The smartphone IS NOT "killing the computer"

[eti]

The smartphone IS NOT "killing the computer" - been hearing this UTTER NONSENSE for years now, and every time I hear it, I laugh hysterically inside. No, the Californian kids in their "Tech" goldfish bowl WANT it to be so, but... ha ha ha ha ha and 1,000,000x HAHAHAHA... noooooope. No chance. EVER. The severely constrained, hamstrung mobile devices we have, are an absolute joke when it comes to doing REAL WORK that isn't anything Silicon Valley-ites do, IE, they do "meeeja" stuff like photo and video editing etc, mainly.

Nope de nope de nopeski. 

[I wanted a rude username]

I wouldn't say "never". For example, mobiles that dock to a screen/keyboard/mouse/storage/accelerator device. It's quite possible that the future of academic and office computing is in unified devices of this type, and that stand-alone computers will only be used for the most hardcore tasks. They may not be "killed" outright ... but the resulting market forces could mean we return to a situation in which high performance workstations are expensive.

[james_s]

A large number of people never really needed a PC in the first place, all they wanted to do was use the internet and do email and a PC was the only way to accomplish this at the time. For these casual users the smartphone has absolutely replaced computers, there are lots of people who no longer have a traditional desktop or laptop and all of their computer needs are met by their phone or tablet.

The PC is far from dead however, the power users, developers, engineers, graphic artists, audio and video editors, these people will need a real PC for the foreseeable future. Sales will likely continue falling for quite some time though, in addition to fewer people needing them, hardware has plateaued, even a 10 year old PC is in many cases still fully capable of keeping up with modern software so the need to upgrade frequently is long gone. This is something that would have been unthinkable 10-15 years ago, I remember well when given the budget, you could upgrade your computer every year and get a substantial performance gain and a 5 year old PC was hopelessly obsolete. 

[Ranayna]

Lets be realistic here: The home computer, once *the* domain of a windows PC, is on it's way out.
There is simply less and less of a reason to own a PC for most home workloads. Most stuff can be done with an iPad, especially considering the availability of Office products.

There are still exceptions of course. In the home area the biggest current exception is gaming. But here the push against powerful machines at home is getting stronger and stronger. Consoles always have been an alternative, but now there are systems like Shadow (where you rent a dedicated workstation in the cloud) or google's Stadia.

Typical workstation workloads are rare in a true home environment.

In a corporate environment, where data privacy is important, this is still different. I work in such a company that is generally very wary of the cloud. But even here the classical desktop is on it's way out and most workstations are replaced with thin clients. Normal office workers get a virtual machine, only developers that need a lot of power still get a dedicated hardware machine. But that as well is hosted in the datacenter and the worker has a thin client.
Now we have mobile thin clients in testing. Essentially a laptop that automatically connects to a VPN and then to a VM. If that works out, laptops will also start being replaced by those.

All in all, the classical computer *is* slowly being killed off. It is going slower than many expected, but i'm afraid there will be no way around it.
Remnants of current home computing will survive of course, but those are the minority. I think those are already the minority.

And yes, I do not like that trend.

[David Hess]

The people who were using PCs for passive media consumption now have alternatives.  This includes PCs with chicklet keyboards and glossy screens, everything Apple makes now, which are unsuited for serious work because of poor human factors engineering.  It is a continuation of Eternal September.

I suspect what will ultimately happen is a reversion to how PCs were *before* the Apple ][ and IBM PC became available where there was a separate market for consumer grade PCs, now primarily passive media consumption devices, and a separate market for business workstations and development systems which the IBM PC took over.  (1) What I wonder is if this later market will be large enough to support the infrastructure needed; for the past 40 years it has been subsidized by consumer sales.  I suspect there are enough power users and gamers to keep it viable but it places the concept of an ARM based PC in a precarious situation.

So in a way, smartphones and tablets aided by companies like Apple did destroy the PC market.

