You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
"Purist", huh?
Then why aren't you mining your own iron and casting and machining your own car parts? You should be raising cattle and tanning your own leather for the seats. Get yourself a rubber tree and make your own tires......
Let me know how that works out for you. :roll eyes:
There's nothing wrong with preferring a manual transmission. Or a car that corners well rather than a comfortable luxury car. Or an energetic vehicle rather than a vehicle that just gets you from A to B. But what makes that more 'pure'? You're simply confusing your personal preference with 'better'. It's not 'better', it's just your preference.
Similarly, there's nothing better about a phone that can be hacked a million ways or that allows the user access to the internals. It's just different, not better.
You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
The thing is, engine noise, gasoline and stick shifting are not an integral part of being one with a car. You aren't a purist, you simply have a sentimental attachment to the past. The means of getting there aren't what matter, it's the journey itself that is important.
The thing is, engine noise, gasoline and stick shifting are not an integral part of being one with a car. You aren't a purist, you simply have a sentimental attachment to the past. The means of getting there aren't what matter, it's the journey itself that is important.
I was thinking the same thing. I can see Galbi sitting on a porch being a curmudgeon, resenting the present and always talking about the past.
Galbi... my Grandfather talked about being an automobile "purist" as you call it... he'd constantly grumble when he saw young guys with their muscle cars in the late 60s, "When I had my first car you had to know something about them. They didn't just start themselves. You had to crank them. You'd have to wear goggles or you'd get bugs in your eyes. The roads weren't paved; sometimes we'd have to have tractors pull us along the main roads."
Well... you enjoy the past. I may be an old fart now but I'm certainly going to move forward.
You somehow think Humanity is going to jettison it's appendages? Seriously now, tactile feel isn't going to be replaced any time soon, and has it's advantages to some outlandish idea of neural implants and thought processing as an interface.
I certainly would not want to lose any of my appendages. But maybe writing as such will become a Truck, and many places in life will just be touch screens with icons.
You somehow think Humanity is going to jettison it's appendages? Seriously now, tactile feel isn't going to be replaced any time soon, and has it's advantages to some outlandish idea of neural implants and thought processing as an interface.
Outlandish?!?
BMI (brain machine interface) has been around for a while now.
To put it short and sweet - Frank Shaw is right on the money.
Tablets and Smartphone are brilliant and all that Jazz, but I can't exactly write a 10k research paper on an iPad. I can sure as hell try but it would pail in comparison to a fully fledged Desktop or Notebook Personal Computer.
I know HP have pulled the plug, but that does't mean death to all machines with a physical keyboard on a desk either (this includes notebooks).
I've always thought the idea of "Post-PC" was complete bollocks. If I may be so blunt. These mobile devices are complimentary devices to quickly consume data along with your banana muffin in Starbucks. It is completely illogical to say personal computers are out the door - if thats the case then why do I still own a Desktop Computer (iMac) when my "almighty" iPad is sitting downstairs on the coffee table? I'll give you a hint - "Coffee Table".
And you have just demonstrated the embedded user syndrome I referred to in another thread. Typewriters initially were problematic to the extreme. With refinement and increasing useability you moved from the early hard types to the IBM selectrics - I know I'm part of the evolution. But they became a mainstay of every office and professional scenario, at least until dedicated word-processing systems and then the mmore ubiquitous PC came on the scene. When was the last time you saw a typewriter in a friend's home? How about at the office?
Same thing with the PC. 70% of the market or more on the consumer side don't use 1/10th of the capability of their desktop or laptop. Read that again - 70% of the consumer market. The remaining 30% are those whose use of a PC is upwards of that 1/10th - professionals of many stripes, and largely because the application coding is built around a common hardware reference point. Look at what AutoDesk hase been doing to support utilization of the iPad - certainly not a replacement for a MacPro or WinPC running AutoCad, but it points to developers re-thinking how apps operate. This is still in its infancy.
Ironically the people who use more of their PC's capability are also those who tend to insist on seeing the post-PC commentary as declaring the death of the PC, not as Steve Jobs ACTUALLY said, the return of the PC to specialized use - as in professional use cases. The vast, larger majority of current PC users will move on to light-weight powerful mobile devices, that will increasingly have better capability, capacity and ease of use, while the professionals continue to use the "pickup truck" PC to leverage that additional power and capacity.
