So any brand catering to the upper middle class is underhanded and has a negative stereotype.
The latter yes, the former wasn't what I said. All manufacturers are hitting the end-point of growth as people realize that laptop hardware is enough. Apple are trying to hold this back while other manufacturers race to the bottom.
For longevity, I agree that racing to the bottom offering the best performance for the lowest price is a fast way to go out of business. Switching to laptop hardware is delaying the inevitable.
Their next move in a few years presumably will be to switch to iphone hardware. I'm not entirely against this strategy when the hardware gets up to speed but at times like the present, Mac hardware is being left far behind the value curve because of it.
It's true that what constitutes value is not the same for everyone but the value I see in some of their products can't be experienced by a lot of people because of the bad value in other areas.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
As long as their products are selling they aren't too overpriced or too underpowered for the target market.
Not necessarily. Their OS is a great system and some parts of their hardware are good. People are sometimes willing to pay over the odds weighing up various factors but the purchase doesn't mean it's suited to that person entirely.
I know a number of people with 15" MBPs who bought them because they wanted a 15" Mac laptop with a warranty. No performance requirements, no specific features. They would have bought a 15" Celeron MBP with 9400M, 120GB HDD, no ExpressCard or SD or isight or backlit keyboard and Apple could have made the same profit, they would have saved money and they would have the exact same experience they have now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vinea
The iPhone suffers the same "bang for the buck" comparisons with other phones with more features (better cameras, better BT, better battery life, blah blah) locked into AT&T.
Interesting point because the iphone hardware is actually among the best hardware you can buy in a phone spec-wise and yet competes on price with the competition.
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Originally Posted by vinea
Yah, maybe Steve should buy everyone a pony too.
A Mac Pro would be more useful but I suspect the pony would be cheaper.
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
People who can't justify the cost of the machine, will never experience Mac OS. That is sad.
I feel that way too and clearly people want to experience it but decide to hack it onto their PC instead of paying a lot more money on a computer used to do basic tasks - ironically the kind of tasks OS X is designed to make very easy.
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Originally Posted by SDW2001
Perhaps it's overpriced, but it's not "half the performance for twice the price," either. Especially when you factor in that it's the only tower in the world capable of (legally) running OSX.
The towers aren't half the performance for twice the price, the iMac is. The Mac Pro is 10-20% higher performance for 3-4x the price and you jump from 2 threads to 8 between iMac and Mac Pro.
Apple's trend seems to be to keep driving a wedge between home user and someone who needs the most cores they can get. One day will come when even the Mac Pro is unnecessary though and the iMac. What will the strategy be then? Lowering the price but by that point, the market share will likely still be a small minority so do they just die out?
The answer will lie in how good the competition gets software and hardware-wise. The progression to high-performance in smaller packages and the maturing of competing OSs is taking away Apple's edge.
The latter yes, the former wasn't what I said. All manufacturers are hitting the end-point of growth as people realize that laptop hardware is enough. Apple are trying to hold this back while other manufacturers race to the bottom.
I'm trying to understand the context of your statement about "end point of growth". What is Apple trying to hold back?
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Their next move in a few years presumably will be to switch to iphone hardware. I'm not entirely against this strategy when the hardware gets up to speed but at times like the present, Mac hardware is being left far behind the value curve because of it.
Are you saying Apple will use iPhone hardware in the iMac? That's certainly taking the presumption too far.
To say iMac hardware is being left behind is only one particular point of view. The other side of it is the ability to built a thin AIO that is energy efficient and quiet. To accomplish this requires some advanced design and some speed compromise.
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It's true that what constitutes value is not the same for everyone but the value I see in some of their products can't be experienced by a lot of people because of the bad value in other areas.
This statement is cryptic and difficult to understand.
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Not necessarily. Their OS is a great system and some parts of their hardware are good. People are sometimes willing to pay over the odds weighing up various factors but the purchase doesn't mean it's suited to that person entirely.
Everyone will have their personal preferences. No computer manufacturer could meet them all.
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I know a number of people with 15" MBPs who bought them because they wanted a 15" Mac laptop with a warranty. No performance requirements, no specific features. They would have bought a 15" Celeron MBP with 9400M, 120GB HDD, no ExpressCard or SD or isight or backlit keyboard and Apple could have made the same profit, they would have saved money and they would have the exact same experience they have now.
This confuses me because earlier you were saying Apple was falling behind in hardware. Here you advocate them using Celeron which would put them years behind.
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I feel that way too and clearly people want to experience it but decide to hack it onto their PC instead of paying a lot more money on a computer used to do basic tasks - ironically the kind of tasks OS X is designed to make very easy.
I doubt this is the common reason for hacking. I bet most of the people in the hacking community would use this option regardless of what Apple charged.
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Apple's trend seems to be to keep driving a wedge between home user and someone who needs the most cores they can get. One day will come when even the Mac Pro is unnecessary though and the iMac. What will the strategy be then? Lowering the price but by that point, the market share will likely still be a small minority so do they just die out?
Apple is following where the market is going. For most consumers the Mac Pro is already unnecessary and unwanted. So Apple is targeting the Mac Pro towards the high end workstation market, while targeting notebooks to the common consumer market. Sales clearly show this follows where the consumer market is going.
