

The PC is Over - bussetta
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/10/the-pc-is-over.html

======
fredley
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.

~~~
vidarh
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.

~~~
bad_user
This is missing the forest from the trees.

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.

~~~
vidarh
> 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.

~~~
bad_user
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.

~~~
vidarh
> 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.

------
EwanToo
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.

~~~
tsahyt
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.

~~~
rahoulb
I was inspired by the same guy and use an iPad with the Logitech ultra-thin
keyboard (with a Linux desktop at home).

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]

------
16s
I need gcc, vim and a shell and a nice big screen with the ability to type
easily, that's why I use old-fashioned PCs. I also don't like how all the pads
and mobile devices are locked-down and more focused on tracking user activity
___(EDIT: and selling stuff)_ __than being a computing device. I guess I'm
getting old.

~~~
vidarh
> I need gcc, vim and a shell and a nice big screen with the ability to type
> easily, that's why I use old-fashioned PCs.

You can get all that apart from the screen pretty much any Android tablet or
phone these days, and the screen too on a large number of devices with either
HDMI or MHL.

> I also don't like how all the pads and mobile devices are locked-down and
> more focused on tracking user activity than being a computing device.

Not nearly all are. My tablet came pre-rooted, and is known to be fairly easy
to get plain Linux booting on.

~~~
pc86
Which tablet is that? I've got an iPad, a Macbook Air and a custom-built PC. I
think the next logical step is a tablet running Linux.

~~~
vidarh
Mine is a NATPC M009S, though the exact same board is available under any
number of names. But I believe most Allwinner A10 based tablets at least
should work reasonably fine at least with Debian and/or Ubuntu, assuming they
have unlocked bootloaders (which seems to usually be the case for Chinese
tablets). Check out <http://a10linux.org/a10_intro.html> which includes some
information on suitable hardware.

------
pi18n
Two guys agree on it, so it must be correct! Well, time to chuck this
inconvenient clamshell POS and get an Android tablet to do some _actual_ work
on.

~~~
lutze
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.

My desktop isn't going anywhere just yet!

------
netcan
IMO thinking in terms of power/performance is completely useless if your goal
is to figure out where things are going. All these "computers" have enough
power now or will have enough power in the next few years (either through
better hardware or device specific software) to do all the things most people
need to do. If there really is a need for rendering animation in your pocket
I'm sure it will be possible, at some price.

For that reason, this is not the same as the mainframe-minicomputer-
microcomputer transition. What is going on now is new types of computers
(tablets & pocket tablets) that are defined by their _form_ , not their
_power_.

There is a second reason other than new form factors for the success of these
new devices that has nothing to do with power _or_ form factor: new OS/app
metaphors & paradigms. The basic metaphors & ideas (desktop, file system,
install scripts, desktop shortcuts, trash) behind the PC are 20-30 years old.
They were created before grandmothers, electricians and 2 year olds used
computers. They were never optimal and they have grown hairs over the years.
iOS & Android are a clean slate. This has fixed all sorts of things. Most
important (IMO) is tuning applications application into "apps". Apps have a
clearer definition than applications. They are self contained, easy to install
and easy to remove. Applications are things that your older brother or IT
department has to install.

This second factor (the clean slate factor) is tricky one because it's very
important in the short run. In the long term it's irrelevant to the number of
desktops, laptops or tablets sold. PCs will eventually incorporate the
features (or the whole OS) that are better in touch OS's. This factor will not
affect the ratio of laptops/tablets sold in 2018.

Declaring the PC dead is silly. This is just like web based software vs
installed software. Power was a bottleneck. Now that it's clearing we can see
that for all sorts of things web based software is better but not always.
Keyboard & mouse vs touch is similar to this "transition." Things that work
better on touch will move to touch, but not everything.

This will be a dispersion, not a migration.

~~~
mtgx
The PC's and mini-computers were defined by form and price, too, not
performance. In fact the much lower performance is what completely blindsided
IBM when mini-computers appeared, and later DEC when PC's appeared. For
_their_ customers, the new type of computers didn't make any sense. But there
were whole other markets out there who wanted a much more "portable" or
cheaper computer.

You can now get a decent tablet for $200. You could also get netbooks for that
price, but they aren't exactly decent when it comes to overall performance,
and that has more to do with how the software is written (for powerful x86
chips - not for Atom chips), while mobile apps are written for much lower
performance chips.

~~~
netcan
Yeah, I didn't put in quite enough time into the definitions. But, there is a
fundamental difference that I was trying to describe.

Micro/mini computers were computers at a different price/size points. I agree.
But, the _reason for buying a minicomputer_ was not that you didn't have room
for a mainframe. It was because of price & power. They were the same category
of thing just at different prices & power. Once power on all of them became
enough to power everything most users needed, the lower priced form factor
(microcomputers) became the only form factor that mattered.

By making that analogy Jeff is implying that smartphones, tablets & PCs are
the same category of thing and that the thing at the lower end of the
price/power chart will eventually become the thing of the future.

What I am arguing is that he's got it wrong: the form factor is there for the
its own reasons. It's not there to facilitate power and its not there to
facilitate price. Laptops have keyboards and mouses. Smartphones fit in your
pocket. There is overlap in what they do, but phones won't get awesome enough
to replace laptops _.

_ This is unless they become laptops. Maybe eventually everyone will have a
keyboard that snaps onto their tablet when they need it and a screen at
home/office that plugs into it too. That's cheating. It doesn't count.

------
aelaguiz
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.

------
thenomad
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.

