Is the PC Dead? Trends, Insights, and Observations from a Tech Enthusiast"

[PeroK]

But is this the apex of technology? In 100 years we'll still be chained to a mechanical keyboard, mouse and screen?

It's not a question of being the Apex of technology. It's a question of what's practical in the foreseeable future. I do a lot on my phone but there are a lot of things - studying Physics being a case in point - that I.can't imagine doing with only a phone.

Planning climbing trips is another example. I can make a single accommodation booking on my phone, but researching mountains, routes etc.needs the functionality of a laptop or PC. I can do in 5 minutes at home what might take up to an hour on a phone, even if it were possible.

Phone apps are in the process of replacing hard copy climbing guidebooks. They've a way to go yet, but it's only a matter of time. I use a combination of both at the moment, which is the best of both worlds

 

[russ_watters]

But you stay at home most of the day so you can use your computer?

Like everyone else, I'm constantly chained to at least one device and need for portability (or lack thereof) generally drives my choice on what to use.

I spend a good fraction of my time on the couch or at a desk, but I also spend a good fraction of my time on the road, in meetings or at construction sites.

Cell phones have two real advantages: portability and integration. But unless portability is a task-requirement (for example; non-car GPS navigation, personal music playing) or the integration outweighs the inferiority (cameras), they are inferior to other devices for virtually everything they do. People don't do real "computing" on a cell phone because a cell phone is good at it, they do it because it wasn't convenient to carry a real computer with them.

And it is because cell phones are not *actually* good at most things they do that they won't ever replace real computers.

But is this the apex of technology? In 100 years we'll still be chained to a mechanical keyboard, mouse and screen?

For certain things I think yes and others probably not. How long have car controls beein a steering wheel and two or three pedals?

A mouse is better than any other pointing technology or voice control for most normal "computing" tasks. It has the best combination of precision and speed. So I don't think it is going anywhere (we've had it 35 years already). Voice will probably take over for "unchained" tasks as the Alexa/Echo are doing, but I'm not sure if it will ever replace a keyboard. I've never gotten comfortable with it for writing, though I'm not one who used dictation for letters before computers either.

The MS Surface uses Windows 10. The touchscreen is really good and the soft keyboard super mobile.

And that's why I'm considering it: it might be a light and flexible enough laptop to replace a tablet. I don't think the inverse is true:I don't think tablets have become powerful and featureful enough to replace laptops. I don't think they can, so long as a keyboard remains essential.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

I've been intrigued by this statement for a number of years. Certainly there is still a need for laptops, but there are undeniable trends and mobile tech is getting better every year. I see the next generation almost entirely on mobile devices. Perhaps PCs won't go away but rather become special use.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3186782/computer-hardware/the-laptop-is-dead.html

What are your thoughts, personal trends and observations?

So many jobs these days come down to producing quality documents as the primary work product: spreadsheets, word documents, presentations, etc. Other jobs focus on multimedia: video editing, sound files, and photographs. And of course, most science and engineering software is far superior on a personal computer than on the mobile devices.

Most of these tasks (as well as programming) are so much more efficient with a keyboard and a mouse that I don't see the PC (laptop, notebook, desktop) going the way of the dodo anytime soon for real work. The other devices are making strong inroads into the recreational and communication markets, but the PC will continue to be more important for most real work for decades to come.

I see more of a future in telecommuting as employers seek to cut costs maintaining office work spaces and employees wish to skip the time, effort, and fuel use required to get to urban work areas in person every day. Most productive telecommuting requires a real computer rather than a mobile device. Further, in some jobs, employers are going to want to be able to effectively monitor employee productivity to telecommuting to work. This monitoring is much simpler with a fixed platform (Windows PC) rather than the plethora of mobile devices.

Finally, there are also significant movements to deliver more secondary school content and college coursework via computer. Distance learning courses are designed around the personal computer and will likely continue to require student work products that would be frustratingly slow to produce on mobile devices but very workable with a keyboard and a mouse.

 

[russ_watters]

• Camera. "The best camera is the one you have with you." -- Chase Jarvis Photographer

Expansion: cameras are the ultimate integration/portability vs quality trade-off. Most people probably don't even know or recognize the trade-off until it burns them badly even though it affects most of what they do with a camera:

In high light, no zoom situations, a cell phone camera may be just as good as a stand-alone. Throw in some built-in processing and it may even be better (HDR, panorama, selfie mode, etc). But as soon as the light gets low or you need zoom, they become very poor. I put considerable effort into camera selection when I went to Africa and I think I made the right choice: a pocket-size/point and shoot extreme zoom. Way more portable than an SLR with similar zoom and way better than a cell phone.