The Mac Pro will never be unnecessary for those who need workstation performance.
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The answer will lie in how good the competition gets software and hardware-wise. The progression to high-performance in smaller packages and the maturing of competing OSs is taking away Apple's edge.
The history of computers is the progression of high performance in smaller packages, that's nothing new.
What competing OS are you suggesting that is maturing? Apple's main OS competition is Windows and its pretty mature today. What more maturing do you believe it needs?
I agree, what I'm saying is how long does the iMac have to go before Apple get rid of it too? If laptop purchases are made because people don't want static desktops then the iMac will surely suffer the same fate.
Apple will likely stop making the iMac, when the iMac stops making them profit.
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Not really - they noted themselves that the number of users has tripled in the last 2 years i.e since the iphone was introduced. Taking the iphone out of the equation, their Mac prices have systematically risen to the point where a Mac Pro is out of most people's price range and they offer laptop chips in everything below this at substantially higher cost than PC manufacturers.
Because the Mac Pro is a workstation, and the consumer market doesn't want workstations.
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They appear to be milking the iphone status and profiting highly on their Macs. It shows an ugly side to Apple that even when people are struggling financially that they push their price points higher. They even said they would cut back on profit margins and that was a blatant lie because it hasn't happened.
One has nothing to do with the other. You are saying Apple should voluntarily make less money because the economy is in a downturn. Inspite of the fact that people are still buying Apple products in the economic downturn.
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I was just pointing out when someone dismissed the screen resolution that Apple also have poor screen resolutions and they don't support Blu-Ray at all and yet are still twice the price.
The resolution isn't the important factor in screen quality. The screen resolution is only important if you need to look at high resolution images. The more important metrics of screen quality is brightness, color reproduction, contrast ratio, viewing angle.
A 1920x1200 screen may not be very bright, have crappy color reproduction, crappy contrast ratio, and crappy viewing angle. The resolution doesn't entirely matter for over all quality.
The resolution does matter if the computer has a Blu-ray drive.
I'm trying to understand the context of your statement about "end point of growth". What is Apple trying to hold back?
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
What Apple do is cut off all options from the consumer that give them great value at their expense in order to maximize profit. You want a 24" iMac, you have to pay for an IPS with a high-end chipset. You want a matte laptop, you have to pay $2,500. You want a quad core, you have to pay $2,500. They could offer these things at a significantly better value to the consumer but choose not to in the interest of holding onto their growth but that growth is to do with their value in other areas like software.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Are you saying Apple will use iPhone hardware in the iMac? That's certainly taking the presumption too far.
Eventually, I believe mobile phones will be the next consumer computers. Right now they are 600MHz ARM. With the Cortex A9 next year they move to multi-core. It will be a few years off but mobile hardware will reach that point of being enough. The Nvidia Tegra demo showed how you can slot a mobile into a laptop case and do most of what a netbook is expected to do and this will be in the Zune HD this year.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
This statement is cryptic and difficult to understand.
Apple has good software but bad value hardware.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
This confuses me because earlier you were saying Apple was falling behind in hardware. Here you advocate them using Celeron which would put them years behind.
In terms of options and value they are behind.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
Sales clearly show this follows where the consumer market is going.
Sales show people buying notebooks not expensive notebook-style desktops.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
The Mac Pro will never be unnecessary for those who need workstation performance.
That depends on what Intel do but I don't consider workstation performance to be a term that will always mean the highest end that money can buy. Once they get 60-core chips (projected by Intel in a 5 year timeframe), even high end users will only buy what they need.
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Originally Posted by TenoBell
What competing OS are you suggesting that is maturing? Apple's main OS competition is Windows and its pretty mature today. What more maturing do you believe it needs?
Windows 7 isn't officially out yet and while I personally don't see it being a match for OS X, others will. Once their software gets to the point where Apple run out of reasons to make fun of it, they have next to no selling point. It was clear from Bertrand Serlet's presentation at the last keynote, they are running out of reason to knock Windows. The sum total of his argument basically amounted to 'it's still Windows'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
One has nothing to do with the other. You are saying Apple should voluntarily make less money because the economy is in a downturn. Inspite of the fact that people are still buying Apple products in the economic downturn.
My argument is from the consumer point of view remember, not Apple's. I am saying I think their desktop machines are bad value for money. I'm not expecting them to match the value but I think they are off the mark.
Like I say though, it's not so much how they price what they have but what they offer.
Even putting the quad in the iMac isn't really going to be a good idea:
Like I say, I think their laptops are pretty good but they still don't offer a value laptop to allow the less than upper-middle-class to get a better software experience.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
The resolution doesn't entirely matter for over all quality.
I meant for working on the machine using apps, for example, the Macbook Pro 15" should have 1680 x 1050. Pro apps tend to have a lot of panels and 1440 x 900 is a bit too low.
The trend toward increased reliance on portable computing is clear. But stationary computers will never disappear.
Two examples.
Here at work we use computers in a manufacturing environment. There are a number of physical environment, input, and display constraints that make laptops unsuitable for the tasks at hand.
Having suffered severe repetative strain injuries, I'll never be able to use laptops for an extended period of time. Having the display a fixed distance from the keyboard is the deal breaker for me.
