"PCs are dead and Microsoft is a goner, everyone will soon upgrade to a tablet/phone/Chromebook"

This rage inducing attitude that seems to have infected everyone in charge of anything related to consumer computing.

Dear decision makers and tech press:

Yes, some people replace their *top with a Chromebook or tablet, the easily missable keyword being "some". Just because people who never wanted a computer in the first place because all used it for was to read mail and check the weather now have a cheaper option that only reads mail and checks the weather does not mean everyone only wants to read mail and check the weather. Good. You bought a bike instead of a car to do your grocery shopping. This means cars are outdated and dead why?

Just because people keep replacing their phone or tablet every year while hanging on to their *top for half a decennium doesn't mean it's a more "dynamic" market. It means it's a fashion accessory (Xiaomi once managed to successfully drum up a rush to buy a fashionable wireless router). This trend will continue until phones and tablets become a commodity, at which point replacement rates will drop off dramatically as people stop caring about which phone they own. I foresee that this particular star will fuse to iron in about 1-2 years, preceeded by lots of increasingly stupid gimmicks as manufacturers grasp at straws hoping to grab hold of an USP (curved phones! 3D interface! useless heartbeat sensor! three cameras for hardware blur photoshopping!).

Just because mobile devices have octo cores and gazillion pixel screens does not mean they are better than *tops. There is no point in either feature (other than the bullet point on a feature list and to compensate for the horribly slow Android) because it's a phone with no keyboard and a tiny screen so the most complicated thing you ever want to run on it is ~~Google Maps~~ Touchwiz. And low quality 3D games, but "this tablet will make the PSP obsolete provided you spend €100 on microtransactions for each game" doesn't bait as many clicks as "this tablet will make the PC obsolete".

Yes, you can attach a tablet to a keyboard and achieve a laptop. ("Click!") Now all we need is proper Windows instead of RT and a price drop and we might reach the tipping point where people can successfully replace their ultrabook with an ultrabook (with detachable tablet). Clearly a disruptive revolution right there. Same goes for the Ubuntu Touch dream of a dockable phone that provides desktop functionality, because for some reason the tech press figures that a hypothetical device that functions exactly like a PC when docked isn't a PC.

Just because Windows 8 borked the start menu does not mean people are going to jump ship to Linux or Android. Because as it turns out Linux has a different start menu and everything else (not to mention people who can't figure out how to shut down Windows 8 are apparently supposed to install Linux) and Android is just figuring out the whole multitasking thing with lots of help from Samsung and a performance burden that makes the act of running an OS seem like an unsurmountable challenge on contemporary hardware.

Sorry, just had to get this off my chest. Reading consumer tech media is not good for my heart rate (maybe I should totally buy an S5?).

morbiuswilters

I stopped reading tech news back in the early 2000s when everyone was drooling over OSX, despite the fact it was obviously shitty. That was when I realized the tech media was completely run by people with the intelligence of crows who did nothing but gather piles of shiny objects.

I briefly started reading again in the mid-2000s, until the iPhone came out and the process repeated itself, although at much more pathetic, fevered pitch.

Today the tech press is clearly just a bunch of emotionally-stunted males living with pathological sexual repression which manifests itself in the accumulation of worthless gadgets as they desperately seek to find validation of their empty, meaningless lives by having the shiniest, most expensive toys to impress the other man-children with.

I would just like to add: I'm on my second Android phone. It is so awful that I'm pretty sure my next phone will be a dumbphone. Seriously, I would rather use a Jitterbug than deal with Google's half-baked shit anymore.

Mcoder

@morbiuswilters said:

Today the tech press is clearly just a bunch of emotionally-stunted males living with pathological sexual repression which manifests itself in the accumulation of worthless gadgets as they desperately seek to find validation of their empty, meaningless lives by having the shiniest, most expensive toys to impress the other man-children with.

Today?!?

I stopped reading tech press when I realized they never got anything right about Win95 vs. IBM OS2 competition. They were exactly alike at that time.

blakeyrat

@morbiuswilters said:

I would just like to add: I'm on my second Android phone. It is so awful that I'm pretty sure my next phone will be a dumbphone. Seriously, I would rather use a Jitterbug than deal with Google's half-baked shit anymore.

