Linked by snydeq on Tue 6th Jul 2010 15:19 UTC
InfoWorld's Neil McAllister offers 10 reasons why the PC is here to stay despite Steve Jobs' recent pronouncement that the iPad signals the end of the PC era. 'Depending on whom you ask, the iPad will save journalism, rescue the book publishing business, transform the movie industry, change the way we communicate, and make the perfect omelet. But there are plenty of reasons to suspect that at least some of these predictions will prove overly optimistic. Even more dubious is the idea that the iPad signals a true sea change in computing,' McAllister writes. Chief among the reasons the PC is not dead yet are desktops' comparative cost-effectiveness, the lack of versatility of mobile devices, the fact that desktop and mobile OSes don't mix, and limitations inherent to tablet devices' dependencies on the cloud.
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RE[2]: iPad is a start...
by spinnekopje on Wed 7th Jul 2010 17:08
in reply to "RE: iPad is a start..."
Member since:2008-11-29
You mean playing the excellent 15 year-old Descent I using D1X-Rebirth? Or editing photos? How do you do that without a mouse or other pointing devices more precise than a finger? Or, ripping a CD from my collection into mp3 files I can listen to on my mp3 player? These are things the average user does. And I'm not even talking about things I do like coding, encoding videos.
The average user only does very basic stuff with video/photo/audio. Maybe now the software that allows you to do so just by touches isn't available, which doesn't mean it won't in the future.
For more specialized features for photo/video you can still use a stylus, although I hope one never needs it for basic actions.
Games are more or less bound to the platform they are written for. For gamers there might become more powerful tablets just like it is now with pc's.
RE[3]: iPad is a start...
by vodoomoth on Thu 8th Jul 2010 13:05
in reply to "RE[2]: iPad is a start..."
Member since:2010-03-30
The average user only does very basic stuff with video/photo/audio. Maybe now the software that allows you to do so just by touches isn't available, which doesn't mean it won't in the future.
So why say now that the PC is dying when these hypothetical future things are not even simple publicly known prototypes yet?
For more specialized features for photo/video you can still use a stylus, although I hope one never needs it for basic actions.
Are you aware that these devices are said to not support a stylus because they use a so-called "capacitive technology"? See http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=858985 for instance.
Did you see the tip of such a stylus? How do you change the color of one pixel with that?
Games are more or less bound to the platform they are written for. For gamers there might become more powerful tablets just like it is now with pc's.
What do you call a platform? Descent I was written for MS-DOS with a DOS/4GW extender. I play it now on Vista with OpenGL. I could do the same on Linux or Mac if I wanted. Or on 7 if I had a PC running it. Or on PlayStation.
Even without this example, your point is moot:
Can you imagine any kind of gamer playing on any kind of super-powered tablet? What would be the size of that tablet when I am currently dreaming of playing games on a dual 22" widescreen set? How do you hold it? But foremost, what's the point of using a super tablet for that? Even "simple" pointing games like Nervous Brickdown or Meteos, which are a perfect fit for the Nintendo DS, wouldn't be that practical to play.
Member since:
2010-03-30
The pc won't completely disappear, but for home use it is possible that most people won't have one anymore in a number of years.
What do you call "home use"?
You mean playing the excellent 15 year-old Descent I using D1X-Rebirth? Or editing photos? How do you do that without a mouse or other pointing devices more precise than a finger? Or, ripping a CD from my collection into mp3 files I can listen to on my mp3 player? These are things the average user does. And I'm not even talking about things I do like coding, encoding videos.
If "home use" means browsing the web and reading emails or ebooks, then you're right. If it includes anything else, I don't see how people can avoid having a PC (or Mac for the matter).