There are many other examples too numerous to list. Not that I'm saying laptops are bad, but rather that desktops aren't going anywhere. They'll always be superior for some tasks and users and the market is big enough to support many form factors.
The trend toward increased reliance on portable computing is clear. But stationary computers will never disappear.
I think they will disappear eventually.
In a decade or so, imagine an iphone or similar product of whatever companies are still around.
You take this to work with you and just plug it into a screen.
If you need to work on a journey somewhere, unplug it from the screen and drop it into a tablet dock.
If you need it to play your movies, take it home and plug it into your TV.
Need to do a presentation, plug it into your projector.
Did I say plug? I meant sit it near these screens and it will transmit the video over a wireless connection.
One device and multiple inputs/outputs, whether it's a keyboard, a touch screen, an IPS screen, a laptop dock, a projector.
The future is modular and that's why I think the iMac will disappear just like PC desktop towers. The problem is that when you need to take your data with you quickly, you can't. A laptop, you can just pick it up and go.
How do you use an iMac in bed? You can't.
How do you take an iMac on a journey? You can't.
The ARM Cortex A9 in 2010 will go up to quad core 1GHz in a 250 mW per core envelope. Couple this with a decent graphics chip that is capable of processing and you've got better than a 2009 netbook experience on a mobile phone.
Given this, you might ask what the objection is with Apple's offerings. If we are progressing towards smaller and smaller components, surely it makes perfect sense to keep shrinking the machines down.
In a way it does but what's the point in selling a machine with laptop hardware at the same price as an actual laptop with the same performance but you can't take anywhere?
The Mini I get because it works as a server and a media center. That can't be replaced by a laptop in its current form. The Mac Pro I get because it is a powerful machine even though I would rather the entry point was more accessible. The iMac I don't get.
The whole idea with the iMac is that you get laptop hardware at a much cheaper price but right now it's not. This article says there's a rumored price cut coming:
I think this is the only way to address the bad value I see in their lineup. $200 off the iMac price. $100 off the Mini. If they can cut the Mac Pro line too, it would be good.
You actually think all computers will be portable eventually?
It's almost as if you didn't read everything I wrote about repetitive strain injuries, and that's just one example.
Here are a few more caveats to hopefully curb that rather dogmatic position that all computers will eventually be portable:
* Clipboards haven't replaced desks even though they're more portable.
* Portable TVs haven't replaced stationary TVs.
* Carrying around electronics is a hindrance, not a convenience. The goal is not to carry around a computer, but to be able to use a computer in more places. If the place you're going already has a massive screen, and dedicated/ergonomic/efficient input devices, then being forced to carry a box around is not the optimal solution.
Now before everyone jumps up and down in support of laptops, please note that I'm not trying to suggest that there is something wrong with laptops, nor that they won't be popular. I've only pointed out that there are, and will always be, scenarios in which stationary computers are more optimal.
The fact people are buying more laptops doesn't mean it's ok to have your desktop line 2-3x more expensive than PC manufacturers and still performing at half the speed.
To say 'well more people are buying laptops anyway so it doesn't matter' diverts away from the real issue - that Apple's consumer desktops are bad value for money.
What they should do is just scrap the iMac lineup and drop the price of their Macbook Pros a little and introduce a cheap TN 24" display to go with it.
The 2.66GHz iMac is £949, 2GB Ram, 9400M
The 2.26GHz MBP is £899, 2GB Ram, 9400M
The 24" 3.06GHz iMac is £1799, 4GB Ram, GT130
The 15" 3.06GHz MBP is £1939, 4GB Ram, 9600M GT
The GPUs are close in terms of performance and it's not as if people are buying close to £2000 equipment to play games.
People might say but if Apple drop the high end MBP by £130, you still need to spend £200 for a 24" TN panel. But then you're getting dual displays and you get portability as well as the ability to upgrade your HDD.
You lose the IPS display but people who need one can buy one 3rd party (or E-IPS, S-PVA etc) or buy Apple's IPS display.
Then the lineup becomes:
Mini - for servers and the multitude of applications for a small desktop.
13" MBP for most users with additional 24" TN display as BTO.
15" MBP for higher end with additional display.
Mac Pro for the highest end raw power.
I think one thing holding back the switch will be hard drive capacity. But once we hit 1TB 2.5" drives next year, no problem.
Again here we go with the fixation on cpu speed and gigabytes of RAM: it does not matter. When you are running something like Windows Vista you could have a Cray 2 supercomputer and it would still be a steaming pile of turd.
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
In one sense computers have already gotten to that point. Today the cheapest computer can surf the web, write emails, and word process with no problem. To do these common tasks does not require a $1000+ machine.
The reason why $1000+ machines continue to sell. Is because software development is not static. Software continues to push hardware. The more capable hardware becomes the more software pushes its functionality.
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What Apple do is cut off all options from the consumer that give them great value at their expense in order to maximize profit.
You continue to only come from one definition of "value". That definition is price. Value can mean different things under different circumstances. For people who buy premium products value does not mean price.
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Eventually, I believe mobile phones will be the next consumer computers. Right now they are 600MHz ARM. With the Cortex A9 next year they move to multi-core. It will be a few years off but mobile hardware will reach that point of being enough. The Nvidia Tegra demo showed how you can slot a mobile into a laptop case and do most of what a netbook is expected to do and this will be in the Zune HD this year.
