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There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes th

There is no point in drawing a distinction between the future of technology and the future of mobile. I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. It's probably true that a lot of people that used to use desktop or laptop computers just to check email and Facebook have shifted that activity to their phones and tablets. But its equally true that these devices are still really only good for quick, informal communication and browsing. Despite the best efforts of Apple and Samsung to persuade us otherwise, tablets are lousy for getting real work done. So we find ourselves in the ironic situation of a domain that is experiencing almost unprecedented growth but in which almost nobody is making money except Facebook and the vendors of what are essentially gimmicky slot machine games. My take on this is that the market for richer desktop/laptop software isn't going anywhere soon. People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. As a developer this kind of customer is in many ways a better customer to serve than a teen snapping selfies on a phone.

snogglethorpe 12y ago
"A bit" ... >< Seriously, who is this guy?
hayksaakian 12y ago
> But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. The number of use cases is less important. What are the most common use cases? You're conflating people that use computers as part of their job incidentally, with people that use a computer because their job inherently necessitates one. Refer to this article about the most common occupations in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-10-most-common-and-10-least-common-jobs-in-america-today/274526/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-10-m... Managing emails, customer relationship software, and checking websites are often the extent of how a person uses a computer at their job. -- > So we find ourselves in the ironic situation of a domain that is experiencing almost unprecedented growth but in which almost nobody is making money except Facebook and the vendors of what are essentially gimmicky slot machine games. Business facing software never gets mainstream news whether it's mobile or not. It just so happens that most new and popular consumer focused technology is mobile / web. Making news =/= making money. Microsoft, Oracle, etc. make gobs of money selling to business and enterprise customers. You never hear about it because it's uninteresting. In the same vein, you don' hear about business software that runs on mobile. "Make my business software work on mobile" is a booming category of work in software development. -- > People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. In the cases you suggested you propose that it's different. However, they might need the physical interface of a real computer, or the technical power of a real computer, but they don't really need a "real computer" - traditional input devices (keyboards) are increasingly compatible with mobile hardware - tablets and cell phones are only getting MORE powerful, not less -- It's really just a matter of time before the line between mobile and desktop disappears. Part of what's keeping it there is simply the fact that desktop class hardware from the last 2004 is still good enough to do what most people need to do in 2014
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > " traditional input devices (keyboards) are increasingly compatible with mobile hardware" For some people, it's not the input that matters, or the computing power, but the output. Big, high-res displays are still in demand. I'm not sure wearable displays will ever replace them -- even if Glass gets to be much higher than its current 640x320 resolution, it's a lot more difficult to shift your focus from one part of the "screen" to another if it's being projected directly into your eye.
  - jff 12y ago
    Glass is not projected into your eye, it is simply a screen placed near your eye, with special optics so you can actually focus on it.
pfitzsimmons 12y ago
If you look at the biomechanics, it does seem like a keyboard + mouse + >=20" screen is the optimal setup for doing actual work. A keyboard is simply the most efficient way to get information into a computer (the exception is that some graphics editors work might work better with a multitouch screen, it will be interesting to see if someone builds a touch-first photoshop killer). That said, there might be a convergence where mobile devices learn to run desktop software, and can be docked to a mouse/keyboard/monitor. But we are still a long ways from that point, and there is no great incentive to build office suites for mobile devices that are efficient for power/work users. Mobile is great for 1) consuming content 2) interacting with your extended environment when you are not grounded to a computer (summoning an Uber, paying with an app, etc.) The money in content consumption will go to either the content creators or the digital sharecroppers (Facebook). So the question is, are there large untapped areas where a phone could be used to interact with ones environment? What kind of day-to-day things could be enhanced with internet connected software?
- fidotron 12y ago
  Right, and on your last point, that's almost exactly what the NFC industry has been trying to do for years. Most successful mobile ticketing deployments seem to use the barcode-a-like on a screen approach thanks to NFC not really getting very far. It will be curious to see if Apple manage to get any traction here. Obviously flesh blood is a good thing, however, this problem space has been thoroughly explored. The real unexplored area is that few people have noticed just how insanely powerful the GPUs in these devices are, but again the problem is in working out what they might be useful for, especially given the trend is for mobile "apps" to really be trivial front ends for web services.
