly. You turn it on, it's on. You put in a diskette -- well, it didn't load automatically but making it load was a very simple incantation, "Simple" to who? You and me? Sure. Random guy on the street? Doubtful.
- julian37 15y ago
  I don't think that's any more an issue than today's car owner's have a poor experience because they don't have to worry about setting the fuel/air mixture in their carburetors like I had to with my first car. Sorry, I didn't express myself very clearly. By "poor experience" I wasn't referring to usability but to the lack of opportunities to tinker with the system and make it do things outside of what its creators intended. "Simple" to who? You and me? Sure. Random guy on the street? Doubtful. Surely the iPad is easier to use than the VIC-20. Then again, the VIC-20 came with a manual and it wasn't very long. I'm confident every VIC-20 owner read it and even the dumbest of us didn't have much trouble figuring out what command to type to load the disk. Come think of it, I guess I was confusing things: I only had a disk drive later with the Commodore 64, games for the VIC-20 came on a cartridge so no typing required at all, just plug it in and turn on the power.
mdonahoe 15y ago
Computers are becoming more reliable and less user serviceable in the same way that cars did. My dad tells me stories about how he and his father used to service the family car, replace parts etc. My father and I used to do the same thing with the family computer. I hope my future son and I get to play with the family 3d printer.
- ghshephard 15y ago
  As systems become more reliable (Computers, Cars, Operating Systems) - the need for expertise is reduced. That's a godsend for those of us who use to spend days (weeks?) of every year providing computer support for relatives who's systems were constantly self-destructing. I found this (recent) article in the NYT interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-kept-longer-200000-is-new-100000.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-ke... Little details like this are what start to make a big difference: "“The California Air Resources Board and the E.P.A. have been very focused on making sure that catalytic converters perform within 96 percent of their original capability at 100,000 miles,” said Jagadish Sorab, technical leader for engine design at Ford Motor. “Because of this, we needed to reduce the amount of oil being used by the engine to reduce the oil reaching the catalysts. “Fifteen years ago, piston rings would show perhaps 50 microns of wear over the useful life of a vehicle,” Mr. Sorab said, referring to the engine part responsible for sealing combustion in the cylinder. “Today, it is less than 10 microns. As a benchmark, a human hair is 200 microns thick."
niklas_a 15y ago
I think this is a classic example of us old timers wishing our kids got the same experience as us. Back then, you HAD to spend time fiddling with the hardware. Today's kids are much more empowered. Since everything just works they can spend their time creating much more awesome stuff than we ever had the chance to do.
- gaius 15y ago
  The BBC makes a big deal of "digital natives" (kids who grew up with the Internet) and "digital immigrants" (the old folks). What this model completely overlooks is that the digital immigrants built it, and the digital natives merely use it to watch videos on Youtube and poke each other on MySpace. Kids these are days are consumers, not producers.
smsag 15y ago
Thinking about this for a long time: "And that's what I'm worried about: "No user serviceable parts inside". I'm concerned the very reason tablets will take over the PC market will also mean that tomorrow's kids' experience is very different from, and I would argue poorer than, my experience when I got my first computer, a Commodore VIC 20." And found the answer in automobiles. They are as essential to us as communication devices will be to everyone tomorrow. And yet only a few only know at least the fundamentals of an engine. It's a problem society has to tacle by embracing STEM but it's not as problematic as it seems IMHO.

victork2 15y ago

I think the whole question Tablet vs Computer is pretty dumb in the first place. It's not a versus, it's a peaceful cohabitation, only some evangelist and/or journalists want to push us to believe there's a war but that's really not true. Tablet and PC simply correspond to two totally different use of media. A tablet is consumption centered whereas the PC is able to produce complex goods and services than then can be consumed by a tablet. Will the tablet push away PC usage to very low level in some areas? Probably! Will it replace a PC for every usage ? Are you kidding me: Development, 3D Effect, Advanced Audio Processing, Advanced Photo processing. That's just as stupid as saying that photoshop is dead because Instagram can do sepia... PS: I will absolutely never buy a tablet, I fight every day to stay on the creator side of society, with a tablet I would just give up!

