The desktop is here to stay
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| smallboxadmin May 16, 2012 12:36 PM EDT |
Where is this desktop is dead silliness coming from? Sure, tons of tablets are being sold, but where are the mass deployments of tablets replacing desktops? Can someone give me a link? I'm sitting next to a lab of 200+ desktops with students writing papers, printing or submitting assignments. They are running statistical applications or writing programs, creating databases, and on and on. When I go into a bank, which is rare these days, all of the workers are using desktop PC's. I see more and more tablets, but these seem to be new devices not replacements. There are thousands of applications that business and education use that just will not work with the tablet paradigm. Apple, who is often cited as the source of tablet implementation, has five desktop solutions, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini and Mac Pro. You would think if the desktop is dead they would start dropping some of these lines. If a web site wants to change its focus to devices, go for it. Just don't tell me the rest of the world is doing the same. I just had a thought, I wonder if the original author wrote the post on a tablet or desktop PC? |
| caitlyn May 16, 2012 1:14 PM EDT |
I agree completely. Anything that requires significant typing on a real keyboard or significant processing power isn't moving to "devices". Oh, and the netbooks they call "devices" are just small laptops, in other words a different form factor for the desktop. |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 2:08 PM EDT |
I think, in many places, desktops may very well go away, because younger people like tablets and phones better, and seem to enjoy using touchscreens to enter data, no matter how much slower it is. Market forces may very well make desktops obsolete in these places over time, as these younger people take power and eliminate desktop PCs in favor of their Facebook-running mobile devices. At that time, expect the economy to totally collapse in such places, since having a bunch of ADHD-addled people doing nothing all the time but chatting on Facebook is not going to sustain the economy at all. Just look at how it is in most restaurants or cafes these days: the young people waiting on you are constantly on their phones on Facebook instead of paying attention to customers, and can't remember a simple order and have to ask you 3 or 4 times to repeat it for them, one simple step at a time. |
| caitlyn May 16, 2012 2:15 PM EDT |
Khamul: Is this humor or sarcasm? |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 2:27 PM EDT |
Probably a bit of each, plus some cold, hard reality thrown in. |
| jdixon May 16, 2012 2:27 PM EDT |
> Anything that requires significant typing on a real keyboard or significant processing power isn't moving to "devices". With sufficient processing power, and standardized keyboard/mouse/video connection methods, there's no reason these small devices couldn't eventually replace desktops. But you;d have to have them automatically connect to and use the keyboard, mouse, and monitor when they were present, and they'd still be using the traditional desktop interface methods when they did so. We can already see that process starting, but it'll take a number of years before the devices are really ready to be used that way, and who knows what we'll get in the meantime. |
| smallboxadmin May 16, 2012 2:29 PM EDT |
Quoting:I think, in many places, desktops may very well go away, because younger people like tablets and phones better, and seem to enjoy using touchscreens to enter data, no matter how much slower it is. In what places? Not the workplace or learning place. There is a big difference between social communication and getting things accomplished. If you want to post to social media, would you lug a laptop,or use your smartphone? |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 2:40 PM EDT |
@smallbox: Young people these days don't do much besides post to social media, even when they're supposedly "at work". It's the people near retirement that are all getting things accomplished, and that won't last for long. |
| smallboxadmin May 16, 2012 2:55 PM EDT |
@Khamul
Quoting:Young people these days don't do much besides post to social media... Obviously the young people you interact with are vastly different than in my experience. |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 3:04 PM EDT |
Maybe. I live in Phoenix (Tempe actually), not exactly a hub of intelligent people. I think half the people in this city are ex-cons judging by all the gang tattoos. |
| caitlyn May 16, 2012 3:23 PM EDT |
The young people I meet are like the young people you meet, @smallboxadmin. |
| Fettoosh May 16, 2012 12:15 PM EDT |
Quoting:I think half the people in this city are ex-cons judging by all the gang tattoos. @Khamul, Might that be the reason for a slightly pessimistic attitude? :-) Quoting:because younger people like tablets and phones better, and seem to enjoy using touchscreens to enter data, no matter how much slower it is. No, it is not only younger people and I don't believe age as anything to do with it. Many middle age and seniors use tablets when they are on the go too. My wife is middle age and she is hardly using her notebook these days. Instead, she is using her new iPad 3 most of the time and I believe she will be using it all the time when LibreOffice is available. And about the keyboards, she actually loves the way Apple virtual keyboard works. They did pretty good job with it. The worst thing Apple did with the iPad 3 is not having a USB interface, it has one, but only for charging power, not for USB thumb drives. Who knows, it might have been a marketing ploy so that when they release the next iPad (4 or whatever), they will have it and would be a selling point for people to upgrade. |
| helios May 16, 2012 7:39 PM EDT |