(1) The various CP/M and low end Unix systems filled this role.  Only businesses and eccentric individuals could really afford them.

[DenzilPenberthy]

The smartphone IS NOT "killing the computer" - been hearing this UTTER NONSENSE for years now, and every time I hear it, I laugh hysterically inside.

Ok, well while you're laughing it's still happening.  I've not had a 'proper computer' at home for well over 3 years now, probably more like 4.  My laptop died and I've not felt the need to replace it.

When I'm at home I just browse the web and watch YouTube.  My phone works fine for that and is more convenient than a laptop or desktop.

Very occasionally when I want to do big boy grown up computer stuff like make a spreadsheet, I'll do it at work in my lunchbreak.

No-one is buying a 90's 'family PC' now. A big beige box that sits on a special desk in the living room. The kids can do their homework on it (or fight over who's turn it is to play Doom), Dad can do his important business work there and Mum can look up recipes on Compuserve 

Loads of people still have use for a proper computer for a home office or hobby e.g. electronics workbench but the mass market PC is dying fast.

[Bud]

Where did you see a gaming tablet or gaming phone. As long as gaming remains a big driver in the hardware industry, which is the case now, there will be demand for performance computers. We just had a big brick and mortar computer store opened in the area, the leverage gaming heavily.

[schmitt trigger]

A large number of people never really needed a PC in the first place, all they wanted to do was use the internet and do email and a PC was the only way to accomplish this at the time. For these casual users the smartphone has absolutely replaced computers, there are lots of people who no longer have a traditional desktop or laptop and all of their computer needs are met by their phone or tablet.

You are describing my wife. She hasn't touched a Windows desktop in over 4 years. She is now using either a phone or a tablet, which can do 100% of what she requires to do.

I would also be the same if not for the fact that I still use some CAD tools that reside in a Windows environment. And...........Although I can browse the internet or watch videos on my Windows desktop, it is always more comfortable to be in a couch or in bed.

There is another trend, which may also impact future desktop sales: industrial computers. Previously in a manufacturing environment one would find scores and scores of desktops, running single tasks controlling machines or test stations.
Their large size and the full size keyboards were cumbersome in this manufacturing environment. We are now replacing wholesale them with industrial computers, boxes with a volume of 150 cubic inches or less, with a miniaturized wireless keyboard-mouse combo or touchscreen.

Thus, even though desktops won't completely disappear, they have become a mature product.

[dnwheeler]

A modern smartphone is just a small form-factor computer that happens to have a phone app preinstalled. Some people are fine with small screens and touch "keyboards" and some people want larger sizes. The biggest difference is the OSes are very limited. It's very frustrating trying to copy and paste between apps, or "save" from one app and "load" into another. I can't have 2 or 3 apps visible on the screen at once (I'm not a "maximizer"). And data storage is confusing and inconsistent - local, cloud, filesystem, app-specific storage, etc. Can't plug in a USB thumb drive. Printing to our networked printer is not worth even trying to set up.

Real-world scenario: my wife keeps her resume (an MS Word document) on a shared drive at home. One day we were a restaurant and ran into someone with a job opening, and my wife asked me how to edit her resume on her iPhone, then attach it to an outgoing email. Hmmm... After I spent some time helping to get her file on OneDrive (using RDP and whatnot), downloading the word app, etc., my wife got so frustrated she simply gave up and said "How can people do this? I'll do it when I get home and can use the computer." Even this simple level of "content creation" on a smart phone is too complicated for the average (non techie) user. She couldn't understand why there wasn't a C: drive, or that all of the MS Word formatting wasn't available, and why she couldn't save her document to the phone for next time, etc.

I tend to used my phone as a pure consumption device. If I ever worry about customs or someone else searching my phone, I can just wipe it. Similarly, if my phone gets lost or destroyed, it doesn't really matter (except in the monetary sense). No data "lives" on my phone.