Bonus: the digital camera has wi-fi, which facilitated transfer to a cell phone for uploading, eliminating most of the interation drawback while picking-up some of the photo editing capability of a stand-alone computer.

You may be surprised to hear that I do most of my PF browsing on a tablet. I set up the laptop only when I need to type more than one sentence.

Bill Gates had a great idea around 1991. He called it the wallet computer. It would be like a smart phone minus the screen, but it would automatically, seamlessly, and wirelessly pair with any nearby keyboard/scree/printer.

Ditto. And Bill Gate's vision is almost realized with a program called "SideSync", which docks a cell phone to a computer a "remote desktop" type function. I'm using it to type this post.

 

[Mark44]

For me, everything is just too small, slow and awkward on a phone.

Amen to that.

I can't imagine managing without a full-sized keyboard, mouse and a full-sized screen.

My monitor is a 28" flat screen.

I don't want to watch movies on a tiny smartphone screen

Nor do I. I don't even want to look at ordinary photos on such a screen, not much larger than a postage stamp.

But is this the apex of technology? In 100 years we'll still be chained to a mechanical keyboard, mouse and screen?

To me, the apex of technology right now, is a fast computer with lots of RAM, a large monitor, full-size keyboard with keys that click, and a mouse. I'm not concerned about what the technology will be in 100 years. Even some of the technology now -- meh.

One of my main uses for my computer is programming -- lately in Python, C++, and MIPS assembly, with the latter two languages for classes I've been teaching. A laptop would be marginal at best, and a smartphone would be completely useless.

Phone apps are in the process of replacing hard copy climbing guidebooks.

The places I go cell phones are a non-starter, as these places are out of range of cell towers. My hiking/climbing buddy has a De Lorme sat device that he can use to send texts to his wife, and it has GPS features and can store map data. I'm thinking about getting one of these, but I prefer paper maps. All of my guide books (such as Fred Beckey's "Climbers' Guide to the North Cascades") are dead tree versions, which is just fine for me.

 

[russ_watters]

[hiking aps]
The places I go cell phones are a non-starter, as these places are out of range of cell towers.

I agree with everything else, but this: of course that would be true if it were true. But any decent hiking app has downloadable maps and is used in "airplane mode" to save battery - otherwise they'd be pointless. This would be one of the rare devices that a cell phone is almost certainly better than a stand-alone device (which is why cell phones rapidly destroyed the stand-alone GPS market). In use they look and work almost exactly the same except that the cell phone will have a better processor, better software and better screen (though possibly a trade-off between battery and those features). Though:

My hiking/climbing buddy has a De Lorme sat device that he can use to send texts...

True. Basically everything else about such devices are inferior to cell phones, but for long-term out of cell range hiking, an actual sat "phone" is a critical feature...and they often pair with a phone anyway to help overcome their drawbacks.

 

[jedishrfu]

They should enable the fm feature but are loath to because of a potential loss of revenue. Free music wirelessly.

I think fm works in remote areas too except for valleys.

 

[anorlunda]

I think fm works in remote areas too except for valleys.

Not for long. In the news last week, Norway was the first company to stop broadcasting FM completely.

 

[mfb]

I think fm works in remote areas too except for valleys.

More motivation to get the climbing done then.

Ditto. And Bill Gate's vision is almost realized with a program called "SideSync", which docks a cell phone to a computer a "remote desktop" type function. I'm using it to type this post.

It will struggle with more computing-intense tasks unless the computing is done on a computer.

 

[jedishrfu]

Not for long. In the news last week, Norway was the first company to stop broadcasting FM completely.

Yeah I heard that. It’s a conversion to digital though. I’m talking about fm as an open emergency transmission channel which is software disabled on current cell phones.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/06/technology/norway-fm-radio-shut/index.html

 

[russ_watters]

It will struggle with more computing-intense tasks unless the computing is done on a computer.

Yes: unlike Bill Gate's docking-station only idea, SideSync is hosted by a computer. So you wouldn't bother using the cell phone for "real" computer functions since you already have the computer. What SideSync is good for is apps designed for cell phones that don't work well or at all on a PC because developers haven't bothered to make them for PC/make them for PC well. Or if you are in the middle of a task on the cell phone and want to quickly upgrade to a monitor and keyboard.