  - cageface 12y ago
    especially given the trend is for mobile "apps" to really be trivial front ends for web services. Yep. After doing mobile for a while you start to notice that most apps are just listviews hitting REST endpoints. Not exactly earth-shattering technology.
- marknutter 12y ago
icebraining 12y ago
But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. That's a bit of a red herring. One of my colleagues uses a Surface; the first thing she does on arriving at the office is plug two cables to work with a proper screen and keyboard. Then when she has a meeting, she simply unplugs and uses it as a tablet, which is useful for passing it around, etc. People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. As a developer this kind of customer is in many ways a better customer to serve than a teen snapping selfies on a phone. But in between those sits 90% of the market, which is everyone who works all day with not-that-complex Office documents (certainly stuff that can be handled by a quadcore, 2GB machine) and web apps which offload most work to the servers (third-party or internal). I may be biased because we provide solutions on top of a web-based, Free Software platform (https://www.odoo.com/ https://www.odoo.com/), but I believe most of our clients' workers could replace their laptops with tablets + stand without any loss of functionality.
- cageface 12y ago
  It's worth keeping in mind that there's a countervailing trend though. Conventional laptops are getting lighter and last a lot longer on a charge. The extra bulk of something like a current Macbook Air vs an iPad isn't much but it's a vastly more capable machine. And, even if we do see an increase in more hybrid devices like the Surface, you can't just blow up a touch screen app to 24". Specialized tasks will still require specialized software.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Conventional laptops are getting lighter and last a lot longer on a charge. Fair enough. You pay for the extra power, though; you can buy two iPad Air 2 for the price of the cheapest 13-inch Macbook Air.
- pbreit 12y ago
  And it should be pretty easy to get rid of the cables (Airplay + Bluetooth).
pbreit 12y ago
Well, I'd say you completely missed by a light year the whole point of the presentation. The reality is that the impact of mobile on the planet probably remains understated. There will continue to be an explosion of mobile devices, not even accounting for wearables, sensors, etc. While the desktop remains relatively unchanged for a decode or two.
awad 12y ago
Steve Jobs had a good quote on this: "I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we've embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? ... We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pixl97 12y ago
  That seems like a very silly analogy Steve made. By percentage, ya more autos were trucks back in the day, but there are more 'trucks' on the road than ever before. From small light duty trucks to gigantic semi's with an army of axles under them we are no closer to post-truck then we were when they owned the road.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    It's the same thing with the PC. People look at the PC numbers declining, but that's the sales numbers, not the installed base. People haven't stopped using their PCs, they've just stopped upgrading them.
- rsync 12y ago
  Best selling car in the US is, and has been for years, the Ford F-150.
  - webXL 12y ago
    Yes, hard to believe by looking out at my parking lot and what I notice on the freeway, but pickups are about an eighth of the market, according to this: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html It's amazing that a "cross-over" is considered a truck, when there's practically nothing in common. At least the SUV shares the same chassis as a truck in most cases. Going back to Jobs point, I would be interested in some historical numbers. The truck's healthy market share might just be due to the popularity of the SUV.
aresant 12y ago
There is a good chance that VR done right for mobile - Samsung Gear via Oculus being the first - will change the game. I have played a bit with a very preliminary version of "Virtual Desktop" (1) and it is shockingly usable even at the current low res of Oculus With a properly built out VR desktop that allows for multiple "monitors" or workspaces + mobile VR tech a few piterations out I think it's in the cards that our current Pc form factor dramatically changes or blends towards truly mobile hardware (1) https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8182 https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8...
gumby 12y ago
> I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic....for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. Consider his use metonymic and look at the picture on page 28. When you see "mobile" see "extremely personal device that you interact with ubiquitously and almost continuously, with sensors so it senses your movements, listens to you even when you are not explicitly manipulating it, and is constantly connected." Today, essentially the only devices like that are phones. But his core points are: - You no longer sit down to have a "computing experience" -- it's increasingly part of the fabric of society and life - This will only accelerate and new devices and modes and capabilities will flourish and extend it - This shift is transformational, not incremental. - Almost any plan that made sense a few years ago is now irrelevant. These are concepts that are so clear that they simultaneously appear banal and yet will go unrecognized by most people even as they are being planed by these "banal truths".
