Not to burst your bubble, but adding a keyboard to a tablet makes it a touchscreen laptop. It's perfectly fine if that's what you enjoy, but you're not really obsoleting laptops if the alternative is a smaller laptop.
The difference is that you can use for some cases (reading, browsing, quick email) just the tablet. Is not that the concept is really different from a laptop (hey, a portable computer), but I think it brings it to the next level.
But not video/audio editing, or any programming of any kind. In other words, you can consume on these other devices, but not create (unless it's plain text).
There are lots of creation, done everyday by lots of workers that can be done with the current power of a tablet. Writing a document, work with an not-really-fancy spreadsheet, answer email, etc, etc... Of course, is not as comfortable as using a bigger screen and a keyboard, but in the future maybe a lot of people will have external keyboards and screens (as typically happens with laptops)
I started programming on a computer that can be comfortably be emulated cycle exact on the cheapest tablets you can get today, so that's quite obvious hyperbole.
At my first company, we did most of our development work on a server that was shared between four of us, yet had 1/4 of the memory of my tablet, and which was about 1/10th the performance of current generation ARM's. Somehow had no problem doing programming work on it. As well as running paint programs (granted, none of us did much graphical design, but what little we did ran on that shared server using our local, much slower, machines as X terminals).
So did I, but almost none of those programs would be acceptable to deliver today. When hardware is faster and (resource intensive) IDE's and frameworks do more for you, if you don't deliver more for less, you're competition will. How does the convenient form factor help you beat the competition? Working off hours? No thanks.
> When hardware is faster and (resource intensive) IDE's and frameworks do more for you, if you don't deliver more for less, you're competition will.
My "IDE" today is, as it was 17 years ago, Emacs. It hasn't gotten that much more resource intensive. My browser has gotten more resource intensive, but still runs ok on a device like that.
> How does the convenient form factor help you beat the competition? Working off hours? No thanks.
It helps me not having to drag a laptop around and/or rush to find a full size computer when server I have responsibility for go down. It gives peace of mind. And yes, I am very well compensated for being the one who gets the calls if something breaks, as well as the freedom to put in the resources to minimize how often it does.
It's also extremely convenient when travelling, such as when I'm heading out to one of our data centres.
Adding a keyboard to a tablet makes it a computer with the power of a PC we had ten years ago.
There is nothing more productive than a good desktop workstation with big multiple screens. I recently purchased a new one for a good price, and I am happy with it.
> serious work happens on desktops and isn't going to move away from them.
All the sales numbers shows you're wrong: The desktop market is at best stagnant, while people move in droves to other form factors. In many areas it is collapsing.
There's only tiny niches of "real work" that needs desktops rather than laptops.
And this is despite the form factor of the typical PC dropping rapidly, to the point where my local shops don't even carry full size ATX cases any more, and most "desktops" are "all in one" iMac style machines.
Big screens and full size keyboards are going nowhere, but the form factors are converging on mobile devices with suitable connectivity.
Desktops will likely remain available for a very long time, but they're well on their way to becoming an ever diminishing niche simply for the reason that the computational needs of most workers and for most home use is being met sufficiently well that more speed or disk space is now a secondary factor for a larger and larger segment of users.
I don't disagree that the sales numbers for desktops are tanking. I just think they have a core use that is not going to move away along with the rest of the flock.
I'm not sure about using tablets with keyboard/mouse/big-screen. I haven't seen too much of it happening, and I'm not sure its really an attractive thing to do anyway for a lot of reasons from the office-practical (lots of plugging things in, harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things, etc.) to the purely pragmatic performance-based (can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen? What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?)
Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider. And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
One cable with MHL (power, display) and bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Some devices, such as the Galaxy S III, uses MHL adapters that also provides a USB port so you can hook up your USB keyboard and mouse to the MHL adapter and have just one cable to attach even if you want a wired keyboard and mouse.
> harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things
How is that any different from today with offices full of laptops?
> can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen?
Yes. My <$130 Allwinner A10 based laptop gives decent performance at full HD (1080p) resolutions today, and it is by no means a high end tablet. Sure, you are not going to get the same performance today on a tablet that cheap as on current high end laptops or desktops, but it is "good enough" for many uses, and this tablet lagged substantially behind the top of the crop tablets already on release.
> What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?
Big by what standard? What it can't handle today, the next generation will handle soon enough. It is not that these tablets and phones will magically be capable enough now, but they are catching up to the type of laptop and desktop performance the vast majority of users are willing to pay for at a rapid rate.
> Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider.
My <$130 tablet today has 48GB of storage (16GB built in, 32GB sdcard), and can attach whatever size USB storage I want (including easily 128GB USB sticks), or connect to a NAS. Give it a generation or three and you'll be able to put hundreds of GB in these devices.
So again: Maybe some users won't be able to put everything they have on it today, but give it some time - storage on these devices will keep increasingly fairly rapidly as and when usage patterns expand.
>And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
News flash: land lines still exist.
However, unlike land lines, you don't pay a monthly fee to keep your desktop, and the software powering it is growing less and less resource hungry.
The majority of home owners still grew up without mobile phones. I had one from about 15, and I doubt I'll want a landline when I have my own house.
No-one's suggesting that the desktop will completely disappear. The thinking is that it will become a niche for hobbyists and professional data crunchers.
Agreed. I also have a ultrabook and the portability is prefect. Extremely lightweight devices are what I want, and this delivers this to me, and includes more power, and a keyboard.