So no it's not as you so quaintly (and bluntly) put, "bollocks". YOU may require a PC to do what you NEED to do, but the vast majority of users don't and will live wonderfully on the increasingly capable mobile devices. For example, I use a VDI session at work for most of my computing desktop needs. I remote into that same desktop from home, and even have direct secured access via my iPhone to our systems. These are configured to support a custom app on my iPhone to allow me to rapidly assess and respond to systems issues without relying on my desktop. Moreover, because I am not depending on the remote-VDI desktop-system client connection, the response is quicker and easier to manage. That's just in supporting critical core technologies for a Fortune 50 company.
And ultimately you, benanderson89, may be either a professional whose livelihood is tethered to a desktop application or set of applications, or you may simply be one of those people who is temperamentally locked into the desktop/laptop paradigm and cannot see your way into the new paradigm. That's alright and of course to regard your iPad as "almighty" is just plain silly. SO relax. Your beautiful iMac is not going anywhere, the PC is not dead as so many have misconstrued Jobs' commentary, but if all you are relying on your PC for is to write a simple 10k paper, I would say you are vastly under-utilizing your PC. As someone who has literally grown up with computing technology, I am (as a person of, ummm, advanced experience shall we say) always surprised at the amount of resistance there is among those of us in technology (much younger than I as well) to the advances of technology. I fear we have created a generation or two of people who are not capable, or worse unwilling, to look forward and seek to understand where technology can grow. Perhaps my generation was the last of the "pioneering" generations, the rest coming after are "empire" generations whose desire is only to maintain status quo. Which would be very sad indeed.
Let's be real here, folks. No matter how much Apple Kool-Aid you drink, PCs, in any form (remember that Macs are PCs too), aren't going anywhere for a long while. People who do real work, in any field (film production, music composition, web site and application development, graphics work, the list goes on) require the basic idea of a desktop (laptop, desktop, all in one) in order to get things done. Without a mouse and keyboard and multi-window user interface, people who use computers to get things done won't ever consider a tablet over a work machine. Sure, for Mom and Pop who just browse the internet and email with others, a tablet may fit the bill. But you can't discount hundreds of millions of machines being used for work other than the basics of computing; sure, maybe in twenty years things will be different, but the traditional PC won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
You've got to open your mind to many other possibilities outside of just the tablet. Virtual input devices would make a physical mouse and keyboard obsolete. The tablet keyboard is just the beginning. Multi window user interface is inevitable on smaller devices, and with cloud computing, physical storage may become obsolete as well. Desktop PC's are presently more desirable based on the infrastructure, but once a portability infrastructure is at the forefront, a desktop PC will be more limiting and what we know as a laptop computer may become the cell phone of the 80's in portability. From a computing power aspect, its only a matter of time, and you'll see it more in the likes of 5-10 years versus 20. Things are moving fast, and HP realizes that, hence their decision to get out of the game. That is a very BIG indicator with respect to the viability of the PC industry. Microsoft better get another game going fast, or they will ultimately become a secondary company as well.
Same thing with the PC. 70% of the market or more on the consumer side don't use 1/10th of the capability of their desktop or laptop. Read that again - 70% of the consumer market. The remaining 30% are those whose use of a PC is upwards of that 1/10th - professionals of many stripes, and largely because the application coding is built around a common hardware reference point.
The vast, larger majority of current PC users will move on to light-weight powerful mobile devices, that will increasingly have better capability, capacity and ease of use, while the professionals continue to use the "pickup truck" PC to leverage that additional power and capacity.
A question... why can't we have both?
Let's say, hypothetically, that Apple release a new MacBook Air with an OS that behaves like an iPad (all apps installed via an app store, limited multi-tasking, full screen apps etc) controlled via multi-touch on the touch pad (much like a refined Lion), but with a couple of tweaks around the notification system, switching apps and displaying apps side-by-side that help deal with window management and some of the multi-tasking use case scenarios on the iPad.
Now lets say that somewhere deep in the settings of this new MacBook Air they had a power-user option to enable the legacy interface, which would add a legacy UI launcher app to my home screen and perhaps enable the installation of legacy apps which would launch in the legacy UI.
70% of the consumer market that use the simple functions would never even know that the legacy interface existed, however they would still reap some of the benefits of running OSX (like support for various peripherals and printers).
The other 30% of power users still have that legacy UI to fall back on when they need it.
Do PC and post-PC have to be mutually exclusive?
Do we have to make a choice between a PC device and a post-PC device, or can we have our cake and eat it too?