kemiller 12y ago
Of course they will need to do those things. We also still need to process credit card transactions, and we still use mainframes to do it, and IBM still makes a tidy income selling and servicing them. But I don't think anyone would consider us to be living in the era of the mainframe. The point isn't that the old stuff goes away, but that they lose their positions as the center of gravity.
AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. I think the mischaracterization is of what mobile is replacing. It isn't the PC. A PC is primarily a computing device, an iPhone is primarily a communications device. The iPhone and iPad aren't replacing PCs, they're replacing newspaper, radio and telephone. They're only replacing PCs to the extent that the PC had already partially replaced some of those things.
- barking 12y ago
  Very well put. In my experience tablets are also replacing books and tv. I suspect that in a lot of houses the parents are now using tablets, the kids are using PCs/laptops and the tv is mostly off. Well this is how it is in our house :). Our tv now exists for netflix via chromecast once or twice a week.
  - iaskwhy 12y ago
    I have this theory the so called breakthrough of Apple in the TV business is the iPad and not a big 5k TV screen.
    - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
      Ben Evans himself says that Eric Schmidt was right when he said Google would own the TV market a few years back - he (Schmidt) just didn't realise it would be Android tablets rather than GoogleTV.
      - coldtea 12y ago
        And they also didn't realized that it would be the iPad and not Android tablets. The latter have not been making any inroads...
        Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
        You need to think outside of the US. It may not be official Google Android, but low cost generic Android tablets are massive in Asia. Most of them are low spec devices but that's all you need if all you're doing is watching movies and a bit of web surfing.
Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
> People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. As a developer this kind of customer is in many ways a better customer to serve than a teen snapping selfies on a phone. This is true, but the point is that this is now a very small (and very rapidly shrinking) fraction of what constitutes "computing". Digital photography - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. Casual video editing (which lets remember is the vast majority of video editing) - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. E-mail and electronic communications - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. Basic productivity/note taking/sorting/keeping - used to... you get the picture. It's not just that SmartPhones/tablets are replacing some PC tasks, it's that there is a whole new swath of users for whom what might previously have been thought of as computing has nothing to do with a PC. Think of it in terms of shooting video. 40 years ago if you were shooting video there would be a good chance you were some sort of professional (or at the very least an enthusiastic amateur). Now, if you're shooting video, you're probably just a regular person. That doesn't mean that Smartphones have changed what professionals do or use, but it does mean that professionals are a very small fraction of the video now being shot. The PC is the same, it's still there and still needed, it's just shrinking in terms of it's proportion of what's being done.
rayiner 12y ago
I think there is u between two different concepts: 1) mobile will replace existing uses of technology; 2) most of the growth of technology will be in mobile. The former is almost certainly false. I'm not going to be drafting briefs on an iPad any time soon, nor are CPA's going to be poring over spreadsheets on iPads. On the other hand, the proportion of overall technology users that need to do these things is shrinking because of all the new users coming online who use technology for consumer and social media purposes. E.g. there are far more kids using tablets and phones, who never used a desktop computer before, than there are CPA's hunkered down in front of giant Excel spreadsheets. So the latter is almost certainly true. A good point of comparison is the 3D graphics market. Initially, it was primarily used for CAD, etc. But consumer 3D exploded, and because it was such a bigger market, all the R&D effort migrated in that direction. Workstation users still exist today, as many as ever did, but now they use re-purposed consumer hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to people who use desktop and laptop computers. I imagine I'll still be drafting briefs on my Mac 20 years from now, but my Mac will probably be re-purposed mobile technology.
- rhino369 12y ago
  >The former is almost certainly false. I'm not going to be drafting briefs on an iPad any time soon, nor are CPA's going to be poring over spreadsheets on iPads. You clearly don't work for baby boomers. My partners love that shit.
_pmf_ 12y ago
> But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. Working in the industrial and automotive manufacturer setup, people buying equipment don't give a shit whether a touch screen is an actual improvement for the people on the shop floor. They buy anything that looks like a tablet and has a touch screen, as much as the workers might curse it.
schtinky 12y ago
> I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Spot on. I've been a follower of his for some time now and while he's obviously smart an insightful, he does sometimes veer into hyperbole bordering on know-it-all snark. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, other than that the audience might not take it as seriously as an argument made more rationally.