This is fine from a consumer point of view, consuming content on a phone or tablet is really great! But if you want to create, there is just nothing out there that can rival a keyboard and a mouse. For this reason, 'desktop' PCs will be around for a very long time, in business and for anyone who creates (writes, codes, or creates any kind of media) in any way semi-seriously at home.
This is the same thing I came to say. Even something trivial like replying to this on a tablet or phone sucks. Quoting you would be utterly painful and it's even worse in a Reddit app. Perhaps it's generational and people will cope but so far creating.anything has.been far more painful for me on global devices.
You don't need a desktop PC to be able to attach a screen and a keyboard.
My <$130 7" Chinese Android tablet can drive a full HD 3D TV at full resolution, and can handle both bluetooth or USB keyboards. And many of these tablets can boot full Linux.
The next step up is MHL, allowing the screen to power your phone or tablet while it is using the screen for output.
Increasingly people will have the option of combining the convenience of the phone or tablet with being able to effortlessly connect it to a large screen and keyboard when needed.
By the time you have to connect three different peripherals to your tablet in order to get the same functionality as a laptop, in almost all cases it's better to simply have a laptop, particularly if you're doing your profession.
> By the time you have to connect three different peripherals to your tablet in order to get the same functionality as a laptop, in almost all cases it's better to simply have a laptop, particularly if you're doing your profession.
Bluetooth. MHL with the device providing power. One cable to give you power and display, and no cables for the other devices.
And the laptop still needs cables if you want a decent sized display, and don't want to run it off battery.
DIY and alternative tablets can be desktop replacements, or close to it. But that's not the sort of mass market trend of which you can write these sorts of articles (though in China this may be a large trend compared to the U.S.)
Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting. As a techie living in Asia, I would either just buy a Chinese gadget (clone) which fits my needs or just build my own. In this sense, the PC lives on. ;)
> Personally, this is just evolution of form factors.
Agreed. Ballmer was ironically right when he said "they're all just PCs".
What's perhaps more interesting than the form factor is the app-storification of software delivery. I have real concerns about a future where there's no market for hackable platforms.
Open source is going nowhere. I do most of my work on the server, and that's a form factor and ecosystem which isn't being affected by all this tablet / smart phone silliness. ;)
> DIY and alternative tablets can be desktop replacements
I don't know why you consider this "DIY" or "alternative tablets". Most tablets on the market has these capabilities.
> Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting.
I find it exciting we're close to the point where we can get convergence and not need multiple different computers for must uses, but you're right: It is largely about evolution of form factors, which is why I find it so amusing that so many people are so insistent the desktop PC will remain important.
The traditional big box desktop has been in freefall for years. It's losing market share at a rapid pace, and what remains of it is shrinking too - it's harder and harder to find full size ATX or Flex ATX, and almost impossible to find towers in shops geared at "ordinary consumers" for example.
Sure, it will still exist. But as a smaller and smaller niche.
> I don't know why you consider this "DIY" or "alternative tablets". Most tablets on the market has these capabilities.
Sure, but I think this space will be constrained by market forces for the next couple of years until we see movements towards these devices actually trying to be desktop replacements. Right now the focus is for these things to be phones and media consumption devices with a long battery life (which is what the masses want.) I'm waiting for the market to settle down enough so that Dell can jump in and make these things boring. Give me a tablet which is power hungry, gives me only 4 - 6 hours of battery but delivers everything I want to make these things true desktop replacements.I don't want sexy, I just want to throw the thing on my desk, plug all my crap into it and get to work. Maybe sometimes I might even take it with me. I do all my work from home though, and when I leave my home I don't want to take my work with me, so my mobiles don't get much mobile action.
Yes you can attach a keyboard. But carrying a keyboard along with your tablet is more expensive than carrying around a light notebook, like a Macbook Air, which is just as portable, more efficient at certain tasks, less efficient at others.
Also, comparing a PC with a tablet by comparing the hardware and the input interface is totally missing the point. When the PC evolved from DOS to Windows, from single tasking to multi-tasking, from big desktops to laptops and then to thinner notebooks with touch-pads, nobody talked about "post PC", as the evolution was not including regressions of functionality which made it totally obvious that the new devices were just like traditional PCs, only better.
That this happens now only means that these new devices are more limited than PCs, so a hard distinction needs to be made. And going forward, while lines continue to be blurred, the distinction will be extremely simple and effective, by answering just one question ... is software installation from third-party sources easy?
The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
Actually that was my point. Until further developments, most Android devices are PCs and any distinction being made to the contrary are arbitrary and short-term.
> But carrying a keyboard along with your tablet is more expensive than carrying around a light notebook
My tablet was <$130. My keyboard with carrying case was <$10.
But your comparison with a Macbook Air also misses a substantial other distinction: I can, and often do, leave the keyboard at home. The keyboard lives in my bag. The tablet is small enough to fit in my coat pocket, and so I often take it with me in cases where I don't want to drag more stuff with me, but still want something bigger than my phone. It is significantly more mobile.
> is software installation from third-party sources easy?
> The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
By your argument, any Android device is a PC. Fair enough. But it's quite clear that is not the context of the article being discussed.
I wasn't talking about price, I was talking about how much you need to carry. Having 2 pieces (tablet + keyboard) is worse than having a single notebook (also, don't you need a tablet stand too?). And yes you can leave the keyboard at home, but if you know you'll need a keyboard, carrying your notebook instead is more efficient. I view them as complementary devices, being designed for different use-cases.