Windows Phone blows away iOS and Android right now. Blows them completely out of the water. But nobody will give the OS a chance, because it only has 47 flashlight apps instead of 47,000.

Every "tech magazine" wants to be the one that predicted the "next big thing". So when something new comes out, they all start making wild predictions about how it will change everything. Because if you can get it right 1 time out of 10 and there's no penalty for failing the other 9, why not?

Gurth

@morbiuswilters said:

the tech media was completely run by people with the intelligence of crows who did nothing but gather piles of shiny objects.

As opposed to the person in the street?

flabdablet

@Brother Laz said:

This rage inducing attitude that seems to have infected everyone in charge of anything related to consumer computing.

It's not just the tech press. The everything-is-a-phone brain worms have been running rampant through the UI development community for quite some years now. And if you bitch about the fugly and useless mess they've made of whatever it was that used to work just fine until they screwed it up? Well, you're just a "luddite" who "fears change".

da_Doctah

@Gurth said:

@morbiuswilters said:
the tech media was completely run by people with the intelligence of crows who did nothing but gather piles of shiny objects.

As opposed to the person in the street?

This characterization is very insulting to crows.

"PCs are dead and Microsoft is a goner, everyone will soon upgrade to a tablet/phone/Chromebook"

Says every guy who still types with one finger.

Lorne Kates

@Gurth said:

@morbiuswilters said:
the tech media was completely run by people with the intelligence of crows who did nothing but gather piles of shiny objects.

As opposed to the person in the street?

No, "man on the street" opinions are [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLjxEpKZyvI"] much, much worse[/url].

PROTIP: Watch that with CC turned on for an extra layer of unintended satire.

dkf

@blakeyrat said:

But nobody will give the OS a chance, because it only has 47 flashlight apps instead of 47,000.

You're being facetious (there's an app for that!) but realistically it really is the third-party apps that count. No one company can serve every single niche for software — nor should they even think of trying — but that means you've got to make sure that other specialists can fill the gaps you can't. (Everyone and his dog can do the basic applications well enough.) In a very real sense, Steve Ballmer was not far off the truth when he went on about developers (using a broad interpretation of that term).

The best thing about Windows for a long time was just how much third party software was available for it. Yes, some was rubbish and much more was irrelevant to me, but the diversity meant it had things I did want. It's exactly the same with iOS/Android. End users don't buy an API; they buy a platform.

I'm not exactly sure why MS failed at the smartphone/tablet market, but I suspect it was partly bad luck (their OS release cadence was just wrong), and partly that they managed to seriously annoy most phone makers and carriers just at the point where Android was becoming available. Given how important it is to get the hardware integration right and to get the device into the customers' hands, irritating the companies best placed to do it at exactly the time you need them on-side is an own-goal.

Right now, there are two big players and they're interestingly different. Apple's iOS represents a very high level of integration and tight control; it's total control-freakery, but that does ensure a generally good product, and they've been on top of the market for quite some time now so lots of developers know how to target the platform. Google's Android takes a different approach by being very cheap for many manufacturers to put on their own devices; this reduces the quality of the integration, but does mean a heck of a lot of devices are shipping and there's a gigantic customer base building (it's a stronger effect outside the US) so expect that to be the one where developers are going to want to target first if possible (target where the customer is, duh!). Windows Phone would need an enormous advantage elsewhere to break past either of those; it might be better, but is it that much better?

Professionally speaking, Android is most interesting as it is the simplest to get testing apps onto. This is far and away the most relevant thing, as we are getting students to develop for the platform as well, and they've got enough trouble with out One More Damn Thing in the way of deployment problems. I suspect that similar concerns are going to mean that Android will totally dominate the “corporate internal apps” market (rather like Windows is very strong in the equivalent market for desktop applications).

morbiuswilters

@dkf said:

ou're being facetious (there's an app for that!) but realistically it really is the third-party apps that count. No one company can serve every single niche for software — nor should they even think of trying — but that means you've got to make sure that other specialists can fill the gaps you can't. (Everyone and his dog can do the basic applications well enough.) In a very real sense, Steve Ballmer was not far off the truth when he went on about developers (using a broad interpretation of that term).