Mobile phones are already the next consumer computers. As I said earlier notebooks are now what desktops used to be, smartphones are now what notebooks used to be.
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
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Apple has good software but bad value hardware. In terms of options and value they are behind. Sales show people buying notebooks not expensive notebook-style desktops.
The value of Apple's hardware is simply your personal opinion. In truth they compromise in one area to add value in another area. The iMac is selling extremely well.
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That depends on what Intel do but I don't consider workstation performance to be a term that will always mean the highest end that money can buy. Once they get 60-core chips (projected by Intel in a 5 year timeframe), even high end users will only buy what they need.
Again if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
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Windows 7 isn't officially out yet and while I personally don't see it being a match for OS X, others will. Once their software gets to the point where Apple run out of reasons to make fun of it, they have next to no selling point. It was clear from Bertrand Serlet's presentation at the last keynote, they are running out of reason to knock Windows. The sum total of his argument basically amounted to 'it's still Windows'.
Windows 7 is being touted as "we got it right this time" will do much to sway people one way or the other.
Serlet's point was exactly that "its still Windows". It still uses DLL's, the registry, disk defragmentation. All of these elements that have been the cause of Windows problems.
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My argument is from the consumer point of view remember, not Apple's. I am saying I think their desktop machines are bad value for money. I'm not expecting them to match the value but I think they are off the mark.
Apple's sales and revenue don't tell this story
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I meant for working on the machine using apps, for example, the Macbook Pro 15" should have 1680 x 1050. Pro apps tend to have a lot of panels and 1440 x 900 is a bit too low.
I can agree it would be nice if the top 15" MBP had a 1920x1200 screen. Without Blu-ray and most web based video doesn't go past 1280x720, Apple likely feels 1440x900 is good enough for the majority of people.
In one sense computers have already gotten to that point. Today the cheapest computer can surf the web, write emails, and word process with no problem. To do these common tasks does not require a $1000+ machine.
The reason why $1000+ machines continue to sell. Is because software development is not static. Software continues to push hardware. The more capable hardware becomes the more software pushes its functionality.
You continue to only come from one definition of "value". That definition is price. Value can mean different things under different circumstances. For people who buy premium products value does not mean price.
Mobile phones are already the next consumer computers. As I said earlier notebooks are now what desktops used to be, smartphones are now what notebooks used to be.
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
The value of Apple's hardware is simply your personal opinion. In truth they compromise in one area to add value in another area. The iMac is selling extremely well.
Again if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
Windows 7 is being touted as "we got it right this time" will do much to sway people one way or the other.
Serlet's point was exactly that "its still Windows". It still uses DLL's, the registry, disk defragmentation. All of these elements that have been the cause of Windows problems.
Apple's sales and revenue don't tell this story
I can agree it would be nice if the top 15" MBP had a 1920x1200 screen. Without Blu-ray and most web based video doesn't go past 1280x720, Apple likely feels 1440x900 is good enough for the majority of people.
You can talk about value, markups, features, and other BS marketing terminology until you are blue in the face. The only thing that matters here is that Windows 7 is still a broken system (DLLs, registry, viruses, etc) and will deliver a shitty user experience. A mac equipped with Leopard, to me, is worth 10-times as much as apple asks for due to the mind-boggling amount of extra time, productivity and peace of mind they afford me over Winblows (any version) and all the mind-lobotomizing clusterf(@$*ck that is spending 10 minutes using that fuu@*(#cking hell of OS.
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
...
We're already at this point, the average machine can do just about anything a typical user needs. Consumers will buy what marketing tells them they need though.
You actually think all computers will be portable eventually?
It's almost as if you didn't read everything I wrote about repetitive strain injuries
Ah, but you don't have to use a laptop in that way for long periods of time. The designers I work beside used to have iMacs but due to screen faults, ditched them and went for Macbook Pros with external screens, keyboards and mice so no strain.
No disadvantages and they can buy a better main screen when they want, they get the MBP screen as a second display for messages, web pages and they can take it home when they need to work at home or take it away for a presentation.
They are easy to upgrade, the display replacements are cheap and to buy, they aren't any more expensive than iMacs yet retain their value better.
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Originally Posted by dfiler
Carrying around electronics is a hindrance, not a convenience. The goal is not to carry around a computer, but to be able to use a computer in more places.
I would disagree - it adds a level of insecurity I'm not comfortable with. I'd rather my iphone did everything.
Ideally, I'd eventually like a watch to do this too - you'd just walk up to a display terminal somewhere and you could access your personal data but all data and processing is on the watch. Woz mentioned this concept at one point.
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Originally Posted by WPLJ42
Marvin ... About this time machine of yours??? Maybe you are on to something though. Check this out
That is an interesting development and pretty cheap too. ARM will of course cause compatibility issues in the short term with software binaries but it has clear advantages. Up to 15 hours of battery life.
Just 15 years ago, we had desktop machines running at sub-100MHz with just 16MB Ram and 250MB of drive space. An ipod today has a 600MHz CPU, 256MB Ram and 32GB of storage. People are generally happy with mobile performance now. In 10 years, maybe less, they will put that performance into a phone.
