[colug-432] Unix Is The Last Operating System

[Rick Hornsby]

> On Jun 17, 2015, at 11:11, tom <thomas.w.cranston at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 06/17/2015 10:18 AM, Rob Funk wrote:
>> There's been speculation and observance over the last few years that
>> the traditional PC is disappearing in favor of tablets and the like
> That's pretty much hype.

Not hype.  Most people are content consumers, not content creators.  Tablets (and smart phones) are portable, relatively cheap, and easy to use content consumption devices.  People don't want to be tied to a desk, and don't want to screw around with Windows Updates and this or that is broken again all the time.  If they find that their tablet works just as well at home on the couch as it does at the coffeeshop -- and (this cannot be emphasized enough) "it just works" -- they begin to find that they don't need a desktop or laptop computer.

As Rob noted, there will always be content creators (programmers, photographers, video editors, etc) with a need for more than a tablet.  That too, is changing slowly - at least a little bit.  In the last year or so, especially with massive display improvements like Retina in tablets, there have been some big pushes in content creation space on tablets - Adobe's Lightroom iPad app is a good example.

The PC market isn't going anywhere, but by the numbers, tablet adoption is supplanting traditional PC sales and ownership:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/185937-in-2015-tablet-sales-will-finally-surpass-pcs-fulfilling-steve-jobs-post-pc-prophecy

> Not as many PC's and Laptops are being 
> manufactured because anything made in the last few years is pretty 
> mature development wise, and durable. They just don't need to be 
> replaced as often.

Can you point to any references for this "increased durability" claim?  I'm not aware of this trend.

> Phones and tablets are still in the stage of rapid 
> development and are somewhat obsolete on a rapid timetable like PC's 
> used to be. Also, they are a lot more fragile and need to be replaced 
> more often due to breakage.

So you believe the tablet sales numbers are driven by people are dropping them?  That seems highly unlikely.  Even if it was, replacements under programs like AppleCare don't count toward sales numbers.

> Will there be less PC sales? Yes. Going 
> away? I don't think so.

Agreed.