Is the recent introduction of the mobile OS a new category or is it simply an acceleration of the simplification of the PC OS that has been an ongoing process for the last 20+ years?
You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
Your ongoing arguments demonstrate a fundamental issue withyour understanding about how all this works. It not about you. Let me repeat that. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.
IT'S
NOT
ABOUT
YOU
You more obsessive than a purist. And to argue that the means matter more than the end, is very silly. That argument would mean that the relatively efficient interstate system of highways is meaningless and unnecessary.
You are in a very small minority. Just like I am. I am a motorhead. I love tinkering with engines - both ground-bound and aviation. I am a certified mechanic as well. I make my money in technology (computing). I used to build all my own computers. I used to void the warranty and mod my Macs. You (and I) are far outside the mainstream, but your temperament (demonstrably from these threads - not that I actually know anything about you other than what you have posted) does not allow you to understand the mainstream mentality.
There are clear and definable reasons why automobiles have moved from manually geared truck and Model T's to auto-shifting and auto-adjusting, climate-controlled transportation vehicles. Because the vast majority of transportation users desired that ease and convenience. PERIOD. Transportation already is automated in ways you don't even understand, because you (apparently) only have a few decades worth of experience. I've driven a Model T, an early model Bugatti, a farm tractor. You want to talk about lack of automation, try dropping a plow into hardpacked soil AND down shifting into power range, downshifting a gear and advancing the throttle on a tractor. You don't know what truly manual is until you have done that. Now, move that into everyday experience - you don't want to have to have this experience on a daily basis do you?(from the Wikkipedia article on the model T):
Quote:
To make a Model T accelerate, move two levers near the steering wheel. The lever on the right was the throttle (or engine speed), and the lever on the left adjusted the time that the spark plugs fired. These levers needed to be set properly before the engine could be started.
The three pedals on the floor of the Model T were for the brake on the right, reverse in the middle to make the Model T go backwards, and a pedal on the left to shift the gears from low to high speed. A lever on the floor worked the brakes as well as the clutch. Pulling the lever toward the driver would set the parking brake and help keep the car from moving while parked. When the lever was placed in the middle, the transmission would be in neutral.
Once the engine is running, the driver now has to make the Model T move on its own. Step on the pedal all the way to the left, move the throttle lever to "give it the gas" and gently move the floor lever forward. This is low gear, the powerful gear used to get the Model T moving. Once it's moving, move the right lever up, let the left pedal come all the way up, and give it more gas to shift into high. To make the car go faster still, move the throttle lever as well as the spark advance lever. Stepping on the left pedal only halfway puts the car in neutral, the same as the lever. This helps the Model T come to a stop without causing the engine to stop as well.
The brakes on a Model T work the rear wheels by the use of brake bands inside the transmission. Modern cars have brakes on all four wheels. No brakes are on the front of a Model T.
So neither does the average driver. And that's who this is all about. The average driver.
The average driver wants a comfortable easy to use driving experience that is low maintenance, fuel-efficient and enjoyable. That's it. Sexy is fun, but optional. Noisy is fun - but optional. "Mod-able" is fun but optional. Manual is fun but optional. The core of the experience is as I stated above: comfortable easy to use driving experience that is low maintenance, fuel-efficient and enjoyable.
The average PC user. They/we don't want to have to monitor constantly for failures like virii or trojan impacts, swap out RAM, change out hard drives, benchmark CPUs, trade out GPUs. That's not what a PC is for. A PC for the average user is to get email, browse services, products and features of the internet, look at photos and videos, listen to music, create stuff like documents, videos, music, presentations. Access work-related stuff easily.
You either can't understand this or don't want to. It has been explained in so many different ways to you and you still fail to understand. At this point I tend to think it is deliberate cupidity on your part and not lack of understanding. It can't be spelled out more simply than I have done above. I strongly admire the previous respondants' attempts to address your issues, but they (I feel) labor in vain, because you simply do not WANT to understand. And ultimately that's OK. Sitting in the corner with your fingers stuffed in your ears loudly singing la-la-la-la-la, is simply one way to pass the time, and only annoying to those who have to stand next to you. *GRIN*
Do we have to make a choice between a PC device and a post-PC device, or can we have our cake and eat it too?
Is the recent introduction of the mobile OS a new category or is it simply an acceleration of the simplification of the PC OS that has been an ongoing process for the last 20+ years?
Hmmm... maybe quite a few of the people in this discussion just don't get the term post-pc era. The ones that I think actually get the term are the people who are saying that the terms aren't mutually exclusive. That they co-exist but that we are moving into an era where the post-pc device will dominate.