The next consoles will achieve photoreal because they have hardware tessellation and fully programmable shaders that execute generic code.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
Laptops currently do replace desktops for a lot of people so I believe one day smartphones will eventually replace the notebook.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TenoBell
if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
Sure but if you can encode an HD movie in 3 minutes on a 30-core and 2 minutes on a 60-core, which will you buy? It doesn't really matter. In the end it's about how well computers service our needs. Unless our needs get far more complex, we'll satisfy it fairly soon. I'm not talking about processing that requires supercomputer processing running continuously but things that most people would need.
The highest end personal need I see is in 3D content creation regarding animation be it games or post-production work. As I say, once GPUs like the R770 get into mobile form, there's no point in going faster because the quality of the content won't get better than photoreal.
Ah, but you don't have to use a laptop in that way for long periods of time. The designers I work beside used to have iMacs but due to screen faults, ditched them and went for Macbook Pros with external screens, keyboards and mice so no strain.
No disadvantages and they can buy a better main screen when they want, they get the MBP screen as a second display for messages, web pages and they can take it home when they need to work at home or take it away for a presentation.
They are easy to upgrade, the display replacements are cheap and to buy, they aren't any more expensive than iMacs yet retain their value better.
I would disagree - it adds a level of insecurity I'm not comfortable with. I'd rather my iphone did everything.
I'm familiar with the laptop scenario you describe. As the IT manager at a small company, i've signed off on quite a few setups like that. It is an excellent solution for quite a few users, but it is entirely dogmatic to claim that there are no disadvantages.
Before I get to that list of disadvantages, just one word for you... servers.
Are servers going to be laptops too?
The primary disadvantage is cost. The cost of a docked laptop, external, display, and peripherals is significantly more than an equivalent workstation. Quite a bit of the hardware is more expensive and much of it duplicate; pointing device, keyboard, display, power supply, etc.
Batteries cost money to buy and also to discard. There will always be a market for non-battery powered computers.
Repair is more difficult and the parts are more expensive. My desktop support people can swap out a dead workstation graphics card in 5 minutes flat. Not so easy in a laptop.
Then there are a variety of security issues. Some companies take extreme measures to prevent employees from taking data home. Believe it or not, some companies lock away everything but the display and input peripherals. There is also the concern of laptops being lost or stolen when out of the building. Our business laptops now come with built in encryption at a lower level than the OS. This is useful but is also less flexible than allowing secure access to data over the internet. If a laptop is stolen, you'll never be 100% sure that the data wasn't accessed.
Let me reassure laptop lovers that i'm not saying laptops are bad. I'm just pointing out that there are, and always will be, scenarios in which portable computers are less desirable than stationary ones.
The future I envision is a mixture of a variety of form factors. Most people will have a pocket computer, a portable computer, and a number of locations at which they have access to a full blown computing setup. This might be just at work but will also frequently include the living room or home theater display, a home office setup, and perhaps more limited computers in the kitchen, car, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Basically, anyplace with a display screen will become an interactive computing environment. When these things get cheap, sure we'll have portable computers. But stationary computers will remain and probably even rise in popularity. Why carry around a box of electronics when you don't have to?
TVs can be portable but most people choose stationary versions. Boomboxes became far less popular when it became cheap enough to put a radio/music-source in every room of the home. I predict the same for computers. Laptops will continue to be wildly popular and even become more popular in the short and medium term. But further in the future, as prices drop, I predict that people will buy multiple stationary computers to station around the home. They'll still have a laptop, but carrying it around and docking it will be seen as a primitive and cumbersome requirement.
dfiler ... Excellent post! I always enjoy reading stuff from Marvin, but can't agree with this disappearing desktop scenario. Perhaps the Apple config of the near future could be a Mac Pro doing all the work and Apple TV in all the other rooms, hooked up to TVs with touch screens and/or multi-function remotes. dfiler ... Did you really say bathroom?
You've never blogged from the toilet or twittered while showering? Life must be so incomplete.
I predict that eventually everyone will have displays embedded in their showers at home. It is the perfect place to catch up on traffic, weather, and a bit of news before heading out in the morning for work. And of course, wherever there is a display in the future, there will also be a computer. Or at least an interaction capable display hooked up to either remote or local computing resources.
Shower computers will likely be touch screen, capable of selecting what to watch or perhaps for things such as text-to-speech of email. Imagine an iPhone like interface embedded in the wall. When the technology gets cheap, lots of people will want this... and our last bastion of leisure, our last technology-free zone will be gone forever.
Somehow though, I can't picture a laptop in the shower. Toilet maybe, shower no.
Well, if somehow the computer could understand me, and follow instructions, now that would be different. So far, Apple has made no reference to a robot. It would be handy if said robot would bring a bar of soap, a fresh towel, or more importantly, a new spool. If twittering is a sound, then I've done that.
Before I get to that list of disadvantages, just one word for you... servers.
Are servers going to be laptops too?
They won't be laptops but they won't be desktops as we know them - also, technically they would be servers, not desktops either although desktop machines are used. Large desktops require a significant amount of power and cooling. The future is green so those machines can't stay around.
Right now, people are using Apple TVs and Minis for colocation servers. But you can run a website from your iphone. It's better running 1000x 1W (not sure exactly on the power) machines than 1000x 110W machines.