And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
> Having 2 pieces (tablet + keyboard) is worse than having a single notebook
It is lighter and takes up less space in my bag, and the tablet attaches to the carrying case, so no, it is not "more expensive" on that measure either.
> And yes you can leave the keyboard at home, but if you know you'll need a keyboard, carrying your notebook instead is more efficient.
Even if I agreed with this - and I don't - having to keep data in sync across multiple devices is a major pain, and reason enough for me to avoid this.
I do have a laptop, but it is just that: A computer I use on my lap in my living room. It is too big for me to want to drag around, because it is a replacement for a desktop - which I haven't owned for 10 years or so - rather than something I see as a mobile computer.
But I increasingly treat my laptop as a dumb terminal. More of my personal data has my phone as its primary source than my laptop, and I do the vast majority of my work on servers, and so most of the local storage I use on my laptop is stuff that is synced to it from my phone and tablets for convenient local access when I do use it. I'd rather see a situation where my phone or tablet is my primary computing device and the rest just provide convenient screens and input devices as needed.
> And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
When you start picking your own definitions instead of relying on those the article are based on, the discussion becomes meaningless.
I've always thought that a laptop-tablet hybrid of the sort Lenovo makes is the best form factor[1] for mobile computing. A physical keyboard and trackpad you can fold away when you're not using but that you always have with you. I used an old x61 tablet that I got dirt cheap for years, and for things like watching video or reading comics or long-form text documents, being able to fold away the base is great.
Are there any machines in this form factor aimed at a general audience? A modern multi-touch tablet screen with a pivoting keyboard and mouse base?
Also let's not forget about milions of hardcore gamers. I don't think AMD and Nvidia would keep releasing more and more powerful graphic cards for desktops if PCs were dying.
I can barely type a short email on my phone without wanting to punch someone, I can only imagine what writing anything more than "LOL HASHTAG IM A JURNALIST" on a tablet would be like.
I always end up going back to my laptop to do any real work. Tablets are great for, as others have mentioned, consuming content. But the PC is "far from over", IMHO.
Once Ubuntu for Android appears, it will be copied by other OSes and then the PC will be (mostly) dead. Until then, people will still feel like they need a laptop/PC. http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
Edit: please explain the downvotes, I don't see how this isn't adding to the conversation.
When a phone is docked, Ubuntu will run on a full screen. When in your hand, the phone will run Android. Here's an early video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzc0uMXGFBY
Ubuntu for Android won't kill off PCs. It'll just mean that your phone/tablet is a PC, in addition to being a phone tablet. It won't kill off PCs, it will keep them alive.
That is a very, very interesting project. High-end phones have had more than enough horsepower to run a full desktop environment for a few years, but getting the mix of phone and desktop software right is the tricky bit. Android and Ubuntu is a natural mix, and of course (nearly) all your Ubuntu software is just a compile away. Getting carriers on board is going to be a challenge for Canonical, but as soon as the source is out for this the custom modders (and I) will be absolutely all over it.
It would seem obvious for Microsoft to aim for a similar thing with Windows RT/Phone, but they've made a terrible hash of mobile for the last decade, and I don't think that their optimise-for-touch-everywhere approach to Win8 would work well with a non-touch monitor plugged into a phone. On the other hand, if Win8 gets as much of a kicking as I suspect it will, they'll be in full desperation mode with Win9 and something like this could be a major selling point.
I did't downvote, but maybe you can explain what you mean by Ubuntu for Android? They are both OS's, I'd think that Ubuntu would replace Android if you're using Ubuntu, is that what you meant?
Android and Ubuntu both share the underlying kernel, so nothing really is preventing most of the rest of the stack from running at the same time.
Ubuntu for Android is just that: Ubuntu "userland" running on top of an Android-compatible Linux kernel, with various "glue" to integrate the Ubuntu side with various Android features, including ability to answer calls, unify contacts and calendars etc.
Hmm, I dunno. I still can't quite come to terms with the fact that with tablets, we've essentially got the equivalent of overlaying our keyboard on our screen every time we want to type something and obscuring half of the visuals on the screen in the process. I find that quite annoying for anything other than trivial input scenarios and I'm not quite sure I can envision the ideal solution to it, other than perhaps projecting a keyboard onto the table in front of me.
There are devices that do that. Some quick googling for "keyboard laser projected" finds a couple of products. Actually I remember such keyboard projector from some 6 years ago or so on thinkgeek. I'm not sure how well they work though. However, I agree that this is a major problem. Personally, I think that on-screen-keyboards are a bloody mess. I can't stand the lack of proper tactile feedback (no, letting the whole thing vibrate doesn't count).
I think Jeff and others are grouping laptops in with desktop PCs. For the purposes of this article, I'm pretty sure desktop means a computer with a large, touch-less screen, a keyboard and a mouse.
Precisely. I don't see how a tablet is much of an improvement in form factor over a laptop.
Recall the 'iPad + Linode' experiment [1]. In every photo Mark O'Conor posted of his iPad in action, he had an Apple wireless keyboard next to it. A screen and a keyboard. That's a novel idea.
Combined, they take up just about as much space as a laptop (11-13") but the combination is far less usable. Smaller screen, less processing power, less flexibility using iOS, less customisability, so on and so forth.