If anything, I'd say that the laptop was the first post-pc device in that it freed you from the desktop... mobile computing today is an extension of that.
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
I keep on hearing this, but I don't think that will be happening. I think they don't 'do the obvious'; a yearly increase (in storage) and would actually like to decrease storage in order to promote the 'new computing' iCloud concept. Of course they won't decrease storage, but I think doubling the size is just wishful thinking.
Is it me, or did the mothership just landed on this iMacs' screen?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
Great post; for me, hitting many issues right-on. Thanks for this!
Technology that exists for technology's sake is useless. Until you put an iPhone in the hands of a human being, it serves no purpose. So given that it's all about us, personal computing should be made to conform to us in the best way it can.
This is one thing that's been such a huge benefit of post-PC devices: Apple gets to experiment with wildly new ways of working, which is so difficult to do on a legacy platform.
The problem that hinders this as you've pointed out is compatibility. Metadata has to survive network and filesystem changes. Gradually we will grow to accept the things that work best for us and over time get round the problems.
Post-PC devices can't instantly replace everyone's computer but it's clear that touch/gesture interaction is important. It's how we interact with each other and we have our own nuances that we often hope a computer could just understand.
I still think there are parallels between both metadata and hierarchy to the real-world but it all comes down to results. I would love not to have to manage files but I also don't want a pile of my entire collection of items presented when I try to get to something. We also have to consider how this is all going to work on the internet - all the forward slashes are pathname separators in a hierarchical filesystem. The internet isn't going away any time soon.
It will be an ongoing refinement process and post-PC devices will be drawn into everything. I think this will happen to the point where nothing we own would be called a PC, hence why it will be a post-PC era.
Then why aren't you mining your own iron and casting and machining your own car parts? You should be raising cattle and tanning your own leather for the seats. Get yourself a rubber tree and make your own tires......
Let me know how that works out for you. :roll eyes:
Because he uses words in the manner most people use them, rather than stretching and twisting them.
Some folks might claim that the only way to bake a loaf of bread from scratch is to first create the universe. But most people are not flaming a-holes.
Because he uses words in the manner most people use them, rather than stretching and twisting them.
Some folks might claim that the only way to bake a loaf of bread from scratch is to first create the universe. But most people are not flaming a-holes.
Wow. You managed to miss the point entirely. I thought it was pretty obvious for anyone with an IQ over 60. I guess I was wrong. Or maybe I was right.....
The point is that he is arguing that 'REAL' drivers don't need modern conveniences like automatic transmissions, etc. He's arguing that doing things yourself is the 'only' way to do them. Similarly, he's against a simplified computer interface.
So where do you draw the line? Who gets to determine exactly which things are to be done manually and which things it's OK to have done for you? Obviously, it's the marketplace - NOT his arrogant "if your car doesn't have a manual transmission and won't hit 9,000 rpm, it's not a real car" attitude.
Comments
I can see a big need for a home server fairly soon
Ah the iHub. My pet ramble for close to a year now.
I'd love to see someone do this right.
Ah the iHub. My pet ramble for close to a year now.
I'd love to see someone do this right.
Maybe that someone will eventually be sued by someone with the handle Firefly7475
Ah the iHub. My pet ramble for close to a year now.
I'd love to see someone do this right.
We've both done a lot of posts on a home server -- and we mostly agree in its definition and function.
I think the storage part of the equation is here -- just not the server.
I put together the "home server" part of the iHub over several years -- using a Mac Mini and external HDDs.
The first really big HDD I bought was in April 2006:
Qty\t \tProduct\tStock Status\tPrice\tTotal
1\t \t2TB Bigger Disk Extreme USB 2.0, FireWire 400 & FireWire 800 External Drive\t$1,749.00\t
This month I got a Pegasus RAID:
PROMISE PEGASUS R6 12TB-CAF $1,999.00
That's 12 TB RAID or about 10 TB actual data storage for $250 more than I spent for 2TB, 5 years ago,
You can get a 4TB Pegasus for $999.
The Pegasus is Thunderbolt only -- so I am considering replacing last year's Mini with a Thunderbolt model.
What I'd really like, though, is an AppleTV-like box, with Thunderbolt, dedicated to the job of home server and staging intermediary to the cloud.
As I've posted elsewhere, the Pegasus is a wonderful piece of kit -- easily looks like it could have been made by Apple.