It's better for scalability to go smaller. If technology jumps as much in the next 10 years as it has in the last 10, it can happen. In 10 years 200MHz -> 2 x 2000MHz and it's over 20x the speed as clock seed alone isn't enough. Another 10 years and we can get another 20x by adding more cores as well as bumping the speed. Maybe sooner.
It seems like a bad idea to use laptops for servers but if a laptop in 10 years can take the place of 20 or more current desktop size servers, there's no need to go for the bigger machines. They could be like today's blade servers (like the bottom part of a laptop without the keyboard and optical unit).
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
Batteries cost money to buy and also to discard. There will always be a market for non-battery powered computers.
Today's batteries do. Admittedly they haven't progressed much over the years but there is the possibility for far better battery tech in future. I'd personally prefer all machines to have batteries as it saves having to think about a UPS device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
Repair is more difficult and the parts are more expensive. My desktop support people can swap out a dead workstation graphics card in 5 minutes flat. Not so easy in a laptop.
Graphics chips won't always be external though, they are moving onto the processor or at least integrated. 2010 will see the beginning of this change. The need for better and better graphics is not infinite. People always say all things are infinite like the need for storage, processing and GPU but our needs are finite. Once they get an integrated GPU that can output photoreal 1080p or higher on multiple screens in real-time, there is nothing else to aim for. It won't be worth-while for companies to make external GPUs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
Then there are a variety of security issues. Some companies take extreme measures to prevent employees from taking data home.
Secure web access as you mentioned will probably be the route they take but employees can get 24/7 access using a mobile device e.g. SSH over iphone 3G. Future mobile networks will be much faster.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
stationary computers will remain and probably even rise in popularity. Why carry around a box of electronics when you don't have to?
Why have a stationary box you can't carry when you need to? The mobile device gives you the choice to leave the box of electronics behind but the option to take it with you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
TVs can be portable but most people choose stationary versions. Boomboxes became far less popular when it became cheap enough to put a radio/music-source in every room of the home.
The Sony Walkman killed the Boombox and the ipod killed that.
Large TVs and displays I agree will have to remain stationary but they could connect seamlessly to our personal devices.
That's a whole hell of a lot of work to try and justify that stationary computers will completely disappear.
To take a step back, let's look at the crux of the issue.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
...
Why have a stationary box you can't carry when you need to?
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That frames the issue strangely in my opinion. It makes more sense as, "why carry something around when you don't need to?"
Certainly, pocket computers are different then portable computers like laptops. Pocket computers can be carried everywhere without much incurred inconvenience. Larger portable computers such as laptops are terribly inconvenient. The reason why we're willing to carry them around is that they allow us to accomplish a great deal. The tradeoff is worth it. When we can accomplish the same things without carrying a box around, that's preferable.
And as always, the caveat so that the above isn't misunderstood. Laptops are great and will continue to be used. Portable computers can be used in environments where computing would otherwise be impossible. But they just won't completely replace stationary computers. I'm baffled that anyone would claim otherwise.
Comments
So any brand catering to the upper middle class is underhanded and has a negative stereotype.
The latter yes, the former wasn't what I said. All manufacturers are hitting the end-point of growth as people realize that laptop hardware is enough. Apple are trying to hold this back while other manufacturers race to the bottom.
For longevity, I agree that racing to the bottom offering the best performance for the lowest price is a fast way to go out of business. Switching to laptop hardware is delaying the inevitable.
Their next move in a few years presumably will be to switch to iphone hardware. I'm not entirely against this strategy when the hardware gets up to speed but at times like the present, Mac hardware is being left far behind the value curve because of it.
It's true that what constitutes value is not the same for everyone but the value I see in some of their products can't be experienced by a lot of people because of the bad value in other areas.
As long as their products are selling they aren't too overpriced or too underpowered for the target market.
Not necessarily. Their OS is a great system and some parts of their hardware are good. People are sometimes willing to pay over the odds weighing up various factors but the purchase doesn't mean it's suited to that person entirely.
I know a number of people with 15" MBPs who bought them because they wanted a 15" Mac laptop with a warranty. No performance requirements, no specific features. They would have bought a 15" Celeron MBP with 9400M, 120GB HDD, no ExpressCard or SD or isight or backlit keyboard and Apple could have made the same profit, they would have saved money and they would have the exact same experience they have now.
The iPhone suffers the same "bang for the buck" comparisons with other phones with more features (better cameras, better BT, better battery life, blah blah) locked into AT&T.
Interesting point because the iphone hardware is actually among the best hardware you can buy in a phone spec-wise and yet competes on price with the competition.
Yah, maybe Steve should buy everyone a pony too.
A Mac Pro would be more useful but I suspect the pony would be cheaper.
People who can't justify the cost of the machine, will never experience Mac OS. That is sad.
I feel that way too and clearly people want to experience it but decide to hack it onto their PC instead of paying a lot more money on a computer used to do basic tasks - ironically the kind of tasks OS X is designed to make very easy.
Perhaps it's overpriced, but it's not "half the performance for twice the price," either. Especially when you factor in that it's the only tower in the world capable of (legally) running OSX.
The towers aren't half the performance for twice the price, the iMac is. The Mac Pro is 10-20% higher performance for 3-4x the price and you jump from 2 threads to 8 between iMac and Mac Pro.