O'Connor was attempting to nullify one of those drawbacks (lack of processing power), but he can't escape all the others.
What do you do when you have all the computing performance anyone could ever possibly need, except for the freakish one-percenters, the video editors and programmers?
I think he misses the point, when my computer will boot instantly and allow me to work or when I won't have to wait for a file to copy that's when I'll have enough computer power. We're far from it and I think this applies to anybody, geeks or not. Who wants to wait for his computer to do his thing ?
I actually tried using my IPad as a primary device for work. I was living in ssh back then so with a Bluetooth keyboard it seemed like I would be able to. What I found was that the software itself, while fine when it's biggest limitation was my ability to interact with it using my clumsy sausage fingers on a touchscreen - was far from sufficient when I had my trusty old Qwerty physical keyboard. My want from the software immediately exceeded its capacity and feature set. Wonder how much of the joy of using a mobile device comes from significant self imposed limitation of the scope of that usage.
If you have a tablet, and almost always carry a keyboard to go with it, then really aren't you saying that a laptop would be the right solution?
Tablets are definitely moving towards being general purpose computers, but they're not there yet, and if you're willing to buy into a locked down iPad as your main computer, then I feel slightly sorry for you.
On the other side of things, I really don't see the point in $1500 laptops right now. Yes, the laptop should be extremely thin and light, but the cheapest intel processor married to an 120GB SSD and 4GB of RAM will work great for huge numbers of users, for both consumption and creation.
Frustratingly, it seems only the Chromebooks seem to be taking this approach to laptops, and I really don't want to replace an open device with one which Google works hard to lock down.
There was an article on HN a while ago, describing how a developer traded his laptop for a tablet and a Linode box. He'd ssh into the box and work there. I thought it was really elegant and thought about trying something similar.
However, I figured that a tablet + a keyboard is effectively a laptop with a good-looking UI and less features. The only real advantage I can think of now is better battery life and the fact that a tablet is usually cheaper to buy.
> and almost always carry a keyboard to go with it, then really aren't you saying that a laptop would be the right solution?
Not unless the keyboard is detachable, like e.g. the ASUS Transformer series. I carry a 7" tablet with me. I use it as a tablet to read stuff. The form factor means it's easy to hold with one hand. I also carry a keyboard with me, mostly because that makes it convenient to use for emergencies when a server goes down etc. and I want to be able to type faster and not have to prop the screen up. But 90% of the time for me the keyboard is dead weight. That's fine in my bag. It's not fine if I'm holding the device up to read on a crowded train, for example.
Increasingly I'm also finding that my typing speed on my phone and tablet is getting better rapidly. Especially with special-purpose keyboards like SwiftKey that has very good prediction, and so I resort to a hardware keyboard less and less.
The detachable keyboard models are nice, but to me, the only thing that makes the Transformer a tablet rather than a laptop with a detachable screen is the OS used.
Assuming Windows 8 does ok, I think we'll see a lot more devices in this form factor.
For a while I've really wanted tiny portable "thin" clients. You have a nice keyboard, mouse, and monitor at work and home. You have a portable version (maybe even a tablet) for on the move.
Most people only need a couple of hours of battery to or from the office.
Most people only need something powerful enough to do word processing and spreadsheeting, with a bit of accounts-package-nightmare and specialist-industry-nightmare software on top.
It'd be interesting to see Google drive this, or maybe even Canonical. Have a 5 year plan, with plenty of iteration and wiggle room.
You've probably already heard of it, but Canonical do have 'Ubuntu for Android' in the works. A high-end Android phone docks to a monitor and keyboard, where it can run Ubuntu.
They've demonstrated prototypes, and I imagine they're talking to handset manufacturers.
Quite a few Android tablets can boot Ubuntu already. And many Android tablets have HDMI out and supports USB or bluetooth keyboards just fine. Other devices supports MHL.
"Now multi-core Android phones can be PCs too. Ubuntu for Android enables high-end Android handsets to run Ubuntu, the world's favourite free PC desktop operating system. So users get the Android they know on the move, but when they connect their phone to a monitor, mouse and keyboard, it becomes a PC."
They're pushing this to manufacturers as a way to drive adoption of higher end Android devices with more cores, as well as to sell accessories like screens, keyboards etc., and as a "drop in" next to Android on the same device, with various integration.
I've been unemployed for more than two years. I use a prepaid dumbphone. While it's great that Jeff has an iPhone 5, neither I, nor any of my other 20-something friends, can afford one.
Bullshit. Or, if it isn't bullshit, it's pathetic.
I have an iPad 3 and a laptop on hand at all times at home. I'll boot up the laptop rather than dick around with the shitty touchscreen keyboard on the iPad.
And heaven forbid I find something I want to DOWNLOAD while browsing with the iPad. Thanks to Apple's fear, we can't save anything to a file system on iOS devices, or retrieve anyting from these devices. So on top of the clumsy typing experience, I have to E-mail links to myself for anything I want to download to my REAL computer.
Fuck that. If a tablet is good enough for you, your requirements are pitifully low.
This scares me, because of the likely conclusion: people who DO need a desktop will end up paying through the nose.
If no-one's buying PCs any more, the price will go up. As the price goes up, all the tasks that you'd do on a PC become more inaccessible.
I'm not looking forward to a world where if you want to edit professional video, do 3D animation or do games development, you need to shell out $10k or more for a machine first.