So, c'mon Apple, lets supply the missing link.
Edit: Yeah Apple -- and let me use a WiFi iPad to control this headless beast.
To take another analogy:
You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
"Purist", huh?
Then why aren't you mining your own iron and casting and machining your own car parts? You should be raising cattle and tanning your own leather for the seats. Get yourself a rubber tree and make your own tires......
Let me know how that works out for you. :roll eyes:
There's nothing wrong with preferring a manual transmission. Or a car that corners well rather than a comfortable luxury car. Or an energetic vehicle rather than a vehicle that just gets you from A to B. But what makes that more 'pure'? You're simply confusing your personal preference with 'better'. It's not 'better', it's just your preference.
Similarly, there's nothing better about a phone that can be hacked a million ways or that allows the user access to the internals. It's just different, not better.
To take another analogy:
You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
The thing is, engine noise, gasoline and stick shifting are not an integral part of being one with a car. You aren't a purist, you simply have a sentimental attachment to the past. The means of getting there aren't what matter, it's the journey itself that is important.
EDIT: This, by the way, is the future of cars, performance or otherwise: http://www.teslamotors.com/models.
The thing is, engine noise, gasoline and stick shifting are not an integral part of being one with a car. You aren't a purist, you simply have a sentimental attachment to the past. The means of getting there aren't what matter, it's the journey itself that is important.
I was thinking the same thing. I can see Galbi sitting on a porch being a curmudgeon, resenting the present and always talking about the past.
Galbi... my Grandfather talked about being an automobile "purist" as you call it... he'd constantly grumble when he saw young guys with their muscle cars in the late 60s, "When I had my first car you had to know something about them. They didn't just start themselves. You had to crank them. You'd have to wear goggles or you'd get bugs in your eyes. The roads weren't paved; sometimes we'd have to have tractors pull us along the main roads."
Well... you enjoy the past. I may be an old fart now but I'm certainly going to move forward.
You somehow think Humanity is going to jettison it's appendages? Seriously now, tactile feel isn't going to be replaced any time soon, and has it's advantages to some outlandish idea of neural implants and thought processing as an interface.
I certainly would not want to lose any of my appendages. But maybe writing as such will become a Truck, and many places in life will just be touch screens with icons.
You somehow think Humanity is going to jettison it's appendages? Seriously now, tactile feel isn't going to be replaced any time soon, and has it's advantages to some outlandish idea of neural implants and thought processing as an interface.
Outlandish?!?
BMI (brain machine interface) has been around for a while now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBWv3XmGnGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ-HD...eature=related
It might not replace anything any time soon... but it has arrived in earnest and in 20 years I'm sure it will be mainstream.
To put it short and sweet - Frank Shaw is right on the money.
Tablets and Smartphone are brilliant and all that Jazz, but I can't exactly write a 10k research paper on an iPad. I can sure as hell try but it would pail in comparison to a fully fledged Desktop or Notebook Personal Computer.
I know HP have pulled the plug, but that does't mean death to all machines with a physical keyboard on a desk either (this includes notebooks).
I've always thought the idea of "Post-PC" was complete bollocks. If I may be so blunt. These mobile devices are complimentary devices to quickly consume data along with your banana muffin in Starbucks. It is completely illogical to say personal computers are out the door - if thats the case then why do I still own a Desktop Computer (iMac) when my "almighty" iPad is sitting downstairs on the coffee table? I'll give you a hint - "Coffee Table".
And you have just demonstrated the embedded user syndrome I referred to in another thread. Typewriters initially were problematic to the extreme. With refinement and increasing useability you moved from the early hard types to the IBM selectrics - I know I'm part of the evolution. But they became a mainstay of every office and professional scenario, at least until dedicated word-processing systems and then the mmore ubiquitous PC came on the scene. When was the last time you saw a typewriter in a friend's home? How about at the office?
Same thing with the PC. 70% of the market or more on the consumer side don't use 1/10th of the capability of their desktop or laptop. Read that again - 70% of the consumer market. The remaining 30% are those whose use of a PC is upwards of that 1/10th - professionals of many stripes, and largely because the application coding is built around a common hardware reference point. Look at what AutoDesk hase been doing to support utilization of the iPad - certainly not a replacement for a MacPro or WinPC running AutoCad, but it points to developers re-thinking how apps operate. This is still in its infancy.