Apple's trend seems to be to keep driving a wedge between home user and someone who needs the most cores they can get. One day will come when even the Mac Pro is unnecessary though and the iMac. What will the strategy be then? Lowering the price but by that point, the market share will likely still be a small minority so do they just die out?
The answer will lie in how good the competition gets software and hardware-wise. The progression to high-performance in smaller packages and the maturing of competing OSs is taking away Apple's edge.
pret auto
The latter yes, the former wasn't what I said. All manufacturers are hitting the end-point of growth as people realize that laptop hardware is enough. Apple are trying to hold this back while other manufacturers race to the bottom.
I'm trying to understand the context of your statement about "end point of growth". What is Apple trying to hold back?
Their next move in a few years presumably will be to switch to iphone hardware. I'm not entirely against this strategy when the hardware gets up to speed but at times like the present, Mac hardware is being left far behind the value curve because of it.
Are you saying Apple will use iPhone hardware in the iMac? That's certainly taking the presumption too far.
To say iMac hardware is being left behind is only one particular point of view. The other side of it is the ability to built a thin AIO that is energy efficient and quiet. To accomplish this requires some advanced design and some speed compromise.
It's true that what constitutes value is not the same for everyone but the value I see in some of their products can't be experienced by a lot of people because of the bad value in other areas.
This statement is cryptic and difficult to understand.
Not necessarily. Their OS is a great system and some parts of their hardware are good. People are sometimes willing to pay over the odds weighing up various factors but the purchase doesn't mean it's suited to that person entirely.
Everyone will have their personal preferences. No computer manufacturer could meet them all.
I know a number of people with 15" MBPs who bought them because they wanted a 15" Mac laptop with a warranty. No performance requirements, no specific features. They would have bought a 15" Celeron MBP with 9400M, 120GB HDD, no ExpressCard or SD or isight or backlit keyboard and Apple could have made the same profit, they would have saved money and they would have the exact same experience they have now.
This confuses me because earlier you were saying Apple was falling behind in hardware. Here you advocate them using Celeron which would put them years behind.
I feel that way too and clearly people want to experience it but decide to hack it onto their PC instead of paying a lot more money on a computer used to do basic tasks - ironically the kind of tasks OS X is designed to make very easy.
I doubt this is the common reason for hacking. I bet most of the people in the hacking community would use this option regardless of what Apple charged.
Apple's trend seems to be to keep driving a wedge between home user and someone who needs the most cores they can get. One day will come when even the Mac Pro is unnecessary though and the iMac. What will the strategy be then? Lowering the price but by that point, the market share will likely still be a small minority so do they just die out?
Apple is following where the market is going. For most consumers the Mac Pro is already unnecessary and unwanted. So Apple is targeting the Mac Pro towards the high end workstation market, while targeting notebooks to the common consumer market. Sales clearly show this follows where the consumer market is going.
The Mac Pro will never be unnecessary for those who need workstation performance.
The answer will lie in how good the competition gets software and hardware-wise. The progression to high-performance in smaller packages and the maturing of competing OSs is taking away Apple's edge.
The history of computers is the progression of high performance in smaller packages, that's nothing new.
What competing OS are you suggesting that is maturing? Apple's main OS competition is Windows and its pretty mature today. What more maturing do you believe it needs?
I agree, what I'm saying is how long does the iMac have to go before Apple get rid of it too? If laptop purchases are made because people don't want static desktops then the iMac will surely suffer the same fate.
Apple will likely stop making the iMac, when the iMac stops making them profit.
Not really - they noted themselves that the number of users has tripled in the last 2 years i.e since the iphone was introduced. Taking the iphone out of the equation, their Mac prices have systematically risen to the point where a Mac Pro is out of most people's price range and they offer laptop chips in everything below this at substantially higher cost than PC manufacturers.
Because the Mac Pro is a workstation, and the consumer market doesn't want workstations.
They appear to be milking the iphone status and profiting highly on their Macs. It shows an ugly side to Apple that even when people are struggling financially that they push their price points higher. They even said they would cut back on profit margins and that was a blatant lie because it hasn't happened.
One has nothing to do with the other. You are saying Apple should voluntarily make less money because the economy is in a downturn. Inspite of the fact that people are still buying Apple products in the economic downturn.
I was just pointing out when someone dismissed the screen resolution that Apple also have poor screen resolutions and they don't support Blu-Ray at all and yet are still twice the price.
The resolution isn't the important factor in screen quality. The screen resolution is only important if you need to look at high resolution images. The more important metrics of screen quality is brightness, color reproduction, contrast ratio, viewing angle.
A 1920x1200 screen may not be very bright, have crappy color reproduction, crappy contrast ratio, and crappy viewing angle. The resolution doesn't entirely matter for over all quality.
The resolution does matter if the computer has a Blu-ray drive.
I'm trying to understand the context of your statement about "end point of growth". What is Apple trying to hold back?
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
What Apple do is cut off all options from the consumer that give them great value at their expense in order to maximize profit. You want a 24" iMac, you have to pay for an IPS with a high-end chipset. You want a matte laptop, you have to pay $2,500. You want a quad core, you have to pay $2,500. They could offer these things at a significantly better value to the consumer but choose not to in the interest of holding onto their growth but that growth is to do with their value in other areas like software.
