On Friday, 21 September 2018 at 00:55:25 UTC, RhyS wrote:
The PC market will change but dying is a big word.
So I'm stuck between "smartphones overtaking PC's" which I've
been told has already happened, and "PC's dying" which apparently
has too strong of a meaning...
PC sales have dropped over the years for multiple reasons:
* Adoption of smartphones and tablets
* PC hardware getting so powerful, that people have little
reason to upgrade
* Consoles taking over PC for couch gaming
But ...
PC are a integral part of our daily business life. This is a
market where PC decline is hard simply because the flexibility
that PCs offer.
You can do a lot with a smartphone and tablet but a lot of
those tasks are way harder or time consuming then doing them on
a PC.
Things can evolve. Maybe in the future we'll simply talk to our
phones all the time with good enough voice command software
instead of typing on a keyboard ? Who knows.
I can install termux on my phone but no way i will program for
hours on a 6" screen. Let alone all the IDE and debugging tools
i that are not available ( lets not start Vim discussions,
thank you very much ).
Don't worry, I'm not the one who's going to lecture you on vim
being the best editor. I only ever use vim when git launches it
to type a commit message (that is... if I haven't set
`EDITOR=nano`).
However, even if you won't program on a smartphone, maybe future
generations of developers could at some point. If some people
started learning on a smartphone they could get used to it and
just continue on the platform they're comfortable with. (that's
really speculation, I have no idea if it could actually happen)
You can attach a keyboard to your phone, a bigger screen to
your phone and you have half a PC. But you are still missing
the software...
That can change, software can be ported to Android after all
(like LDC).
We will probably move to a hybrid solution like this in the
future, where people can use their smartphones as PCs ( with
attachments for productivity ) but its a LONG road to get even
close to the same level that a basic PC offers in terms of
power and flexibility.
A huge chunk of development nowadays is web development, which
doesn't require all that much power AFAIK.
You're right on flexibility though.
A smartphone is nothing else then a smaller tablet, what is
nothing else then a less flexible laptop, what is nothing else
then a compacter and not flexible PC.
Just basic concept like multi windows handling is like a alien
idea on smartphones and badly done. Even Windows 3.1 was more
capable on this part. Currently smartphones are not designed
for the creativity and flexibility you need.
Can they become this? Sure ... but not with the current mobile
operating systems. Android is a resource hog ( JVM thank you
very much ) that uses more memory then my Windows 10
installation while offering less flexibility! Microsoft tried
and fell flat on their face.
Out of curiosity, how did you come to such a situation regarding
Android vs Windows 10 ? Win 10 on my machine takes at least 2Gb
of RAM, Android certainly doesn't on my phone...
Its possible we may see devices that are plenty powerful to do
day to day tasks and see PCs become specialized tools requiring
(high paid) experts. But smartphones will always be limited
with cooling and power usage compared to a full blown pc. The
only way to mitigate this is by having servers offload
intensive tasks.
Just like desktop computers will always be limited with cooling
and power usage compared to any super-computer from the NASA.
I do not see PCs dying out, just changing in nature. A
smartphone is a PC, just one that is less flexible and is power
limited because of its size. And that law will always be true.
If you can put X power in a small device, you can put X * 10 in
a bigger device, you can put X * 100 in a even bigger device.
That law will always be true, yes. But if we can cram more and
more in terms of power in less and less in terms of size, at some
point we could have enough power in a very small device.
And do not be so sure that ARM is the future... I have several
NUCs around here and those things are darn powerful ( think 8
year old PC ) these days, with a very low power usage ( 6W ).
And Risk-V is coming up...
I never said anything about ARM being the future.
The PC world as we know, never stops changing. But predictions
that X will die are wrong. They simply evolve. A
Smartphone/Tablet is a PC, so anybody making claims how PCs are
dying, is simply stating that PCs are simple evolving into
different forms.
You're right; that was a wrong wording again. I should have
talked about "classic desktop computers" instead of just "PC".
(but "PC" is shorter to write and I'm lazy)
And by the way, smartphone sales are also starting to plateau
because people are less fast on replacing their phones these
days. If it was not for the battery dying on people, people
will hold on for years these days. Wait until we have electric
cars and those batteries *ha*... forced redundant, you bet your
ass on it. So do not be so happy about PCs changing because the
change is not in the interest of the consumer. No reuse, forced
redundancy, ... Great for companies, bad for consumers like us.
I never said I was happy with this potential change. I know that
a lot of companies care about money and not about their
consumers, and I also don't fancy the idea of working on a
smartphone. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean it
can't happen...