~~~
gnaffle
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.

~~~
thenomad
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.

------
timClicks
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.

~~~
mooism2
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.

~~~
vidarh
But it will kill off what people _currently_ think of as PC's.

Nobody, as far as I can tell, is claiming it will kill of universal computing
devices for personal use.

------
cake
_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 ?

------
Floopsy
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.

~~~
jaimebuelta
Curiously, I need a desktop to do "real work". A laptop is uncomfortable for
some things (mouse, small screen, etc)...

------
twelvechairs
Tablets are fine for browsing the web, reading, etc. but serious work happens
on desktops and isn't going to move away from them.

~~~
jaimebuelta
Adding a keyboard to a tablet makes it a decent computer, able to do a lot of
day-to-day tasks (email, documents, etc)

~~~
tokenizer
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).

~~~
vidarh
> or any programming of any kind

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).

~~~
sixbrx
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.

~~~
vidarh
> 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.

------
dbattaglia
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.

~~~
darkstalker
Android has a traditional file system, iOS does if you jailbreak it.

~~~
dbattaglia
True. I guess really what I mean is they do their best to hide the file system
from you, even if it is actually there under the covers.

------
lukifer
I say it's time for the notion of things "being over" to be over. The PC is
absolutely going to diminish in mass-market relevance in favor of devices, but
there will always be a PC market for hobbyists and power users (though the
economic factors may shift, potentially turning commodity parts into luxury
items).

There's plenty of room in the computing ecosystem for both web sites and apps,
for both closed and open platforms, for both PCs and devices, and whatever
other divisions you can think of. Even if one thing "wins", it doesn't mean
the other is automatically erased from existence.

------
sbierwagen
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.

------
hayksaakian
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.

~~~
takluyver
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.

~~~
hayksaakian
Unfortunately the title of the article was sensational and inferred the
former, whereas the latter is more likely

------
axefrog
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.

~~~
tsahyt
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).

------
manmal
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.

------
digeridoo
TV is coming. Radio is dead!

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.

------
willvarfar
I think that laptops are the perfect migration away from desktop

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.

~~~
aes256
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.

[1] [http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-
linode-1-year-...](http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad-
linode-1-year-later)

------
cantankerous
This article makes me wonder if, for power users, someday there will be an
iphone sized device that devotes its entire form factor to performance. That
is, it goes without a screen, packs a ton of ram and cpu power for "general
purpose" computing, and you can put it in your pocket and carry it around.
When you get to work you can just plop it in your "workstation" and it will
use monitors, keyboard, whatever as interface devices. I guess anything's
possible. Now that I write this, I feel like it's sorta already happened,
though I can't fit a Mac Mini in my biggest of cargo short pockets.

~~~
fredley
This is a feasible model, but that's not the way the market is going. Nobody
is either making the devices or the docking stations, or even really trying.
What we are seeing is a move towards real thin-client. I carry around a
screen, with a battery to power it. This screen essentially gets everything
done for it on some remote server, very little computing happens locally.

The problem for power users is having a remote service connected to the screen
that's as open and hackable as a desktop system, and having a way to input
data to the screen as easily as with a keyboard and mouse.

------
darkstalker
Yet another article about this? The PC is not going to die. Maybe it's the wet
dream of the vocal minority who lives in the apple-bubble. But for me and many
others, they are devices that serve distinct, non-overlapping purposes.

When I'm at home, I pretty much forget about my tablet/smartphone, because a
desktop PC is _much_ more comfortable to use than a mobile device.

------
amorphid
Mobile computing has definitely changed my life. I just realized the other day
as I tossed my busted up laptop from 2008 that I no longer own a magnetic hard
drive. I also don't have a desktop computer, anything running Windows, TV, a
CD player, a DVD player, or a landline phone (technically I do w/ my DSL line,
but I've never once used it). I live my e-life via a 13" Macbook Air and a 2
year old Android smartphone.

I don't consider myself bleeding edge anymore. I still don't have a tablet,
although there is the occasional day I want one. Diablo 3 will be played on my
next laptop, my 2010 era Macbook Air doesn't have quite enough horsepower to
power point and click monster bashing for my taste. And while I've been pushed
into going touchscreen on my phone, I still yearn for a physical keyboard on a
mobile device.