My understanding is that there are some routes that are less expensive to get to consoles these days, but yes - the console dev situation of 5 years or so ago is pretty close to what I'm worried about.
While that may be true for specialty hardware like 3D graphics cards, don't forget that the server market will likely be alive and well, leading to faster and cheaper servers.
So while you might not be able to get a silent, high end desktop computer, I think you'll still be able to buy or rent the computer power you need at a reasonable price.
That's a fair point - and thanks for bringing the optimism!
Given gaming, I can't see 3D chips getting more expensive either. Boards may, a bit, but provided a general-purpose PC doesn't become an extreme luxury item, I think we'll be OK.
I've had the exact same concern regarding pricing of equipment for workstations/laptops.
It's not hard to imagine a world where the workstation that costs you $2000 today will cost closer to $4000 simply because the demand is 20% of what it is today, and the economies of scale disappear for even the large manufacturers like Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc.
My hope is that the next great frontier for tablet commuting will be content creation (code, video, etc) and we'll start to see that make some serious in-roads before the prices go up substantially.
So what? The trend of our computing devices is that they get smaller as they are getting faster. As they get smaller, we are able to create new form factors. The tablet is just another form factor.
I imagine battery tech is going to be holding back tablets and smart phones from being true desktop replacements for a while. The markets want long battery life, not a desktop replacement.
Lots of link bait over an article for a trend which is as old as computing.
For development, design and other forms of work, the current generation of smart phones and tablets are clearly not up to task. But it makes you wonder how long before one of these things can run an XCode, Eclipse Visual Studio while wirelessly connecting to a monitor (or 3), keyboard and mouse. I think the biggest issue is really the lack of a traditional file system and ability to host a local web or database server on one of these machines. Neither of these are impossible to overcome given enough clever engineers, especially if the face of server side computing itself starts to change. As long as I don't have to type code on an iPad virtual keyboard I'm pretty excited to see whats coming.
If this was in stores today and handset manufacturers had good compatibility, I would make my next PC whatever the newest, top of the line Android phone and be relatively happy.
That said, this headline is sensationalistic nonsense. That setup would still be a PC, in fact it would look remarkably more like a PC than our current laptops we are lugging around (external monitor, keyboard, mouse, connected to a tiny "tower").
A lot of these comments comment on the fact that development is not available 'on the go'. Obviously one wouldn't carry round a keyboard and a tablet.
What I find interesting is the fact that powerful computing systems can fit into your pocket. I may be crazy, but couldn't we fit 2 projectors to this, get rid of the display completely and require two surfaces to project a display infront of you, and a keyboard/mousepad at your hands.
Maybe have both - a small display for simple tasks and projection for tasks that require a bigger display. Could we see a shift towards holographic display investment in the future? It's already available for keyboards...
I think of it as a step migration. With desktops you get the ultimate workhorse, best for heavy duty work (and this is now a small niche left with graphics and rendering tasks) You step down a bit and you get a portable laptop (its an ideal compromise). Tablet is a third step down with a lot of features cut down and as many pointed out its more of a content consumption device as opposed to creation.
Laptops will stay for a while as they sit brilliantly in between.I do see no evolution in laptops but I do see tablets catching up.
Owning an iPad 1 and an iPad 3 ("new iPad") I'm always thrilled to see how they perform side by side. It's like night and day - unreadable, low-contrast vs. superb, super-high-resolution display; 5 seconds for opening Mail vs 0.5 seconds; almost tripled battery life (at least for me). For some aspects, it's an improvement of an order of magnitude within only 2 years.
I don't think such an improvement will be possible in the next 2 years, and the only incremental improvements in the iPhone 5 seem to support that. You can't really upgrade a tablet (yet - there is at least USB host support in most Android tablets), but consumers won't be as hard-pressed to buy an iPad 4 and 5 as they were with earlier versions. There is already the highest-sense-making display resolution, apps open almost instantly, and superlong battery life. What more can you ask for given its restricted use case of media consumption? It will again all be about software (Siri for iPad, tighter TV integration, perhaps OSX on iPad?) soon.
Actually, radio is as big an industry as it ever was. Mobile phone and app sales may eclipse PC hardware and software sales, but the products are just too different to expect one to replace the other. Perhaps there is more money to be made in Mobile/TV, but that's just because it's a plain old risk/pay-off trade-off.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadI started programming on a computer that can be comfortably be emulated cycle exact on the cheapest tablets you can get today, so that's quite obvious hyperbole.
At my first company, we did most of our development work on a server that was shared between four of us, yet had 1/4 of the memory of my tablet, and which was about 1/10th the performance of current generation ARM's. Somehow had no problem doing programming work on it. As well as running paint programs (granted, none of us did much graphical design, but what little we did ran on that shared server using our local, much slower, machines as X terminals).
My "IDE" today is, as it was 17 years ago, Emacs. It hasn't gotten that much more resource intensive. My browser has gotten more resource intensive, but still runs ok on a device like that.
> How does the convenient form factor help you beat the competition? Working off hours? No thanks.
It helps me not having to drag a laptop around and/or rush to find a full size computer when server I have responsibility for go down. It gives peace of mind. And yes, I am very well compensated for being the one who gets the calls if something breaks, as well as the freedom to put in the resources to minimize how often it does.
It's also extremely convenient when travelling, such as when I'm heading out to one of our data centres.
It's the text that's an issue, which I solve by using a keyboard when I'm working (and that I leave behind when I'm not).