When I retired from the Army, I moved back to Phoenix and enrolled at Arizona State University in Tempe. I had something like 9 credits to finish my BS in Psychology. There are definitely two parts to that town...the campus and surrounding area then everything else. It can be like on Fringe...stepping into an alternate universe as easily as crossing the street. I actually lived in Mesa, another "burb" of Phoenix but even back then in the mid 90's it was hard to tell where one began and the other left off. If you didn't see the "now leaving" and "you are entering" signs, you'd never know you had entered another municipality. My friends now report that it's almost impossible to tell where you are because Phoenix has spread out so rapidly, you have to buy something and see what the tax rate is to know where you are. But onto the topic... What I see when I am out in the field is basically pads being used as couch surf boards. Kids are using them for social stuff but to get their homework done they use their computers. For some, the novelty has worn off and many of them sit on their dressers or on the coffee table for days without being used. I do see baristas now carrying them as order pads but they are the droid-based ones that are easily networked...so there are some workplace applications for them. I know they are a hit with day traders too. Maybe more professional uses will emerge. But from what I read, this is just another alarmist foretelling the doom of the desktop. Won't happen in my lifetime...there are just too many restrictors built into the pads. And no USB ports on the Ipad? That's about as brain-dead as any Jersey Shore episode. |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 8:36 PM EDT |
@helios: A lot of college towns are like that; there's campus and then everything else which has a distinctly different flavor. I saw this in the small college town I went to school in in Virgina. The problem in Tempe is that it really plays up the university and downtown and tries to make itself out as a nice, quirky, progressive place to live, but after you actually move here, you pretty quickly find out the reality is nothing at all like the image they project, and it's actually a rather undesirable place if you don't live on campus, and not too different from downtown Phoenix (which is a pretty horrible place). Mesa is a rather weird place, with different sectors that are very different from each other. Some of them are pretty run-down and horrible-looking, others aren't. But after being fooled by Tempe, I'm not going to make too many judgments about it since I haven't actually lived within its borders. I have lived in Chandler, however, and that place isn't too great either; honestly at this point I'm anxious to just get out of Arizona altogether. I'm hoping to move to the Pacific Northwest. Your friends are mostly right; it can be hard to know where borders between cities are if you don't see the signs. One exception I know is the border between east Tempe and west Mesa: the Tempe side has some professional office parks (mostly medical I think) with green lawns, but drive across the 101 highway into Mesa and suddenly you're surrounded by check-cashing stores. As for the iPad and USB ports, it may seem brain-dead, but there sure isn't any shortage of lemmings lining up to buy them even though they can't plug a simple USB drive into them, so I guess Apple has their market figured out well. |
| gus3 May 16, 2012 8:44 PM EDT |
helios wrote:Phoenix has spread out so rapidlyNowhere else have I seen signs like this: 443rd St. Next Exit Phoenix 50 miles |
| tracyanne May 16, 2012 8:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:there are just too many restrictors built into the pads. And no USB ports on the Ipad? That's about as brain-dead as any Jersey Shore episode. precisely why I won't use either an Android or Mac based pad |
| Khamul May 16, 2012 9:35 PM EDT |
@gus3: Yep. Looking at Google Maps, the metro area appears to be about 60 miles east-to-west, and 50 miles north-to-south. It's a textbook case of "sprawl"; the only place worse that I've seen is LA. @tracyanne: Do Android tablets not have USB ports? It makes perfect sense that the Apple ones wouldn't, with the way they treat customers, but Android stuff usually seems to have a "kitchen sink" attitude, with mfgrs throwing everything into the devices they can, and not really doing anything terribly restrictive (e.g., Android phones all seem to use microSD for memory so it's easily replaced or upgraded, unlike iPhones where you're stuck with whatever they built in). |
| tracyanne May 16, 2012 11:26 PM EDT |
Quoting:@tracyanne: Do Android tablets not have USB ports? I believe they do, at least in most cases. It's not that, that I have a problem with, it's the locked in feel I get using both iphone and Android. Although, to be fair, the Ubuntu for Android/Android combo does raise my excitement somewhat. |
| gus3 May 17, 2012 7:58 AM EDT |
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime has 3 USB ports on its keyboard dock. |
| Fettoosh May 17, 2012 10:16 AM EDT |
Quoting:I believe they do, at least in most cases. Heck, even little 7" Vivaldi has one or two. Apple uses beauty and user friendliness in marketing to blindfold its users. In my opinion, the iPad is still not that useful. I consider any Vivaldi (tablets with Plasma Active) is going to be much more useful than any iPad now and in the future. |
| caitlyn May 18, 2012 2:18 AM EDT |
Quoting:Heck, even little 7" Vivaldi has one or two.Even most of the little no name el cheapo Android tablets have USB ports. However, once you add a keyboard/mouse to a tablet you have a more cumbersome combo than a netbook. |
| Khamul May 18, 2012 12:40 PM EDT |
@caitlyn: A keyboard and mouse isn't the big reason to have a USB port; I'd think a bigger reason is so you can plug in USB thumb drives, instead of being forced to use networking to transfer files. |
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