A similar idea: I browse PF, the news and facebook on my phone while watching TV if I don't have my laptop. If I see a slideshow or video that I want to look at on a big screen, I don't have to get up to find my laptop: with just a couple of taps, my phone seizes control of my TV to display what I'm watching.

 

[FactChecker]

In the last couple of years before I retired, I worked at a desktop with 6 full-sized monitors, in two rows of three. It was programmer heaven! I can't imagine how people are satisfied doing anything more than tweets and checking weather on a smart phone.

 

[symbolipoint]

I've been intrigued by this statement for a number of years. Certainly there is still a need for laptops, but there are undeniable trends and mobile tech is getting better every year. I see the next generation almost entirely on mobile devices. Perhaps PCs won't go away but rather become special use.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3186782/computer-hardware/the-laptop-is-dead.html

What are your thoughts, personal trends and observations?

Regular plug-into-the-wall computers and laptops are still much easier to use than the mobile devices. I've tried a "smartphone" for a few months and found it mostly terrible - but I went the cheap route mostly to learn. Nothing I would want to do on such a device as any replacement for a laptop computer. There are some exceptions. The smartphone can work as a camera both still and video; and as a flashlight; and if you been able to maintain the service, a cell phone and text message machine; things which are not so easily done using a laptop computer.

 

[Psinter]

I'd hate it to see them dissappear and have less community backing them if the phone and tablets are to continue on the data stalking business. As a person who takes precautionary measures, I don't do payments on my phone or tablet. Only a laptop (which is what the article puts more emphasis about possibly dying) or on a desktop.

Speaking of current phones and tablets, they give very little amount of control over what the operating system does and what apps do in them unless one installs a bunch of workarounds for better controlling those. At one point I bought a limited bandwidth data plan and I installed a firewall on the phone to block all Google services because I had a hunch that google would drain my data plan. As soon as I allowed some google services and apps to use the internet (auto sync was off btw), it consumed a whooping 80MB of data in about 45 minutes. The data icon was constantly blinking. I could not believe it. Plus, all the other applications phoning home and doing who knows what scaled that to about 140MB in less than an hour. Not knowing what is going on behind the scenes and having so little control over apps, I don't trust phones and tablets for payments.

Points that I can write for why non-average users would not want personal computers to die (although the article talks more about laptops, not desktops):

• Photo or video editing (phone and tablet software for that suck in my opinion)
• Software development
• Enhanced controll over operating system features
• Gaming (phone and tablet games suck in my opinion too.)

What does the average person need to do that they can't on a phone?

I'd say nothing. If they are average with average needs, they can pretty much do all their needs on a phone or tablet.

 

[zdcyclops]

Mobile devices especially smartphones are toys. Designed to deliver consumables in the form of of data and and candy bars. The screen size makes them very limited in their ability to display information. Their connectivity limits there use as a reliable communication device. If you have to many walls around you calls do not get through. Worst tech of the last 50 years.

 

[OCR]

Their connectivity limits there use as a reliable communication device. If you have to many walls around you calls do not get through.

Around here, most of the time I need to climb a hill to use my cell...

Lol...

Worst tech of the last 50 years.

 

[Dr Transport]

My \$ 0.02, I've used pretty much everything over the past 15-20 years, iPhone (currently), other smart phones, tablet, laptop (Windows and Linux), desktop (Windows and Linux) and even the old Palm Pilot (I miss my Palm Pilot, I used it overseas everyday when I was deployed for the war).

Now, at a former employer, I had the choice of workstation or laptop workstation. I chose the laptop workstation because I was constantly on the road supporting testing and needed my machine to update drawings, grids and analysis. It worked great and because I had a huge monitor and docking station in my cube, everything went well. My next job, I had the choice of laptop or workstation, I chose workstation because I wasn't going to be traveling much and wanted something I could really hit for numerical processing. When I took a civil service position a few months ago, I had the choice, laptop or workstation, Windows or Apple, I chose windows workstation because I didn't feel like screwing with Apple and writing code on it as well as fighting some of the things that Office currently doesn't implement on both platforms. I am not traveling as much for the foreseeable future so I don't need a laptop. The but is that I can always check one out from the pool and turn it back in later.

The PC isn't going anywhere, when my boss retires and I take over the group, I'll pretty much push the group to use Windows (cheaper to implement and keep up to date, right now the Apple users have to do their own security updates and are getting pretty sick of it when I don't have to do anything but let IT push the updates every week).