prsimp 15y ago
It's not impossible to remain a creator while using an iPad (or other tablet) - at least not when it comes to development. There are certainly people who are happily developing on an iPad (albeit with a more powerful remote backend)[1]. I think we are likely to see even more of a shift in this direction as these devices become even more capable. [1] http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-for-an-ipad http://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook-...
- victork2 15y ago
  Ok, granted, it seems to work but when you look at the configuration: iPad 2 (16Gb, WiFi) Apple wireless keyboard Stilgut adjustable angle stand/case iSSH Linode 512 running Ubuntu 11.04 Apple VGA adapter This is basically the same configuration as an iMac! I'll take an example, most of the programmers I know when doing some serious coding have 2+ monitors because it's always good to run on the side, get the result live. Or just because you need to compare two files. On such a small screen, it's close to impossible. Also for a programmer a lot of the wasted time is browsing through long files, with an ipad and, again, a small screen = nightmare.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  To be fair , that one article is the only evidence I have seen thus far of anybody using an iPad as their primary development machine. Wonder how he is getting on with it?
- dinkumthinkum 15y ago
  This is just not really that serious. There is not going to be widespread adoption of serious programmers doing this in anger. I promise. It's not going to happen. It's fitting a square peg in a round hole. This attitude wants me to have this overly complicated setup to have a really horrible version of what I can do swimmingly well with a little Thinkpad or whatever notebook you like. Done and done. No nonsense.
- dinkumthinkum 15y ago
  This is just not really that serious. There is not going to be widespread adoption of serious programmers doing this in anger. I promise. It's not going to happen. It's fitting a square peg in a round hole. This attitude wants me to have this overly complicated setup to have a really horrible version of what I can do swimmingly well with a little Thinkpad or whatever notebook you like. Done and done. No nonsense.

jiggy2011 15y ago

I think the current "PC" paradigm needs to die because the things that we do with our computers is just so different now. Regards the "no serviceable parts" issue, there is nothing stopping manufacturers from building systems that are more open in addition of course it may be the case that kids grow up without access to one of these. However that was probably also the case in the 80s for the most part, most of the kids I knew growing up didn't have a computer but they probably did have a SNES or Sega Genesis. Of course what might happen is that all the geeks and hackers buy the "open" hardware and build cool things with it, once the general population sees these things then perhaps they want the open version too. Free market economics dictate that competition will create innovation after all and there is only so much you can lock a platform down without stifling that.

grannyg00se 15y ago

"hell, the manual came with example BASIC programs." I think part of the problem with people and computers is that most wouldn't even bother to read a manual no matter what was included in it. People expect it to be so intuitive that they don't even have to figure anything out. As though this highly complex machine was purpose built for their own expectations. How far would today's typical computer user have gotten on your VIC 20 if they put a diskette in the drive and nothing happened? The incantation that seems so simple doesn't just summon itself. So there's an entire market for highly intuitive and trouble free systems that is now being catered to. But there are tradeoffs in building these systems. They're not as flexible and can't be used for all the things that a PC can be used for. I just bought a tablet and have been trying to figure out a use for it that justifies the price. (laying in bed watching youtube doesn't cut it) It doesn't replace my PC, and it doesn't even replace my phone. I don't see it replacing anything. It actually does the opposite. Overall it increases the ubiquity of computing devices in people's lives.

jiggy2011 15y ago
Computers of that era were very simple to use. I never had a Vic 20 , but in Britain "BBC" computers made by Acorn were popular, especially in schools. If you wanted to start the computer up you pressed the button on the keyboard and it was booted and ready in under a second, ditto for switching it off (no hibernate/shutdown/suspend etc). If you wanted to run a program , you put the floppy disk in the drive and typed "RUN" then pressed enter. I literally learnt to use one at age 6 without much trouble, so did my school peers. Even our aged school teachers could operate them. They were pretty much impossible to screw up since the entire OS was loaded onto a ROM chip so no viruses ,config files etc. Even BASIC was very easy to use, the shell and the basic interpreter were the same thing. I don't think there were many people who didn't know how to do: 10 PRINT "SCHOOL SUXXX" 20 GOTO 10 They were also very extensible machines, you could add joysticks, mice, modems and it even had an analog output board you could plug into the back and control robots arduino style (we were doing this at age 8!) The idea of being "computer literate" didn't really spring up until Windows 95 (or maybe 3.1) and people suddenly had to worry about C drives and "programs" etc. I remember moving from programming text games in basic on my BBC into trying to understand OOP and Visual Basic for Windows and thinking "why does everything have to be so complicated?". To be honest I think if I hadn't had that taste of magic from the BBC I wouldn't have had the will to carry on learning to program.