There is nothing more productive than a good desktop workstation with big multiple screens. I recently purchased a new one for a good price, and I am happy with it.
All the sales numbers shows you're wrong: The desktop market is at best stagnant, while people move in droves to other form factors. In many areas it is collapsing.
There's only tiny niches of "real work" that needs desktops rather than laptops.
And this is despite the form factor of the typical PC dropping rapidly, to the point where my local shops don't even carry full size ATX cases any more, and most "desktops" are "all in one" iMac style machines.
Big screens and full size keyboards are going nowhere, but the form factors are converging on mobile devices with suitable connectivity.
Desktops will likely remain available for a very long time, but they're well on their way to becoming an ever diminishing niche simply for the reason that the computational needs of most workers and for most home use is being met sufficiently well that more speed or disk space is now a secondary factor for a larger and larger segment of users.
I'm not sure about using tablets with keyboard/mouse/big-screen. I haven't seen too much of it happening, and I'm not sure its really an attractive thing to do anyway for a lot of reasons from the office-practical (lots of plugging things in, harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things, etc.) to the purely pragmatic performance-based (can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen? What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?)
Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider. And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
One cable with MHL (power, display) and bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
Some devices, such as the Galaxy S III, uses MHL adapters that also provides a USB port so you can hook up your USB keyboard and mouse to the MHL adapter and have just one cable to attach even if you want a wired keyboard and mouse.
> harder to coordinate everyone, possibility of losing things
How is that any different from today with offices full of laptops?
> can a tablet do all the graphics processing for a big screen?
Yes. My <$130 Allwinner A10 based laptop gives decent performance at full HD (1080p) resolutions today, and it is by no means a high end tablet. Sure, you are not going to get the same performance today on a tablet that cheap as on current high end laptops or desktops, but it is "good enough" for many uses, and this tablet lagged substantially behind the top of the crop tablets already on release.
> What if you are using a big file - can your tablet handle it?
Big by what standard? What it can't handle today, the next generation will handle soon enough. It is not that these tablets and phones will magically be capable enough now, but they are catching up to the type of laptop and desktop performance the vast majority of users are willing to pay for at a rapid rate.
> Disk space is a huge draw to PCs too. Very few people I know are happy to entrust their life's photo collection to an online storage-as-a-service provider.
My <$130 tablet today has 48GB of storage (16GB built in, 32GB sdcard), and can attach whatever size USB storage I want (including easily 128GB USB sticks), or connect to a NAS. Give it a generation or three and you'll be able to put hundreds of GB in these devices.
So again: Maybe some users won't be able to put everything they have on it today, but give it some time - storage on these devices will keep increasingly fairly rapidly as and when usage patterns expand.
>And I'm yet to see a good 'media center' (though I think they'll come along at some point).
XMBC runs on Android: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2012/07/13/xbmc-for-android/
No-one's suggesting that the desktop will completely disappear. The thinking is that it will become a niche for hobbyists and professional data crunchers.
The machine that I use most and is the most fun is the latest MacBook Air. I would expect that 'Ultrabooks' are similar useful.
My <$130 7" Chinese Android tablet can drive a full HD 3D TV at full resolution, and can handle both bluetooth or USB keyboards. And many of these tablets can boot full Linux.
The next step up is MHL, allowing the screen to power your phone or tablet while it is using the screen for output.
Increasingly people will have the option of combining the convenience of the phone or tablet with being able to effortlessly connect it to a large screen and keyboard when needed.
Bluetooth. MHL with the device providing power. One cable to give you power and display, and no cables for the other devices.
And the laptop still needs cables if you want a decent sized display, and don't want to run it off battery.
Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting. As a techie living in Asia, I would either just buy a Chinese gadget (clone) which fits my needs or just build my own. In this sense, the PC lives on. ;)
Agreed. Ballmer was ironically right when he said "they're all just PCs".
What's perhaps more interesting than the form factor is the app-storification of software delivery. I have real concerns about a future where there's no market for hackable platforms.
I don't know why you consider this "DIY" or "alternative tablets". Most tablets on the market has these capabilities.
> Personally, this is just evolution of form factors. Nothing terribly interesting.
I find it exciting we're close to the point where we can get convergence and not need multiple different computers for must uses, but you're right: It is largely about evolution of form factors, which is why I find it so amusing that so many people are so insistent the desktop PC will remain important.
The traditional big box desktop has been in freefall for years. It's losing market share at a rapid pace, and what remains of it is shrinking too - it's harder and harder to find full size ATX or Flex ATX, and almost impossible to find towers in shops geared at "ordinary consumers" for example.
Sure, it will still exist. But as a smaller and smaller niche.
Sure, but I think this space will be constrained by market forces for the next couple of years until we see movements towards these devices actually trying to be desktop replacements. Right now the focus is for these things to be phones and media consumption devices with a long battery life (which is what the masses want.) I'm waiting for the market to settle down enough so that Dell can jump in and make these things boring. Give me a tablet which is power hungry, gives me only 4 - 6 hours of battery but delivers everything I want to make these things true desktop replacements.I don't want sexy, I just want to throw the thing on my desk, plug all my crap into it and get to work. Maybe sometimes I might even take it with me. I do all my work from home though, and when I leave my home I don't want to take my work with me, so my mobiles don't get much mobile action.
Yes you can attach a keyboard. But carrying a keyboard along with your tablet is more expensive than carrying around a light notebook, like a Macbook Air, which is just as portable, more efficient at certain tasks, less efficient at others.