Ironically the people who use more of their PC's capability are also those who tend to insist on seeing the post-PC commentary as declaring the death of the PC, not as Steve Jobs ACTUALLY said, the return of the PC to specialized use - as in professional use cases. The vast, larger majority of current PC users will move on to light-weight powerful mobile devices, that will increasingly have better capability, capacity and ease of use, while the professionals continue to use the "pickup truck" PC to leverage that additional power and capacity.
So no it's not as you so quaintly (and bluntly) put, "bollocks". YOU may require a PC to do what you NEED to do, but the vast majority of users don't and will live wonderfully on the increasingly capable mobile devices. For example, I use a VDI session at work for most of my computing desktop needs. I remote into that same desktop from home, and even have direct secured access via my iPhone to our systems. These are configured to support a custom app on my iPhone to allow me to rapidly assess and respond to systems issues without relying on my desktop. Moreover, because I am not depending on the remote-VDI desktop-system client connection, the response is quicker and easier to manage. That's just in supporting critical core technologies for a Fortune 50 company.
And ultimately you, benanderson89, may be either a professional whose livelihood is tethered to a desktop application or set of applications, or you may simply be one of those people who is temperamentally locked into the desktop/laptop paradigm and cannot see your way into the new paradigm. That's alright and of course to regard your iPad as "almighty" is just plain silly. SO relax. Your beautiful iMac is not going anywhere, the PC is not dead as so many have misconstrued Jobs' commentary, but if all you are relying on your PC for is to write a simple 10k paper, I would say you are vastly under-utilizing your PC. As someone who has literally grown up with computing technology, I am (as a person of, ummm, advanced experience shall we say) always surprised at the amount of resistance there is among those of us in technology (much younger than I as well) to the advances of technology. I fear we have created a generation or two of people who are not capable, or worse unwilling, to look forward and seek to understand where technology can grow. Perhaps my generation was the last of the "pioneering" generations, the rest coming after are "empire" generations whose desire is only to maintain status quo. Which would be very sad indeed.
Let's be real here, folks. No matter how much Apple Kool-Aid you drink, PCs, in any form (remember that Macs are PCs too), aren't going anywhere for a long while. People who do real work, in any field (film production, music composition, web site and application development, graphics work, the list goes on) require the basic idea of a desktop (laptop, desktop, all in one) in order to get things done. Without a mouse and keyboard and multi-window user interface, people who use computers to get things done won't ever consider a tablet over a work machine. Sure, for Mom and Pop who just browse the internet and email with others, a tablet may fit the bill. But you can't discount hundreds of millions of machines being used for work other than the basics of computing; sure, maybe in twenty years things will be different, but the traditional PC won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
You've got to open your mind to many other possibilities outside of just the tablet. Virtual input devices would make a physical mouse and keyboard obsolete. The tablet keyboard is just the beginning. Multi window user interface is inevitable on smaller devices, and with cloud computing, physical storage may become obsolete as well. Desktop PC's are presently more desirable based on the infrastructure, but once a portability infrastructure is at the forefront, a desktop PC will be more limiting and what we know as a laptop computer may become the cell phone of the 80's in portability. From a computing power aspect, its only a matter of time, and you'll see it more in the likes of 5-10 years versus 20. Things are moving fast, and HP realizes that, hence their decision to get out of the game. That is a very BIG indicator with respect to the viability of the PC industry. Microsoft better get another game going fast, or they will ultimately become a secondary company as well.
Same thing with the PC. 70% of the market or more on the consumer side don't use 1/10th of the capability of their desktop or laptop. Read that again - 70% of the consumer market. The remaining 30% are those whose use of a PC is upwards of that 1/10th - professionals of many stripes, and largely because the application coding is built around a common hardware reference point.
The vast, larger majority of current PC users will move on to light-weight powerful mobile devices, that will increasingly have better capability, capacity and ease of use, while the professionals continue to use the "pickup truck" PC to leverage that additional power and capacity.
A question... why can't we have both?
Let's say, hypothetically, that Apple release a new MacBook Air with an OS that behaves like an iPad (all apps installed via an app store, limited multi-tasking, full screen apps etc) controlled via multi-touch on the touch pad (much like a refined Lion), but with a couple of tweaks around the notification system, switching apps and displaying apps side-by-side that help deal with window management and some of the multi-tasking use case scenarios on the iPad.
Now lets say that somewhere deep in the settings of this new MacBook Air they had a power-user option to enable the legacy interface, which would add a legacy UI launcher app to my home screen and perhaps enable the installation of legacy apps which would launch in the legacy UI.