I hardly have any apps installed on my Android phone. 2) Third-party Android apps are all shitty. The only ones that have any level of quality are iPhone ports like Angry Birds. 3) I would gladly abandon the god-awful Android app marketplace for a smartphone that was good at email, web browsing and using as a phone. Android is terrible at all three.

@dkf said:

and they've been on top of the market for quite some time now so lots of developers know how to target the platform.

Huh? Android has been out-selling the iPhone for years. The reason iPhone has better apps is simply because Android was targeted at poor people and the iPhone was not (although nowadays I'd say both platforms are equally-accessible for the poor.) Poor people don't shell out money so easily for apps. Hence, crappier apps.

@dkf said:

I suspect that similar concerns are going to mean that Android will totally dominate the “corporate internal apps” market (rather like Windows is very strong in the equivalent market for desktop applications).

Doubt it. Executives almost exclusively use iPhones and iPads. Android has the stench of being for poor people, and that ain't gonna change. If the boss-man uses iOS, then the company is going to use iOS.

lolwhat

@morbiuswilters said:

I would gladly abandon the god-awful Android app marketplace for a smartphone that was good at email, web browsing and using as a phone.

*cough* BlackBerry 10 *cough*

morbiuswilters

@lolwhat said:

@morbiuswilters said:
I would gladly abandon the god-awful Android app marketplace for a smartphone that was good at email, web browsing and using as a phone.
cough BlackBerry 10 cough

Was that a joke?

drurowin

@morbiuswilters said:

Seriously, I would rather use a Jitterbug than deal with Google's half-baked shit anymore.

I just read this line, and now "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" is stuck in my head. Thanks.

lolwhat

@morbiuswilters said:

Was that a joke?

Actually, no. Despite all the bullshit you'll hear on Arse Technica and the other iOS/Android fanboi / "BlackBerry is teh ghey" sites, BB10 is for people who want a device that, you know, lets you get shit done on it without getting in the fucking way.

TwelveBaud1

@dkf said:

Professionally speaking, Android is most interesting as it is the simplest to get testing apps onto.

Build (essentially) a Windows 8.1 Metro app. Go to Project Properties, Target Frameworks, check the "phone" box. Connect your phone and hit F5. Done.@dkf said:

This is far and away the most relevant thing, as we are getting students to develop for the platform as well, and they've got enough trouble with out One More Damn Thing in the way of deployment problems.

Under Microsoft policies, students can ship 100 free apps or unlimited paid apps, annually, with no restrictions beyond "isn't porn" and "doesn't crash or use native APIs", for free. Since 2006. Sideloading for testing (or porn apps or native API apps) is as easy as making sure your device is on the LAN and clicking "Deploy". Apple definitely can't say that. Google can only sort of say that.@dkf said:

I suspect that similar concerns are going to mean that Android will totally dominate the “corporate internal apps” market (rather like Windows is very strong in the equivalent market for desktop applications).

Microsoft has better tooling and nomenclature for their "page-based" model than Google's "activity-based" model, and actually gives meaningful stack traces when things don't go according to plan. While people familiar with the Android ecosystem are probably going to be able to develop at a faster tempo on Android, the developer base for corporate internal apps is going to have a much easier time developing for Windows Phone, especially with the ability to make apps that compile for Windows and Windows Phone in a single project from the same source files, and that will keep the "corporate internal apps" market on Windows Phone.

dkf

@TwelveBaud said:

Build (essentially) a Windows 8.1 Metro app. Go to Project Properties, Target Frameworks, check the "phone" box. Connect your phone and hit F5. Done.

But the students don't have a Windows Phone. Or at least I've not seen a student with one in recent history.

This is, of course, totally unfair. True though.

nullptr

I don't disagree with anything you've said.