Also, comparing a PC with a tablet by comparing the hardware and the input interface is totally missing the point. When the PC evolved from DOS to Windows, from single tasking to multi-tasking, from big desktops to laptops and then to thinner notebooks with touch-pads, nobody talked about "post PC", as the evolution was not including regressions of functionality which made it totally obvious that the new devices were just like traditional PCs, only better.
That this happens now only means that these new devices are more limited than PCs, so a hard distinction needs to be made. And going forward, while lines continue to be blurred, the distinction will be extremely simple and effective, by answering just one question ... is software installation from third-party sources easy?
The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
My tablet was <$130. My keyboard with carrying case was <$10.
But your comparison with a Macbook Air also misses a substantial other distinction: I can, and often do, leave the keyboard at home. The keyboard lives in my bag. The tablet is small enough to fit in my coat pocket, and so I often take it with me in cases where I don't want to drag more stuff with me, but still want something bigger than my phone. It is significantly more mobile.
> is software installation from third-party sources easy? > The ramifications by answering Yes to this will be: (1) piracy is easy + (2) mallware is possible + (3) Firefox is available for that device + (4) yes, that's a PC.
By your argument, any Android device is a PC. Fair enough. But it's quite clear that is not the context of the article being discussed.
And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
It is lighter and takes up less space in my bag, and the tablet attaches to the carrying case, so no, it is not "more expensive" on that measure either.
> And yes you can leave the keyboard at home, but if you know you'll need a keyboard, carrying your notebook instead is more efficient.
Even if I agreed with this - and I don't - having to keep data in sync across multiple devices is a major pain, and reason enough for me to avoid this.
I do have a laptop, but it is just that: A computer I use on my lap in my living room. It is too big for me to want to drag around, because it is a replacement for a desktop - which I haven't owned for 10 years or so - rather than something I see as a mobile computer.
But I increasingly treat my laptop as a dumb terminal. More of my personal data has my phone as its primary source than my laptop, and I do the vast majority of my work on servers, and so most of the local storage I use on my laptop is stuff that is synced to it from my phone and tablets for convenient local access when I do use it. I'd rather see a situation where my phone or tablet is my primary computing device and the rest just provide convenient screens and input devices as needed.
> And by my argument Androids are indeed PCs, at least for now, because excluding the availability of third-party sources, all other distinctions will get blurred within the next 2-3 years.
When you start picking your own definitions instead of relying on those the article are based on, the discussion becomes meaningless.
Are there any machines in this form factor aimed at a general audience? A modern multi-touch tablet screen with a pivoting keyboard and mouse base?
[1]http://shop.lenovo.com/gbweb/gb/en/learn/products/laptops/th...
My desktop isn't going anywhere just yet!
Edit: please explain the downvotes, I don't see how this isn't adding to the conversation.
Nobody, as far as I can tell, is claiming it will kill of universal computing devices for personal use.
It would seem obvious for Microsoft to aim for a similar thing with Windows RT/Phone, but they've made a terrible hash of mobile for the last decade, and I don't think that their optimise-for-touch-everywhere approach to Win8 would work well with a non-touch monitor plugged into a phone. On the other hand, if Win8 gets as much of a kicking as I suspect it will, they'll be in full desperation mode with Win9 and something like this could be a major selling point.
Android and Ubuntu both share the underlying kernel, so nothing really is preventing most of the rest of the stack from running at the same time.
Ubuntu for Android is just that: Ubuntu "userland" running on top of an Android-compatible Linux kernel, with various "glue" to integrate the Ubuntu side with various Android features, including ability to answer calls, unify contacts and calendars etc.
I've just brought a laptop as my next main programming computer, rather than a desktop.
Laptops are the new portable desktops.
You can't type on a tablet.
Recall the 'iPad + Linode' experiment [1]. In every photo Mark O'Conor posted of his iPad in action, he had an Apple wireless keyboard next to it. A screen and a keyboard. That's a novel idea.
Combined, they take up just about as much space as a laptop (11-13") but the combination is far less usable. Smaller screen, less processing power, less flexibility using iOS, less customisability, so on and so forth.
O'Connor was attempting to nullify one of those drawbacks (lack of processing power), but he can't escape all the others.
[1] http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-linode-1-year-...
I think he misses the point, when my computer will boot instantly and allow me to work or when I won't have to wait for a file to copy that's when I'll have enough computer power. We're far from it and I think this applies to anybody, geeks or not. Who wants to wait for his computer to do his thing ?
Tablets are definitely moving towards being general purpose computers, but they're not there yet, and if you're willing to buy into a locked down iPad as your main computer, then I feel slightly sorry for you.
On the other side of things, I really don't see the point in $1500 laptops right now. Yes, the laptop should be extremely thin and light, but the cheapest intel processor married to an 120GB SSD and 4GB of RAM will work great for huge numbers of users, for both consumption and creation.
Frustratingly, it seems only the Chromebooks seem to be taking this approach to laptops, and I really don't want to replace an open device with one which Google works hard to lock down.
However, I figured that a tablet + a keyboard is effectively a laptop with a good-looking UI and less features. The only real advantage I can think of now is better battery life and the fact that a tablet is usually cheaper to buy.