[SiliconWizard]

The smartphone IS NOT "killing the computer" - been hearing this UTTER NONSENSE for years now, and every time I hear it, I laugh hysterically inside. No, the Californian kids in their "Tech" goldfish bowl WANT it to be so, but... ha ha ha ha ha and 1,000,000x HAHAHAHA... noooooope. No chance. EVER. The severely constrained, hamstrung mobile devices we have, are an absolute joke when it comes to doing REAL WORK that isn't anything Silicon Valley-ites do, IE, they do "meeeja" stuff like photo and video editing etc, mainly.

Nope de nope de nopeski.

Why would you listen to what those kiddies have to say anyway? Does it even matter?

One thing that has happened is that for a subset of uses that people bought full computers before - like just browsing the internet, reading/sending e-mail, listening to crap music, etc, mobile devices are enough - at least for those people - and have essentially replaced computers. But for all other uses, nope indeed.

What you have to understand is that all those kiddies promote is based on uses that are essentially CONSUMPTION uses that make loads of money for the "digital companies". It's not based on any kind of productivity uses. The two are even almost completely opposite.

[Zero999]

I personally hate smartphones. They're fine when there's no alternative, but even doing the most basic think such as wring an email is a total pain. I can't stand the small size and the touch screen never works that well for me. I don't think desktops will completely die, even though they will be less common than they are now.

[james_s]

I certainly prefer using a real computer with a keyboard but the convenience of having something in my pocket all the time is certainly nice.

[GreyWoolfe]

There are 7 computers vs 5 cell phones and 2 tablets in this house, one being a Lenovo ThinkPad 10 for work.  There would be more computers as the stepdaughter has a stack of 3 laptops that she has literally beat to death that I refuse to fix any more.  One of the computers is a docked Lenovo laptop for work.  That uses 2 24" monitors. I do my service calls on my iPhone.  I wish we were still using the tablets for call management (screen size).  My personal computer, which I do little more than email, documents and internet, has a 46" LED TV connected to it.  I won't give that up for a smart phone.  Size matters.

[MT]

Its not about the computer its about screen size, to small and your eyes will wear out sooner, thankyouverymuch.

[Red Squirrel]

Way less people have or even want computers now.  In fact in the past years here in Canada we lost our two biggest online computer part retailers.  NCIX and Tigerdirect.  I fear the day where the idea of building a PC will no longer exist.  It's becoming a very niche thing and it's not growing at all, it's shrinking rather.  If computers stick around it will be more embedded designs like SFF boxes etc.   

Me personally I can't imagine replacing my computers and servers with a phone.  The thing with regular computers is they are a bit more open too, you can run Linux on them and be more in control.   They also have way more IO options like multiple monitors, NICs etc.

[ljwinkler]

Samsung has a DEX station, where you plug your phone and have a 'full size android desktop'.
You can have a keyboard, mouse, screen attached.
However, that's still an Android.
Also, any tablet, phone, ipad, whatever will fail on a simple task such a updating a drone firmware.
Even having an iTunes library on a NAS - it needs to be configured/uploaded through a 'normal' machine.
For DIY/hobbyists it will 'never' die. Ok, you have some Arduino apps on a mobile but any hacking, debugging ->  PC/laptop/mac.
If you can make fast and low power CPUs for mobile phone, how about integrating 50 of them in a desktop CPU where the power usage doesn't count as much as on battery operated device.

[GlennSprigg]

I get what people are saying, and I like a big screen TOO... however...
There are many included sensors, in a SmartPhone, that go way beyond that a 'PC' can do/utilize.
I don't know anything about iPhones, but for one example, using Android, download an app from
the Play-Store called "AndroSensor".  You might be amazed what 'sensors' are in it !! 

I don't play 'games' on mine, but have a lot of Astronomy apps, that utilize the positioning/orientation
sensors, so you can point your phone at the sky, & see real time graphics/data of the night sky.
(It knows the current local time, and your precise location). Countless other examples of usefulness.