snogglethorpe 12y ago

"A bit" ... >< Seriously, who is this guy?

hayksaakian 12y ago

> But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. The number of use cases is less important. What are the most common use cases? You're conflating people that use computers as part of their job incidentally, with people that use a computer because their job inherently necessitates one. Refer to this article about the most common occupations in the US: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-10-most-common-and-10-least-common-jobs-in-america-today/274526/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-10-m... Managing emails, customer relationship software, and checking websites are often the extent of how a person uses a computer at their job. -- > So we find ourselves in the ironic situation of a domain that is experiencing almost unprecedented growth but in which almost nobody is making money except Facebook and the vendors of what are essentially gimmicky slot machine games. Business facing software never gets mainstream news whether it's mobile or not. It just so happens that most new and popular consumer focused technology is mobile / web. Making news =/= making money. Microsoft, Oracle, etc. make gobs of money selling to business and enterprise customers. You never hear about it because it's uninteresting. In the same vein, you don' hear about business software that runs on mobile. "Make my business software work on mobile" is a booming category of work in software development. -- > People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. In the cases you suggested you propose that it's different. However, they might need the physical interface of a real computer, or the technical power of a real computer, but they don't really need a "real computer" - traditional input devices (keyboards) are increasingly compatible with mobile hardware - tablets and cell phones are only getting MORE powerful, not less -- It's really just a matter of time before the line between mobile and desktop disappears. Part of what's keeping it there is simply the fact that desktop class hardware from the last 2004 is still good enough to do what most people need to do in 2014

lotharbot 12y ago
> " traditional input devices (keyboards) are increasingly compatible with mobile hardware" For some people, it's not the input that matters, or the computing power, but the output. Big, high-res displays are still in demand. I'm not sure wearable displays will ever replace them -- even if Glass gets to be much higher than its current 640x320 resolution, it's a lot more difficult to shift your focus from one part of the "screen" to another if it's being projected directly into your eye.
- jff 12y ago
  Glass is not projected into your eye, it is simply a screen placed near your eye, with special optics so you can actually focus on it.

pfitzsimmons 12y ago

If you look at the biomechanics, it does seem like a keyboard + mouse + >=20" screen is the optimal setup for doing actual work. A keyboard is simply the most efficient way to get information into a computer (the exception is that some graphics editors work might work better with a multitouch screen, it will be interesting to see if someone builds a touch-first photoshop killer). That said, there might be a convergence where mobile devices learn to run desktop software, and can be docked to a mouse/keyboard/monitor. But we are still a long ways from that point, and there is no great incentive to build office suites for mobile devices that are efficient for power/work users. Mobile is great for 1) consuming content 2) interacting with your extended environment when you are not grounded to a computer (summoning an Uber, paying with an app, etc.) The money in content consumption will go to either the content creators or the digital sharecroppers (Facebook). So the question is, are there large untapped areas where a phone could be used to interact with ones environment? What kind of day-to-day things could be enhanced with internet connected software?

fidotron 12y ago
Right, and on your last point, that's almost exactly what the NFC industry has been trying to do for years. Most successful mobile ticketing deployments seem to use the barcode-a-like on a screen approach thanks to NFC not really getting very far. It will be curious to see if Apple manage to get any traction here. Obviously flesh blood is a good thing, however, this problem space has been thoroughly explored. The real unexplored area is that few people have noticed just how insanely powerful the GPUs in these devices are, but again the problem is in working out what they might be useful for, especially given the trend is for mobile "apps" to really be trivial front ends for web services.
- cageface 12y ago
  especially given the trend is for mobile "apps" to really be trivial front ends for web services. Yep. After doing mobile for a while you start to notice that most apps are just listviews hitting REST endpoints. Not exactly earth-shattering technology.
marknutter 12y ago

icebraining 12y ago

But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. That's a bit of a red herring. One of my colleagues uses a Surface; the first thing she does on arriving at the office is plug two cables to work with a proper screen and keyboard. Then when she has a meeting, she simply unplugs and uses it as a tablet, which is useful for passing it around, etc. People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. As a developer this kind of customer is in many ways a better customer to serve than a teen snapping selfies on a phone. But in between those sits 90% of the market, which is everyone who works all day with not-that-complex Office documents (certainly stuff that can be handled by a quadcore, 2GB machine) and web apps which offload most work to the servers (third-party or internal). I may be biased because we provide solutions on top of a web-based, Free Software platform (https://www.odoo.com/ https://www.odoo.com/), but I believe most of our clients' workers could replace their laptops with tablets + stand without any loss of functionality.