The advantages, for me, are:
* battery life
* in-built 3G
* the fact that iOS is almost single-tasking means I get distracted significantly less often
* when I do stop typing, I pick the tablet up and move around; on a "computer" I tend to stay in the same position, even when not working
The major disadvantages:
* not much good when doing web-UI work (task switching, no web-inspector)
* iOS really needs the "open in" button available everywhere, or something like Android intents/OSX Services/Windows 8 contracts.
[edited for formatting]
Not unless the keyboard is detachable, like e.g. the ASUS Transformer series. I carry a 7" tablet with me. I use it as a tablet to read stuff. The form factor means it's easy to hold with one hand. I also carry a keyboard with me, mostly because that makes it convenient to use for emergencies when a server goes down etc. and I want to be able to type faster and not have to prop the screen up. But 90% of the time for me the keyboard is dead weight. That's fine in my bag. It's not fine if I'm holding the device up to read on a crowded train, for example.
Increasingly I'm also finding that my typing speed on my phone and tablet is getting better rapidly. Especially with special-purpose keyboards like SwiftKey that has very good prediction, and so I resort to a hardware keyboard less and less.
Assuming Windows 8 does ok, I think we'll see a lot more devices in this form factor.
Most people only need a couple of hours of battery to or from the office.
Most people only need something powerful enough to do word processing and spreadsheeting, with a bit of accounts-package-nightmare and specialist-industry-nightmare software on top.
It'd be interesting to see Google drive this, or maybe even Canonical. Have a 5 year plan, with plenty of iteration and wiggle room.
They've demonstrated prototypes, and I imagine they're talking to handset manufacturers.
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
So you can have that now.
Since you mentioned Canonical, they most definitively do have a plan: http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
"Now multi-core Android phones can be PCs too. Ubuntu for Android enables high-end Android handsets to run Ubuntu, the world's favourite free PC desktop operating system. So users get the Android they know on the move, but when they connect their phone to a monitor, mouse and keyboard, it becomes a PC."
They're pushing this to manufacturers as a way to drive adoption of higher end Android devices with more cores, as well as to sell accessories like screens, keyboards etc., and as a "drop in" next to Android on the same device, with various integration.
I have an iPad 3 and a laptop on hand at all times at home. I'll boot up the laptop rather than dick around with the shitty touchscreen keyboard on the iPad.
And heaven forbid I find something I want to DOWNLOAD while browsing with the iPad. Thanks to Apple's fear, we can't save anything to a file system on iOS devices, or retrieve anyting from these devices. So on top of the clumsy typing experience, I have to E-mail links to myself for anything I want to download to my REAL computer.
Fuck that. If a tablet is good enough for you, your requirements are pitifully low.
If no-one's buying PCs any more, the price will go up. As the price goes up, all the tasks that you'd do on a PC become more inaccessible.
I'm not looking forward to a world where if you want to edit professional video, do 3D animation or do games development, you need to shell out $10k or more for a machine first.
My understanding is that there are some routes that are less expensive to get to consoles these days, but yes - the console dev situation of 5 years or so ago is pretty close to what I'm worried about.
So while you might not be able to get a silent, high end desktop computer, I think you'll still be able to buy or rent the computer power you need at a reasonable price.
Given gaming, I can't see 3D chips getting more expensive either. Boards may, a bit, but provided a general-purpose PC doesn't become an extreme luxury item, I think we'll be OK.
It's not hard to imagine a world where the workstation that costs you $2000 today will cost closer to $4000 simply because the demand is 20% of what it is today, and the economies of scale disappear for even the large manufacturers like Apple, Lenovo, Dell, etc.
My hope is that the next great frontier for tablet commuting will be content creation (code, video, etc) and we'll start to see that make some serious in-roads before the prices go up substantially.
I imagine battery tech is going to be holding back tablets and smart phones from being true desktop replacements for a while. The markets want long battery life, not a desktop replacement.
Lots of link bait over an article for a trend which is as old as computing.
http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android
If this was in stores today and handset manufacturers had good compatibility, I would make my next PC whatever the newest, top of the line Android phone and be relatively happy.
That said, this headline is sensationalistic nonsense. That setup would still be a PC, in fact it would look remarkably more like a PC than our current laptops we are lugging around (external monitor, keyboard, mouse, connected to a tiny "tower").
What I find interesting is the fact that powerful computing systems can fit into your pocket. I may be crazy, but couldn't we fit 2 projectors to this, get rid of the display completely and require two surfaces to project a display infront of you, and a keyboard/mousepad at your hands.
Maybe have both - a small display for simple tasks and projection for tasks that require a bigger display. Could we see a shift towards holographic display investment in the future? It's already available for keyboards...
Laptops will stay for a while as they sit brilliantly in between.I do see no evolution in laptops but I do see tablets catching up.
I don't think such an improvement will be possible in the next 2 years, and the only incremental improvements in the iPhone 5 seem to support that. You can't really upgrade a tablet (yet - there is at least USB host support in most Android tablets), but consumers won't be as hard-pressed to buy an iPad 4 and 5 as they were with earlier versions. There is already the highest-sense-making display resolution, apps open almost instantly, and superlong battery life. What more can you ask for given its restricted use case of media consumption? It will again all be about software (Siri for iPad, tighter TV integration, perhaps OSX on iPad?) soon.
Actually, radio is as big an industry as it ever was. Mobile phone and app sales may eclipse PC hardware and software sales, but the products are just too different to expect one to replace the other. Perhaps there is more money to be made in Mobile/TV, but that's just because it's a plain old risk/pay-off trade-off.