Does anyone else here think laptops are on the way out, except for professional graphics users, and will basically be replaced by palms, or pocket pc's?
No, but the market for desktops will drop off a lot in the next few years.
There's a huge market for laptops which can serve as a desktop
replacement--Apple was one of the first companies to realize that with
models like the Blackbirds and the 3400--and it's still growing.
We're still many years away from palm-size devices with the capabilities of
a full-fledged modern computer, if we ever see such a thing. Personally,
I've used those things and find them almost useless in my life, although
I've found plenty of uses for a six-year-old PB3400.
I think a major problem with the small handheld devices is the tiny screen. Sure, the portability is awesome, but what if you want to watch a movie or surf the internet with a NORMAL browser? I could see how one could plug the device into a large, centrally located TV screen with standard keyboard, mouse, and remote control interfaces, but what if you wanted to use a regular sized screen on, say, an airplane? Or in a coffee shop? It would make more sense to have a computer built into a large screen like that, separate from your personal PDA-thing. Besides, they'd have to make some major advancements in mobile technology to fit a computer powerful enough to control a big screen TV through a number of multimedia applications into such a tiny space.
I do think that eventually, more laptops will evolve into the flip-screen tablets. Apple will wait it out for a while to see how they catch on, but if they do, Apple will eventually make one that is, oh, ten times better than anything else out there :-)
Another option is a smaller than average laptop. There are subnotebooks, yes, but I was thinking of something along the lines of the Newton eMate (or more recently, the Sony Picturebook). These are very small computers, but they still sport built in keyboards and laptop-style screens.
But I think things will continue to be just more of the same, with a decrease in desktop use and an increase in laptop use. As technology permits, laptops will get lighter, thinner, and closer in performance to desktops, but I don't think people will give up the venerable laptop form factor for a pocket-sized computer. Think about it - there have been as many (or more) technological advancements between 1993 and now as there will be between now and 2013. Has computing changed? Yes, mainly due to the internet, but it really hasn't changed all that much. In 1993, there were laptops (including the PowerBook 180c, with an active matrix color screen) much like today's laptops. There were nice, powerful desktops, and cheap low end desktops, and all-in-ones. Take a machine from 1993 (like a Quadra 840av) and use it today, and I bet you can do most of what you do today - email, web browsing, word processing, even light graphics work. So it seems as though the main difference between computers back then and computers now, other than modern ones being a heck of a lot faster, is that we ask much more of our computers today. In ten years, I think we'll have the same types of computers, we'll just be asking much more of them.
You know how a lot of times, the oldest computers you have are useless because they don't have some critical thing that you need in order for it to be useful? Like ethernet. I can't really use a computer at all without ethernet. Maybe ten years from now, it'll be the same way, except with bluetooth, and any computer that doesn't have bluetooth built-in (or a USB port for adding it) will be just too useless to keep around because people's needs will have changed. I'm not saying bluetooth will be really indispensable, I'm just citing it as an example.
So, it's really late now, I should get to bed. Interesting discussion.
Luca
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