Exit Personal Computer, Enter Hybrid Monster

According to All Things D, the Personal Computing Age is over. No longer are personal computers the Apple of everyone's eye, the height of computing technology, or even the most widely used devices in today's marketplace. New market data has revealed that PC’s no longer account for the largest market share of consumer memory chips, which are finding themselves in more smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, and other amorphous computational devices. The definition of a computer has never been more blurry, as anyone can observe from watching five minutes of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas. Computers are now becoming devices with any combination of keyboards, screens, touch-sensitive displays, and strange form factors. Is the Age of the Personal Computer truly over?

While more and more devices emerge from the dark secret labs of Samsung, Apple, Intel, and other personal electronics makers, there is still one king of the hill. IPads and tablets are great and fun toys, but they are far from being a viable replacement for a full laptop computer. Some editors have gone so far as to claim the iPad is a step backwards in innovation, citing the whole point of a keyboard and screen is to move the hands out of the workspace. While extended battery life and the ability to interact with programs using your hands is an interesting development in the computing space, I have yet to encounter any user interface where I feel more in control or productive on a tablet or smartphone. They are excellent form factors for portability, but they cannot achieve the level of interaction and capability a personal computer can.

So I can’t help but shake my head at these ridiculous claims and buzzword articles. The Age of Personal Computing will be around for as long as I still have to carry around a laptop to get any real work done.

 

Hesseldahl, A. (2012, September 15). It’s Official: The Era of the Personal Computer Is Over. Retrieved from All Things D: http://allthingsd.com/20120915/its-official-the-era-of-the-personal-computer-is-over/