70% of the consumer market that use the simple functions would never even know that the legacy interface existed, however they would still reap some of the benefits of running OSX (like support for various peripherals and printers).
The other 30% of power users still have that legacy UI to fall back on when they need it.
Do PC and post-PC have to be mutually exclusive?
Do we have to make a choice between a PC device and a post-PC device, or can we have our cake and eat it too?
Is the recent introduction of the mobile OS a new category or is it simply an acceleration of the simplification of the PC OS that has been an ongoing process for the last 20+ years?
To take another analogy:
You would rather sit in an automated electric powered vehicles that would get you from point A to point B.
I'm the type that like to row my own gears, hear the roar of pistons spinning at 9000rpms, feel the vibration, the smells and being "one" with the machine that I am driving. I fear the day when transportation becomes automated.
I am, what they say, a "purist".
To me, its not the end that matters, its the means of getting there that does.
Your ongoing arguments demonstrate a fundamental issue withyour understanding about how all this works. It not about you. Let me repeat that. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.
IT'S
NOT
ABOUT
YOU
You more obsessive than a purist. And to argue that the means matter more than the end, is very silly. That argument would mean that the relatively efficient interstate system of highways is meaningless and unnecessary.
You are in a very small minority. Just like I am. I am a motorhead. I love tinkering with engines - both ground-bound and aviation. I am a certified mechanic as well. I make my money in technology (computing). I used to build all my own computers. I used to void the warranty and mod my Macs. You (and I) are far outside the mainstream, but your temperament (demonstrably from these threads - not that I actually know anything about you other than what you have posted) does not allow you to understand the mainstream mentality.
There are clear and definable reasons why automobiles have moved from manually geared truck and Model T's to auto-shifting and auto-adjusting, climate-controlled transportation vehicles. Because the vast majority of transportation users desired that ease and convenience. PERIOD. Transportation already is automated in ways you don't even understand, because you (apparently) only have a few decades worth of experience. I've driven a Model T, an early model Bugatti, a farm tractor. You want to talk about lack of automation, try dropping a plow into hardpacked soil AND down shifting into power range, downshifting a gear and advancing the throttle on a tractor. You don't know what truly manual is until you have done that. Now, move that into everyday experience - you don't want to have to have this experience on a daily basis do you?(from the Wikkipedia article on the model T):
To make a Model T accelerate, move two levers near the steering wheel. The lever on the right was the throttle (or engine speed), and the lever on the left adjusted the time that the spark plugs fired. These levers needed to be set properly before the engine could be started.
The three pedals on the floor of the Model T were for the brake on the right, reverse in the middle to make the Model T go backwards, and a pedal on the left to shift the gears from low to high speed. A lever on the floor worked the brakes as well as the clutch. Pulling the lever toward the driver would set the parking brake and help keep the car from moving while parked. When the lever was placed in the middle, the transmission would be in neutral.
Once the engine is running, the driver now has to make the Model T move on its own. Step on the pedal all the way to the left, move the throttle lever to "give it the gas" and gently move the floor lever forward. This is low gear, the powerful gear used to get the Model T moving. Once it's moving, move the right lever up, let the left pedal come all the way up, and give it more gas to shift into high. To make the car go faster still, move the throttle lever as well as the spark advance lever. Stepping on the left pedal only halfway puts the car in neutral, the same as the lever. This helps the Model T come to a stop without causing the engine to stop as well.
The brakes on a Model T work the rear wheels by the use of brake bands inside the transmission. Modern cars have brakes on all four wheels. No brakes are on the front of a Model T.
So neither does the average driver. And that's who this is all about. The average driver.
The average driver wants a comfortable easy to use driving experience that is low maintenance, fuel-efficient and enjoyable. That's it. Sexy is fun, but optional. Noisy is fun - but optional. "Mod-able" is fun but optional. Manual is fun but optional. The core of the experience is as I stated above: comfortable easy to use driving experience that is low maintenance, fuel-efficient and enjoyable.
The average PC user. They/we don't want to have to monitor constantly for failures like virii or trojan impacts, swap out RAM, change out hard drives, benchmark CPUs, trade out GPUs. That's not what a PC is for. A PC for the average user is to get email, browse services, products and features of the internet, look at photos and videos, listen to music, create stuff like documents, videos, music, presentations. Access work-related stuff easily.