No, it's 'Tablets' that are replacing 'PCs'. That's why Win-10 looks like it does, for finger control.
Mind you, I hate that! and I want 'real' apps/software on my Laptops, that DON'T use the 'Cloud'   

[dferyance]

I will never take smartphones / tablets seriously as long as they run crippled operating systems. Both Android and iOS are very bad. It was a big deal when something as fundamental as mouse support was added to the iPad earlier this year. My understanding is it doesn't work that well either.

Printing is a mess too. What is this about cloud printers or AirPrint? My printer supports postscript and pcl, shouldn't that work out-of-the box?

I have a multi-monitor setup using a DisplayPort MST hub connected to a single USB-C plug. I plug it into my laptop's USB-C port and good-to-go. I plug it into my Android phone's USB-C plug and nothing -- not even an error message.

I could keep on ranting on fundamental things that don't work as there are so many. The only thing decent these days are Windows tablets but this is despite Microsoft's best efforts to cripple it via Windows RT and S Mode.

At it's core, people don't use these computers as computers. They use them to send emojis, listen to music and watch videos. It is a shame as they are very advanced computers capable of so much more.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I think the unwashed masses are fundamentally Luddites at heart and will do almost anything to avoid technology more complicated than a smartphone (and perhaps a tablet).

[james_s]

I don't know that it makes them luddites, many people who grew up before computers were common in homes never learned to use them in the first place and many people who grew up after the golden era of the home PC also never got into them, smartphones and tablets however are truly mass market, everyone has one. I think people forget that up until the mid 90s the only people who had home computers were geeks and business people, then the internet pushed a lot of non-technical people into getting computers as the whole world went online, then tablets and smartphones started to meet the needs of the non-technical masses and allow them to consume content, shop online, watch videos and send emails without the hassle of messing around with a computer. Those of us who are technically minded and enjoy tinkering with this stuff can easily forget how complex a computer is to operate and maintain, it's not reasonable to expect everyone to understand it to a level that we do, just like I only vaguely understand the rules of football, it's just not something I'm interested in.

[eugenenine]

Schools are using chromebooks here, might as well just be a tablet with a keyboard/touchpad.  Wife touches her laptop once every couple months when some site says "you can't do this in a mobile browser".  I've used a laptop as my primary machine since 1998 and my 'desktops' have been 'servers' since then.  My son has a gaming pc and thats the only real desktop left in the house.

[schmitt trigger]

Exactly what James_s said, which complements my own comment:

Desktop PCs have become a mature product. Its growth has leveled, or in some instances like casual computting, has declined.

They won't completely fade away, because as someone else has mentioned, "professional" applications do require the  extra computing horsepower but most importantly, the screen real state area.

Just think about one scenario: try to design a multilayer PCBA on a tablet, let alone on a smartphone! 

[eti]

It's a good job there are SOME sane people left on this planet, some of whom work for "Cracked" - they know the score:

[SolarMan]

I certainly prefer using a real computer with a keyboard

Me too!

However, remember that you and I are used to physical keyboards.  How will it be for the next generation who have been typing on smartphones since six years old (and might not be accustomed to physical keyboards)?

Sure, smartphones and tablets are unlikely to "kill" the computer, but they might relegate PC-style computers to much more niche roles.

[james_s]

Sure, smartphones and tablets are unlikely to "kill" the computer, but they might relegate PC-style computers to much more niche roles.

They already have, the home computer is dead and has been for years.

The PC is alive and well, but it is a niche tool used by professionals and serious hobbyists. Developers, engineers, A/V editing, graphic arts, gamers, that sort of thing. Most of us on this forum fall into one of those categories so we are a bit isolated from what is going on in the average household and can easily forget that most normal people don't give a crap about any of that stuff, they just want to browse the web, do social media and watch videos. For the average non-technical individual mobile devices have already taken over.