There's No Such Thing As Post-PC

I guess that smartphones, tablets, and laptops are technically PCs, but as someone who associates PCs with desktops, I'd feel kind of gross if I had to group them together.

As iOS 9 turns the iPad more into more of a PC, and Microsoft turns phones into PCs, the questions over which devices will be important in the future won't be around their traditional forms, but their function. PCs will continue to evolve, as will the versatility of devices that are shaping the mobility of computing.

I have found "post PC" articles to be annoying as hell. They usually point to the fact that most people access the internet and email through mobile devices. If that's the only criteria then I could agree. The fact is, we are in a "PC Plus era." Everyone access the web and email through mobile, but most people still use laptops and desktops to get work done.

Our execs use their tablets and phones frequently, but none of them are creating presentations, spreadsheets or doing any planning on them. Tablets and Phones are powerful and useful tools for us, but they are only a part of the big picture. A lot of people seem to overlook this.

...and when the dust settles some years in the future from now, you'll see terms/buzzwords like this one ("post-PC"), get tossed into the relic bin with some familiar other currently-loved terms beloved by the ignorant self-proclaimed technologist experts in the media such as "devops" and "full-stack developers".

remember WEB 2.0? or Internet 2.0? or the paperless office? or... the list goes on

When I can pull my phone out of my pocket (or better yet leave it in my pocket) and sit down at the big monitor/keyboard and play my games, do my work, with no performance penalty then we will be post PC.

Since more volume = bigger better parts I dont see this happening any time soon.

After Moore's law is dead and buried maybe.

I had a google Nexus7 and also an iPad mini, I found both pretty much useless because the text was so small they gave me eye strain. A smartpnone would be even worse, do not need do not want.

griffinhart said:

A lot of people seem to overlook this.

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Agreed. Kind of like arguing there is no need for wide body airliners because you can transport people in a bus.

atp1916 said:

...and when the dust settles some years in the future from now, you'll see terms/buzzwords like this one ("post-PC"), get tossed into the relic bin with some familiar other currently-loved terms beloved by the ignorant self-proclaimed technologist experts in the media such as "devops" and "full-stack developers".

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Netbook

Until it's as easy for me to run extensions in a browser on my mobile devices as it is on a desktop system, there will always be a PC for me.

In a way certain companies try to go out of their way to reinvent the wheel, but in the end actually making it worse and wasting time/money.

Netbooks, Chromebooks, Macbook hardware. All of them are very limited in use, but also cost an arm and a leg for no reason other than proprietary software/hardware.

Then there are those that try to cater to the common denominator and make something insanely stupid out of mobile devices. No I will not edit a spreadsheet on my phone, sorry.

A lot of recent ideas are mostly shit that was thrown at the wall to see what sticks. You still cant trump the versatility of a desktop in both entertainment and productivity.

But what about the post-post-pc era?

atp1916 said:

...and when the dust settles some years in the future from now, you'll see terms/buzzwords like this one ("post-PC"), get tossed into the relic bin with some familiar other currently-loved terms beloved by the ignorant self-proclaimed technologist experts in the media such as "devops" and "full-stack developers".

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DevOps is a term I can never really understand...I once interviewed for a DevOps Engineer job, it's like they couldn't really tell me what meant.

Elf_Boy said:

When I can pull my phone out of my pocket (or better yet leave it in my pocket) and sit down at the big monitor/keyboard and play my games, do my work, with no performance penalty then we will be post PC.

Since more volume = bigger better parts I dont see this happening any time soon.

After Moore's law is dead and buried maybe.

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That's the thing. If Moore's 'law' really is dead and further die shrinks are impossible or uneconomical then we simply aren't going to reach a point where your future phone is as powerful as your current desktop. It wont be physically possible until they move on from silicon to something better.

It surprises me that people in the industry are still clinging to the idea of touch PCs for content creation when it's clear that the vast majority of consumers just want cheap tablets for viewing content. It seems like the vast majority of them sit around unused after the novelty wears off.

I'll believe we might get in to a post-PC era if we first ever get in to a post-mainframe era. There are more mainframes out there these days than when they were the only kind of computer. Granted, that still isn't very many, but new technologies didn't kill them off, just made new markets.

Well guess what? I'm going to guess its the same with PCs and mobile devices, particularly since I've already observed this on a wide scale myself, what with working as a sysadmin. Yes, everyone has mobile toys, often more than one. Every member of a household will have a smartphone, and there's at least a couple tablets. Compare that to one or two PCs for the whole house... however that was the kind of PC numbers we saw before the mobile explosion. People use their mobile toys for surfing and playing games, but still grab the PC to do work, including even things like sending anything but a short e-mail.