@Brother Laz said:

Just because mobile devices have octo cores and gazillion pixel screens does not mean they are better than *tops. There is no point in either feature (other than the bullet point on a feature list and to compensate for the horribly slow Android) because it's a phone with no keyboard and a tiny screen so the most complicated thing you ever want to run on it is ~~Google Maps~~ Touchwiz. And low quality 3D games, but "this tablet will make the PSP obsolete provided you spend €100 on microtransactions for each game" doesn't bait as many clicks as "this tablet will make the PC obsolete".
Yes, you can attach a tablet to a keyboard and achieve a laptop. ("Click!") Now all we need is proper Windows instead of RT and a price drop and we might reach the tipping point where people can successfully replace their ultrabook with an ultrabook (with detachable tablet). Clearly a disruptive revolution right there. Same goes for the Ubuntu Touch dream of a dockable phone that provides desktop functionality, because for some reason the tech press figures that a hypothetical device that functions exactly like a PC when docked isn't a PC.

Especially these two. I had a got a great Asus laptop a few years back. It was small, portable, had a 7200RPM drive, and a decent 9800GT video card (at the time, this was great). I loved the hell out of that laptop. For some reason I decided to help a relative out and loaned it to them, only to have it get 'stolen', leaving me stuck with an Android Tablet. Before, when I had the laptop, I liked the tablet. It did great tablet-y things, like web surfing from anywhere. But once I had to rely on it to take over the laptop duties, love turned to loathing. By the time the charging port broke for the second time, I'd made up my mind to dump some money into a replacement. Ended up getting an Asus T100, with a real version of Windows 8.1 on it, not RT, and it's been the best laptop/tablet purchase I've ever made. Sure, I wish it had a bit more CPU power, the 3D performance is absolute shite, and it's really quite limited on storage space. That said, it's a tablet when I want it, but also a laptop, and I'm OK with that. Hopefully manufacturers won't buy into the 'Laptops are dead, everyone make pure tablets now because they are the way of the future" and will make more devices like this.

Snooder

@TwelveBaud said:

Microsoft has better tooling and nomenclature for their "page-based" model than Google's "activity-based" model, and actually gives meaningful stack traces when things don't go according to plan. While people familiar with the Android ecosystem are probably going to be able to develop at a faster tempo on Android, the developer base for corporate internal apps is going to have a much easier time developing for Windows Phone, especially with the ability to make apps that compile for Windows and Windows Phone in a single project from the same source files, and that will keep the "corporate internal apps" market on Windows Phone.

The problem there is that, like Blackberry, having a solid lock on the 'corporate internal app' market doesn't help shit if you don't also have decent marketshare on the home and consumer market. Which, for a wide variety of reasons, Windows Phone does not.

Look, Android right now is in pretty much the same position that Windows was in the late nineties. You can bemoan this and complain about shitty java based FOSS-tard software all you want, but that's how it is. Is it possible for Microsoft to turn things around? Maybe, I dunno. They do have a history of entering marketspaces late, figuring out their initial mistakes and turning into the market leader. See I.E. and Xbox360. But they also have a history of not really understanding non-PC style consumer markets. Who here owns a Zune, hmm? And like it or not, the phone market is NOT the same as the PC market.

See, the thing that makes the phone market so trend-based isn't the "newness" of smartphones. They've been available for almost a decade now (even longer if you consider PDAs to be their predecessor). The real factor is that the wireless carriers have built the market around 1 to 2 year contracts. Which means that every single consumer is geared toward replacing their phone on a very fast cycle. Which in turn is an incentive for buyers to stay current with fashion trends, since they'll be getting a new phone anyway and it won't cost them anything to get "the new thing." As long as the 2 year contract is in place, phones will never become commodities.

&quot;PCs are dead and Microsoft is a goner, everyone will soon upgrade to a tablet/phone/Chromebook&quot;

"PCs are dead and Microsoft is a goner, everyone will soon upgrade to a tablet/phone/Chromebook"

"PCs are dead and Microsoft is a goner, everyone will soon upgrade to a tablet/phone/Chromebook"