cageface 12y ago
It's worth keeping in mind that there's a countervailing trend though. Conventional laptops are getting lighter and last a lot longer on a charge. The extra bulk of something like a current Macbook Air vs an iPad isn't much but it's a vastly more capable machine. And, even if we do see an increase in more hybrid devices like the Surface, you can't just blow up a touch screen app to 24". Specialized tasks will still require specialized software.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Conventional laptops are getting lighter and last a lot longer on a charge. Fair enough. You pay for the extra power, though; you can buy two iPad Air 2 for the price of the cheapest 13-inch Macbook Air.
pbreit 12y ago
And it should be pretty easy to get rid of the cables (Airplay + Bluetooth).

pbreit 12y ago

Well, I'd say you completely missed by a light year the whole point of the presentation. The reality is that the impact of mobile on the planet probably remains understated. There will continue to be an explosion of mobile devices, not even accounting for wearables, sensors, etc. While the desktop remains relatively unchanged for a decode or two.

awad 12y ago

Steve Jobs had a good quote on this: "I'm trying to think of a good analogy. When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy... because the PC has taken us a long way. They were amazing. But it changes. Vested interests are going to change. And, I think we've embarked on that change. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years? ... We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it's uncomfortable."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
pixl97 12y ago
That seems like a very silly analogy Steve made. By percentage, ya more autos were trucks back in the day, but there are more 'trucks' on the road than ever before. From small light duty trucks to gigantic semi's with an army of axles under them we are no closer to post-truck then we were when they owned the road.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  It's the same thing with the PC. People look at the PC numbers declining, but that's the sales numbers, not the installed base. People haven't stopped using their PCs, they've just stopped upgrading them.
rsync 12y ago
Best selling car in the US is, and has been for years, the Ford F-150.
- webXL 12y ago
  Yes, hard to believe by looking out at my parking lot and what I notice on the freeway, but pickups are about an eighth of the market, according to this: http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html It's amazing that a "cross-over" is considered a truck, when there's practically nothing in common. At least the SUV shares the same chassis as a truck in most cases. Going back to Jobs point, I would be interested in some historical numbers. The truck's healthy market share might just be due to the popularity of the SUV.

aresant 12y ago

There is a good chance that VR done right for mobile - Samsung Gear via Oculus being the first - will change the game. I have played a bit with a very preliminary version of "Virtual Desktop" (1) and it is shockingly usable even at the current low res of Oculus With a properly built out VR desktop that allows for multiple "monitors" or workspaces + mobile VR tech a few piterations out I think it's in the cards that our current Pc form factor dramatically changes or blends towards truly mobile hardware (1) https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8182 https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8...

gumby 12y ago

> I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic....for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. Consider his use metonymic and look at the picture on page 28. When you see "mobile" see "extremely personal device that you interact with ubiquitously and almost continuously, with sensors so it senses your movements, listens to you even when you are not explicitly manipulating it, and is constantly connected." Today, essentially the only devices like that are phones. But his core points are: - You no longer sit down to have a "computing experience" -- it's increasingly part of the fabric of society and life - This will only accelerate and new devices and modes and capabilities will flourish and extend it - This shift is transformational, not incremental. - Almost any plan that made sense a few years ago is now irrelevant. These are concepts that are so clear that they simultaneously appear banal and yet will go unrecognized by most people even as they are being planed by these "banal truths".

kemiller 12y ago

Of course they will need to do those things. We also still need to process credit card transactions, and we still use mainframes to do it, and IBM still makes a tidy income selling and servicing them. But I don't think anyone would consider us to be living in the era of the mainframe. The point isn't that the old stuff goes away, but that they lose their positions as the center of gravity.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago

> Yes the growth of mobile is explosive and, in some cases, it's displacing older technology. I think the mischaracterization is of what mobile is replacing. It isn't the PC. A PC is primarily a computing device, an iPhone is primarily a communications device. The iPhone and iPad aren't replacing PCs, they're replacing newspaper, radio and telephone. They're only replacing PCs to the extent that the PC had already partially replaced some of those things.

barking 12y ago
Very well put. In my experience tablets are also replacing books and tv. I suspect that in a lot of houses the parents are now using tablets, the kids are using PCs/laptops and the tv is mostly off. Well this is how it is in our house :). Our tv now exists for netflix via chromecast once or twice a week.
- iaskwhy 12y ago
  I have this theory the so called breakthrough of Apple in the TV business is the iPad and not a big 5k TV screen.
  - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
    Ben Evans himself says that Eric Schmidt was right when he said Google would own the TV market a few years back - he (Schmidt) just didn't realise it would be Android tablets rather than GoogleTV.
    - coldtea 12y ago
      And they also didn't realized that it would be the iPad and not Android tablets. The latter have not been making any inroads...
      - Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
        You need to think outside of the US. It may not be official Google Android, but low cost generic Android tablets are massive in Asia. Most of them are low spec devices but that's all you need if all you're doing is watching movies and a bit of web surfing.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago

> People that need to edit complex spreadsheets, compose scores for films, analyze genomes, and render 3d effects need real computers. As a developer this kind of customer is in many ways a better customer to serve than a teen snapping selfies on a phone. This is true, but the point is that this is now a very small (and very rapidly shrinking) fraction of what constitutes "computing". Digital photography - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. Casual video editing (which lets remember is the vast majority of video editing) - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. E-mail and electronic communications - used to involve a PC, doesn't need to now. Basic productivity/note taking/sorting/keeping - used to... you get the picture. It's not just that SmartPhones/tablets are replacing some PC tasks, it's that there is a whole new swath of users for whom what might previously have been thought of as computing has nothing to do with a PC. Think of it in terms of shooting video. 40 years ago if you were shooting video there would be a good chance you were some sort of professional (or at the very least an enthusiastic amateur). Now, if you're shooting video, you're probably just a regular person. That doesn't mean that Smartphones have changed what professionals do or use, but it does mean that professionals are a very small fraction of the video now being shot. The PC is the same, it's still there and still needed, it's just shrinking in terms of it's proportion of what's being done.

rayiner 12y ago

I think there is u between two different concepts: 1) mobile will replace existing uses of technology; 2) most of the growth of technology will be in mobile. The former is almost certainly false. I'm not going to be drafting briefs on an iPad any time soon, nor are CPA's going to be poring over spreadsheets on iPads. On the other hand, the proportion of overall technology users that need to do these things is shrinking because of all the new users coming online who use technology for consumer and social media purposes. E.g. there are far more kids using tablets and phones, who never used a desktop computer before, than there are CPA's hunkered down in front of giant Excel spreadsheets. So the latter is almost certainly true. A good point of comparison is the 3D graphics market. Initially, it was primarily used for CAD, etc. But consumer 3D exploded, and because it was such a bigger market, all the R&D effort migrated in that direction. Workstation users still exist today, as many as ever did, but now they use re-purposed consumer hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens to people who use desktop and laptop computers. I imagine I'll still be drafting briefs on my Mac 20 years from now, but my Mac will probably be re-purposed mobile technology.

rhino369 12y ago
>The former is almost certainly false. I'm not going to be drafting briefs on an iPad any time soon, nor are CPA's going to be poring over spreadsheets on iPads. You clearly don't work for baby boomers. My partners love that shit.

_pmf_ 12y ago

> But for a lot of use cases small touch screen devices are simply inadequate. Working in the industrial and automotive manufacturer setup, people buying equipment don't give a shit whether a touch screen is an actual improvement for the people on the shop floor. They buy anything that looks like a tablet and has a touch screen, as much as the workers might curse it.

schtinky 12y ago

> I find Evans' analysis of mobile a bit hyperbolic. Spot on. I've been a follower of his for some time now and while he's obviously smart an insightful, he does sometimes veer into hyperbole bordering on know-it-all snark. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, other than that the audience might not take it as seriously as an argument made more rationally.