Same deal at work. Everyone has multiple mobile devices, yet every desktop has a PC on it because that's where work gets done. An iPad or Nexus might be fun for sitting on the couch, but it doesn't work for writing your thesis or running Matlab or the like.

I personally have one of each size of computer: Desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone. None are going to replace the others, as they all have a function they are good at.

To me people saying tablets are going to make a "post-PC" world is like saying a toaster is going to make a "post-oven kitchen". I love my toaster and for making toast it is waaay better than my oven, yet I'm not getting rid of my oven because my toaster is garbage at general cooking. Thus it goes with PCs and mobile devices.

Of course the corporations would try to convince us that iPads and smartphones is where it is at because they make it so much easier for them to track you. On the desktop I have a plethora of tools to thwart their dirty spying but you can't do that on a smartphone or iPad.

it is certainly a post desktop era as that PC form factor has become a niche product (and although it won't die completely it will never return as the dominant factor) ... laptops/notebooks aren't going anywhere and will remain the dominant PC form factor ... we may start to see some penetration of the HTPC form factor but even the console/HTPC is still a niche (they sell 100 million consoles over the 10 year life of a console ... PCs sell 300 million a year, most in the notebook form factor)

Rather than a "Post PC" era I think we will start to see the return of another term (convergence) ... with the prevalence of WiFi and Bluetooth I think we will see more and more of our devices connected to each other (tablets, phones, consoles, Blu ray, notebook, etc) ... we should continue to see the integration and connection of our devices (some of them working in tandem with each other in more multiscreen experiences) ... that is the future, I think

Elf_Boy said:

When I can pull my phone out of my pocket (or better yet leave it in my pocket) and sit down at the big monitor/keyboard and play my games, do my work, with no performance penalty then we will be post PC.

Since more volume = bigger better parts I dont see this happening any time soon.

After Moore's law is dead and buried maybe.

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But then wouldn't the phone be a PC? Then we would be right back in a PC world. Just a different form factor.

There are already full blown 7" Windows tablets. So we are getting very close.

griffinhart said:

I have found "post PC" articles to be annoying as hell. They usually point to the fact that most people access the internet and email through mobile devices. If that's the only criteria then I could agree. The fact is, we are in a "PC Plus era." Everyone access the web and email through mobile, but most people still use laptops and desktops to get work done.

Our execs use their tablets and phones frequently, but none of them are creating presentations, spreadsheets or doing any planning on them. Tablets and Phones are powerful and useful tools for us, but they are only a part of the big picture. A lot of people seem to overlook this.

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Yeah, I have found it amazing that NONE of the "end of the PC" articles take the work place in to account. It is as if they poll soccer moms and that is it.

So many seeking change for the sake of change when evolution is always the way of things.
Guess declaring the death of the desktop over and over again is this generations way of taking ownership.
If its not a "desktop" its must be a shinny and new thing... special.
A personal computer is just that.
It has come in many, many flavors over the years and it will continue to do so.
So I agree there is no such thing as post personal computer.

PC plus is exactly it

westrock2000 said:

But then wouldn't the phone be a PC? Then we would be right back in a PC world. Just a different form factor.

There are already full blown 7" Windows tablets. So we are getting very close.

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My point exactly.

It is all semantics.

My Note 4 can use a full sized monitor and a full sized keyboard and mouse already.It can even play some well rendered games for me. Not so well as my 'real' PC though.

In terms of productivity I could get by with just my phone for Word, Excel and a number of other applications.

Maybe Valve has the right idea with the Steam OS?

Wonder if that Verge sheep site stopped receiving payment from Apple because they used to notorious for perpetuating the fraud about iPad and post-PC. Truth is iPad isn't even close to post-netbook since it only has 1GB DRAM, can't background multitask, doesn't support more than one foreground app, doesn't support mouse, etc. so it's far from being post-PC. If anything, the Samsung Galaxy Note II from 2012 was closest to being post-PC since it supported all the PC capabilities mentioned plus it has a Smart Dock that's like a laptop dock allowing external monitor, keyboard, mouse, audio, USB storage, Sony SixAxis controller, etc. to be connected.

I have a Flavi bluetooth keyboard/trackpad.

The track pad (mouse) does work on my ipad.

All in all given I have my bifocals on (for the screen size) I can do many productive things on an ipad.

It multitasks well enough for what it is. (IMO)

Not that I use it for much more then reading books and occasionally while on vacation for more productivity type things.