Anechoic 15y ago

I apologize in advance for the dreaded car analogy but: I'm concerned the very reason tablets will take over the PC market will also mean that tomorrow's kids' experience is very different from, and I would argue poorer than, my experience when I got my first computer I don't think that's any more an issue than today's car owner's have a poor experience because they don't have to worry about setting the fuel/air mixture in their carburetors like I had to with my first car. I think you are right that the closed environment is a barrier, but I live in one of the poorest cities in MA, and yet there are no shortage of computers on the curb on trash day that can happily run Linux/NetBSD/etc. The young hacker culture will live on. Ironically, my VIC 20 also was very user friendly. You turn it on, it's on. You put in a diskette -- well, it didn't load automatically but making it load was a very simple incantation, "Simple" to who? You and me? Sure. Random guy on the street? Doubtful.

julian37 15y ago
I don't think that's any more an issue than today's car owner's have a poor experience because they don't have to worry about setting the fuel/air mixture in their carburetors like I had to with my first car. Sorry, I didn't express myself very clearly. By "poor experience" I wasn't referring to usability but to the lack of opportunities to tinker with the system and make it do things outside of what its creators intended. "Simple" to who? You and me? Sure. Random guy on the street? Doubtful. Surely the iPad is easier to use than the VIC-20. Then again, the VIC-20 came with a manual and it wasn't very long. I'm confident every VIC-20 owner read it and even the dumbest of us didn't have much trouble figuring out what command to type to load the disk. Come think of it, I guess I was confusing things: I only had a disk drive later with the Commodore 64, games for the VIC-20 came on a cartridge so no typing required at all, just plug it in and turn on the power.

mdonahoe 15y ago

Computers are becoming more reliable and less user serviceable in the same way that cars did. My dad tells me stories about how he and his father used to service the family car, replace parts etc. My father and I used to do the same thing with the family computer. I hope my future son and I get to play with the family 3d printer.

ghshephard 15y ago
As systems become more reliable (Computers, Cars, Operating Systems) - the need for expertise is reduced. That's a godsend for those of us who use to spend days (weeks?) of every year providing computer support for relatives who's systems were constantly self-destructing. I found this (recent) article in the NYT interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-kept-longer-200000-is-new-100000.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/automobiles/as-cars-are-ke... Little details like this are what start to make a big difference: "“The California Air Resources Board and the E.P.A. have been very focused on making sure that catalytic converters perform within 96 percent of their original capability at 100,000 miles,” said Jagadish Sorab, technical leader for engine design at Ford Motor. “Because of this, we needed to reduce the amount of oil being used by the engine to reduce the oil reaching the catalysts. “Fifteen years ago, piston rings would show perhaps 50 microns of wear over the useful life of a vehicle,” Mr. Sorab said, referring to the engine part responsible for sealing combustion in the cylinder. “Today, it is less than 10 microns. As a benchmark, a human hair is 200 microns thick."

niklas_a 15y ago

I think this is a classic example of us old timers wishing our kids got the same experience as us. Back then, you HAD to spend time fiddling with the hardware. Today's kids are much more empowered. Since everything just works they can spend their time creating much more awesome stuff than we ever had the chance to do.

gaius 15y ago
The BBC makes a big deal of "digital natives" (kids who grew up with the Internet) and "digital immigrants" (the old folks). What this model completely overlooks is that the digital immigrants built it, and the digital natives merely use it to watch videos on Youtube and poke each other on MySpace. Kids these are days are consumers, not producers.

smsag 15y ago

Thinking about this for a long time: "And that's what I'm worried about: "No user serviceable parts inside". I'm concerned the very reason tablets will take over the PC market will also mean that tomorrow's kids' experience is very different from, and I would argue poorer than, my experience when I got my first computer, a Commodore VIC 20." And found the answer in automobiles. They are as essential to us as communication devices will be to everyone tomorrow. And yet only a few only know at least the fundamentals of an engine. It's a problem society has to tacle by embracing STEM but it's not as problematic as it seems IMHO.