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i think pg already captured this idea when he said that once mobile phones were powerful enough to run an IDE, so you could carry it in your pocket wherever you

by lmg643 12y ago

i think pg already captured this idea when he said that once mobile phones were powerful enough to run an IDE, so you could carry it in your pocket wherever you go, plug into a monitor and keyboard and work - then the PC would be dead. i disagree that middle-class teens are the harbinger of this future out of enlightenment - more like just managing household expenses and the reality of living at home. write your homework on the shared family PC, and everyone has their own phone.

DougWebb 12y ago
That high-powered pocket-size device will be nice, but it's existence will mean that I can have a 20x as powerful desktop-sized device. And I'm going to want that for software development even though the pocket-sized device can run an IDE, because my desktop is going to have a much better IDE that does all kinds of code analysis and live testing for me as I work, and it's going to be able to compile my code much faster than the pocket device will. Today's mobile phones are much more powerful than yesterday's PCs, but they didn't replace yesterday's PCs. We just have much more powerful PCs as well.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  For some very, very, very small percentage of the population, that extra power can be useful - but I strongly suspect that, outside of gamers, that percentage is less than 10%. For most people, PCs and Laptops became powerful enough about 5 years ago. I am a serious power user, run VMware, Cisco Network Simulators, Multiple Drawing Applications, Aperture, the entire Office Suite, VPNs, plus the normal host of twitter, text editor, skype, google earth apps, iTunes - all simultaneously - and my 2010 MacBook Air is still sufficient . I'm still doing all my Desktop PC work (Mostly Outlook and Visio) on my 2004 Dell Precision 650 (All that I've upgraded is the SSD and Monitor). The Laptop and PC market is wildly over served today for 90%+ of the population. A MacBook Air is way more powerful than people need in terms of Processor, Wireless, and CPU performance for those people. Yes - of course you will be able to take advantage of more powerful systems, but if we've already reached the point where I can't, then it won't be too far off before Phones/Tablets will have more than enough processing power for most ordinary people.
  - mreiland 12y ago
    "gaming" is a billion dollar industry, calling it a "very very small percentage of the population" may be exaggerating a bit ;)
    - ghshephard 12y ago
      Oh, absolutely I get that, that's why I wrote: "For some very, very, very small percentage of the population, that extra power can be useful - but I strongly suspect that, outside of gamers, that percentage is less than 10%. " I.E. If we eliminate the PC gamers, probably less than 10% of people need the extra power we are getting from PCs. I realize that PC gamers can always, and will always need more power than they will ever, ever get.
- vidarh 12y ago
  You may want that, but all the evidence from average revenue per unit for PC manufacturers is that the average consumer, on the other hand, are not willing to pay for performance any more: Bargain basement PC's are fast enough for most users to the point where it is a massive problem for everyone but Apple (who commands a massively higher average price), and this has been the case for years at this point.
radiorental 12y ago
"i think pg already captured this idea when he said that once mobile phones were powerful enough to run an IDE, so you could carry it in your pocket wherever you go, plug into a monitor and keyboard and work - then the PC would be dead." No, then it becomes a 'PC'. This topic get's framed around hardware when it's far more nuanced than that. Workflows & Usage based on age and context of use. There's a strong bell curve correlation between age and content creation.

by lmg643 12y ago

DougWebb 12y ago

That high-powered pocket-size device will be nice, but it's existence will mean that I can have a 20x as powerful desktop-sized device. And I'm going to want that for software development even though the pocket-sized device can run an IDE, because my desktop is going to have a much better IDE that does all kinds of code analysis and live testing for me as I work, and it's going to be able to compile my code much faster than the pocket device will. Today's mobile phones are much more powerful than yesterday's PCs, but they didn't replace yesterday's PCs. We just have much more powerful PCs as well.

ghshephard 12y ago
For some very, very, very small percentage of the population, that extra power can be useful - but I strongly suspect that, outside of gamers, that percentage is less than 10%. For most people, PCs and Laptops became powerful enough about 5 years ago. I am a serious power user, run VMware, Cisco Network Simulators, Multiple Drawing Applications, Aperture, the entire Office Suite, VPNs, plus the normal host of twitter, text editor, skype, google earth apps, iTunes - all simultaneously - and my 2010 MacBook Air is still sufficient . I'm still doing all my Desktop PC work (Mostly Outlook and Visio) on my 2004 Dell Precision 650 (All that I've upgraded is the SSD and Monitor). The Laptop and PC market is wildly over served today for 90%+ of the population. A MacBook Air is way more powerful than people need in terms of Processor, Wireless, and CPU performance for those people. Yes - of course you will be able to take advantage of more powerful systems, but if we've already reached the point where I can't, then it won't be too far off before Phones/Tablets will have more than enough processing power for most ordinary people.
- mreiland 12y ago
  "gaming" is a billion dollar industry, calling it a "very very small percentage of the population" may be exaggerating a bit ;)
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    Oh, absolutely I get that, that's why I wrote: "For some very, very, very small percentage of the population, that extra power can be useful - but I strongly suspect that, outside of gamers, that percentage is less than 10%. " I.E. If we eliminate the PC gamers, probably less than 10% of people need the extra power we are getting from PCs. I realize that PC gamers can always, and will always need more power than they will ever, ever get.
vidarh 12y ago
You may want that, but all the evidence from average revenue per unit for PC manufacturers is that the average consumer, on the other hand, are not willing to pay for performance any more: Bargain basement PC's are fast enough for most users to the point where it is a massive problem for everyone but Apple (who commands a massively higher average price), and this has been the case for years at this point.

radiorental 12y ago

"i think pg already captured this idea when he said that once mobile phones were powerful enough to run an IDE, so you could carry it in your pocket wherever you go, plug into a monitor and keyboard and work - then the PC would be dead." No, then it becomes a 'PC'. This topic get's framed around hardware when it's far more nuanced than that. Workflows & Usage based on age and context of use. There's a strong bell curve correlation between age and content creation.