You either can't understand this or don't want to. It has been explained in so many different ways to you and you still fail to understand. At this point I tend to think it is deliberate cupidity on your part and not lack of understanding. It can't be spelled out more simply than I have done above. I strongly admire the previous respondants' attempts to address your issues, but they (I feel) labor in vain, because you simply do not WANT to understand. And ultimately that's OK. Sitting in the corner with your fingers stuffed in your ears loudly singing la-la-la-la-la, is simply one way to pass the time, and only annoying to those who have to stand next to you. *GRIN*
I idea of "post-PC" is not there will be no PC, but PC will no longer be the center of computing like it used it.
Ahhh! The simple and succinct words of reason.
A question... why can't we have both?
Let's say, hypothetically, etc. etc. etc.
Do PC and post-PC have to be mutually exclusive?
Do we have to make a choice between a PC device and a post-PC device, or can we have our cake and eat it too?
Is the recent introduction of the mobile OS a new category or is it simply an acceleration of the simplification of the PC OS that has been an ongoing process for the last 20+ years?
Hmmm... maybe quite a few of the people in this discussion just don't get the term post-pc era. The ones that I think actually get the term are the people who are saying that the terms aren't mutually exclusive. That they co-exist but that we are moving into an era where the post-pc device will dominate.
If anything, I'd say that the laptop was the first post-pc device in that it freed you from the desktop... mobile computing today is an extension of that.
(edit - see post directly above)
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
I keep on hearing this, but I don't think that will be happening. I think they don't 'do the obvious'; a yearly increase (in storage) and would actually like to decrease storage in order to promote the 'new computing' iCloud concept. Of course they won't decrease storage, but I think doubling the size is just wishful thinking.
Is it me, or did the mothership just landed on this iMacs' screen?
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
Great post; for me, hitting many issues right-on. Thanks for this!
PhilBoogie
To me, this capability should be in the OS and generalized to include all apps/file content.
Maybe Apple bought Siri to augment the OS file system as well as Internet search.
Interesting thought, it certainly seems as though they are placing more and more importance on intelligent search to improve automatic categorisation.
In the end, search capability should be there to act on our intent and some of Google's adverts highlight this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
Technology that exists for technology's sake is useless. Until you put an iPhone in the hands of a human being, it serves no purpose. So given that it's all about us, personal computing should be made to conform to us in the best way it can.
This is one thing that's been such a huge benefit of post-PC devices: Apple gets to experiment with wildly new ways of working, which is so difficult to do on a legacy platform.
The problem that hinders this as you've pointed out is compatibility. Metadata has to survive network and filesystem changes. Gradually we will grow to accept the things that work best for us and over time get round the problems.
Post-PC devices can't instantly replace everyone's computer but it's clear that touch/gesture interaction is important. It's how we interact with each other and we have our own nuances that we often hope a computer could just understand.
I still think there are parallels between both metadata and hierarchy to the real-world but it all comes down to results. I would love not to have to manage files but I also don't want a pile of my entire collection of items presented when I try to get to something. We also have to consider how this is all going to work on the internet - all the forward slashes are pathname separators in a hierarchical filesystem. The internet isn't going away any time soon.
It will be an ongoing refinement process and post-PC devices will be drawn into everything. I think this will happen to the point where nothing we own would be called a PC, hence why it will be a post-PC era.
"Purist", huh?
Then why aren't you mining your own iron and casting and machining your own car parts? You should be raising cattle and tanning your own leather for the seats. Get yourself a rubber tree and make your own tires......
Let me know how that works out for you. :roll eyes:
Because he uses words in the manner most people use them, rather than stretching and twisting them.
Some folks might claim that the only way to bake a loaf of bread from scratch is to first create the universe. But most people are not flaming a-holes.
Because he uses words in the manner most people use them, rather than stretching and twisting them.
Some folks might claim that the only way to bake a loaf of bread from scratch is to first create the universe. But most people are not flaming a-holes.
Wow. You managed to miss the point entirely. I thought it was pretty obvious for anyone with an IQ over 60. I guess I was wrong. Or maybe I was right.....
The point is that he is arguing that 'REAL' drivers don't need modern conveniences like automatic transmissions, etc. He's arguing that doing things yourself is the 'only' way to do them. Similarly, he's against a simplified computer interface.
So where do you draw the line? Who gets to determine exactly which things are to be done manually and which things it's OK to have done for you? Obviously, it's the marketplace - NOT his arrogant "if your car doesn't have a manual transmission and won't hit 9,000 rpm, it's not a real car" attitude.