------
ditoa
For consuming content and creating very basic content a tablet is great. On a
train or on the sofa a tablet is very nice for reading reddit and HN, watching
some Youtube, Skype with the family, writing emails and basic document
creation.

However for any _real_ content creation a laptop is my primary choice. I would
love an ultrabook like the Asus Zenbook or Samsung Series 9. An ultrabook will
most certainly be my next computer when I buy one some time next year. I am
waiting for them to hit the 10 hour mark which I am hoping they will do next
year (already very close with the Samsung clocking in around 9 hours). I am
happy to sacrifice some CPU and graphics power for an extra hour or two.

------
smithzvk
Long live the PC, and by that I mean the phone/tablet that I will connect a
monitor, keyboard, and mouse to when at the office or at my desk at home.

<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").

------
bking
My thoughts are that a logical change will be a smartphone that without
peripherals will be just what a smartphone is today. I also think that we will
have a "station" that is a monitor, keyboard, and mouse that all wirelessly
connect to the portable device when it is in the near vicinity and is turned
to "computer mode". All the extra data storage that towers have will be
wirelessly linked in a base home server that sits on the desk next to the
other peripherals.

I love a desktop because it is a stationary place I can always count on, but
as soon as that becomes more easily replaced and can still run games and media
editing at the same scale, I will keep my desktop

------
deif
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...

------
dschiptsov
Oh god, what a news!))

Consumers are using smartphones and tablets while professional are using
macbooks. Samsung is new Nokia, Apple is new Microsoft (even worse). Linux is
server and Rails is PHP. What news what news..

btw, the burst of Wintel (and Java) bubbles is really a good thing - it is for
a new wave of Arm/Android/Linux.

Of course, there still will be x86_64/Linux server market for long (because
its so cheap in terms of Price/Performance) and tons of MS/Java based
enterprise crapware still need to be maintained, but that wave is gone long
ago.

Surfing is a very nice model of IT business, btw.)

------
DanBC
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.

~~~
vidarh
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.

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.

------
shahzadaziz
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.

------
lispm
I am using iDevices since they have been available to buy.

The machine that I use most and is the most fun is the latest MacBook Air. I
would expect that 'Ultrabooks' are similar useful.

~~~
tokenizer
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.

------
Tichy
I can just imagine how he dreads having to type those long blog articles on a
keyboard. Clearly it is so much more convenient on a tablet.

(Sorry - I like codinghorror actually...)

------
inthewoods
Interesting to me that people here and in the post are expressing a desire for
a tablet/mobile device that transforms into a desktop/workstation when brought
near a keyboard. Probably more a reflection of this audience, but I just
hadn't heard a lot of people express this desire.

Interestingly, to me, that's the problem that Window 8 seems to be trying to
solve - I didn't know many people had it! And, of course, a few Android
tablets that become laptops, etc.

------
gexla
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.

------
zv
When XBox came out, someone declared that gaming on PC is/will be dead. Fast
forward today we have 2 ecosystems that are thriving. Now someone declares PC
is dead. My prediction is that in reality these two will coexist. We don't
have the tools yet (want application for web, desktop, mobile? you better
learn programming language x,y,z, framework x,y,z etc), but future hopefully
will be brighter.

------
mark_l_watson
Another take on PCs: I used to keep a few Linux boxes around the house for CPU
intensive processing. Then I started to prefer EC2s or Elastic MapReduce.
Earlier this year for a side project I decided it would be cheaper and take
less of my time to rent a large memory server for about a month.

I got rid of my last desktop years ago and have not missed them.

------
eckyptang
Sorry but bollocks. And I'm fed up with this utter crap being spewed at every
available moment.

The day the local pc repair shops shut, the day the local electronics store
shuts and the day that people pry my universal computing device out of my
hands and the 3-4 billion other people let it go, I'll believe it.

Until then, this is a fad.

~~~
vidarh
What local PC repair shops? Near me, most of the options are now large chain
stores that don't even sell "old style" desktops, but mostly laptops, with a
corner set aside for "all in one" desktops they most certainly don't have
anyone who can repair on the precises. Another, already larger, section at my
nearest chain store now sells tablets.

The local electronics store doesn't sell PC's at all, though it sells some
components. And it does sell tablets.

But of course, these tablets are still "universal computing devices" too. Just
in more convenient form factors.

~~~
eckyptang
I live in London, UK. They are literally everywhere.

A tablet is not a universal computing device: it's a portal for consuming
stuff from a content producer. If it stood alone, then it would be, but they
don't - none of them!

------
3amOpsGuy
The idea of running a desktop "in the cloud" on EC2 or similar interests me.
Not sure how practical it would be in real life though.

~~~
sabret00the
Didn't they try this and have it fail already?