Are you saying Apple will use iPhone hardware in the iMac? That's certainly taking the presumption too far.
Eventually, I believe mobile phones will be the next consumer computers. Right now they are 600MHz ARM. With the Cortex A9 next year they move to multi-core. It will be a few years off but mobile hardware will reach that point of being enough. The Nvidia Tegra demo showed how you can slot a mobile into a laptop case and do most of what a netbook is expected to do and this will be in the Zune HD this year.
This statement is cryptic and difficult to understand.
Apple has good software but bad value hardware.
This confuses me because earlier you were saying Apple was falling behind in hardware. Here you advocate them using Celeron which would put them years behind.
In terms of options and value they are behind.
Sales clearly show this follows where the consumer market is going.
Sales show people buying notebooks not expensive notebook-style desktops.
The Mac Pro will never be unnecessary for those who need workstation performance.
That depends on what Intel do but I don't consider workstation performance to be a term that will always mean the highest end that money can buy. Once they get 60-core chips (projected by Intel in a 5 year timeframe), even high end users will only buy what they need.
What competing OS are you suggesting that is maturing? Apple's main OS competition is Windows and its pretty mature today. What more maturing do you believe it needs?
Windows 7 isn't officially out yet and while I personally don't see it being a match for OS X, others will. Once their software gets to the point where Apple run out of reasons to make fun of it, they have next to no selling point. It was clear from Bertrand Serlet's presentation at the last keynote, they are running out of reason to knock Windows. The sum total of his argument basically amounted to 'it's still Windows'.
One has nothing to do with the other. You are saying Apple should voluntarily make less money because the economy is in a downturn. Inspite of the fact that people are still buying Apple products in the economic downturn.
My argument is from the consumer point of view remember, not Apple's. I am saying I think their desktop machines are bad value for money. I'm not expecting them to match the value but I think they are off the mark.
Like I say though, it's not so much how they price what they have but what they offer.
Even putting the quad in the iMac isn't really going to be a good idea:
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/sho...px?i=3446&p=10
Like I say, I think their laptops are pretty good but they still don't offer a value laptop to allow the less than upper-middle-class to get a better software experience.
The resolution doesn't entirely matter for over all quality.
I meant for working on the machine using apps, for example, the Macbook Pro 15" should have 1680 x 1050. Pro apps tend to have a lot of panels and 1440 x 900 is a bit too low.
Two examples.
Here at work we use computers in a manufacturing environment. There are a number of physical environment, input, and display constraints that make laptops unsuitable for the tasks at hand.
Having suffered severe repetative strain injuries, I'll never be able to use laptops for an extended period of time. Having the display a fixed distance from the keyboard is the deal breaker for me.
There are many other examples too numerous to list. Not that I'm saying laptops are bad, but rather that desktops aren't going anywhere. They'll always be superior for some tasks and users and the market is big enough to support many form factors.
The trend toward increased reliance on portable computing is clear. But stationary computers will never disappear.
I think they will disappear eventually.
In a decade or so, imagine an iphone or similar product of whatever companies are still around.
You take this to work with you and just plug it into a screen.
If you need to work on a journey somewhere, unplug it from the screen and drop it into a tablet dock.
If you need it to play your movies, take it home and plug it into your TV.
Need to do a presentation, plug it into your projector.
Did I say plug? I meant sit it near these screens and it will transmit the video over a wireless connection.
One device and multiple inputs/outputs, whether it's a keyboard, a touch screen, an IPS screen, a laptop dock, a projector.
The future is modular and that's why I think the iMac will disappear just like PC desktop towers. The problem is that when you need to take your data with you quickly, you can't. A laptop, you can just pick it up and go.
How do you use an iMac in bed? You can't.
How do you take an iMac on a journey? You can't.
The ARM Cortex A9 in 2010 will go up to quad core 1GHz in a 250 mW per core envelope. Couple this with a decent graphics chip that is capable of processing and you've got better than a 2009 netbook experience on a mobile phone.
Given this, you might ask what the objection is with Apple's offerings. If we are progressing towards smaller and smaller components, surely it makes perfect sense to keep shrinking the machines down.
In a way it does but what's the point in selling a machine with laptop hardware at the same price as an actual laptop with the same performance but you can't take anywhere?
The Mini I get because it works as a server and a media center. That can't be replaced by a laptop in its current form. The Mac Pro I get because it is a powerful machine even though I would rather the entry point was more accessible. The iMac I don't get.
The whole idea with the iMac is that you get laptop hardware at a much cheaper price but right now it's not. This article says there's a rumored price cut coming:
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/m...s-say-2009072/
I think this is the only way to address the bad value I see in their lineup. $200 off the iMac price. $100 off the Mini. If they can cut the Mac Pro line too, it would be good.
I think they will disappear eventually.
You actually think all computers will be portable eventually?
It's almost as if you didn't read everything I wrote about repetitive strain injuries, and that's just one example.
Here are a few more caveats to hopefully curb that rather dogmatic position that all computers will eventually be portable:
* Clipboards haven't replaced desks even though they're more portable.
* Portable TVs haven't replaced stationary TVs.
* Carrying around electronics is a hindrance, not a convenience. The goal is not to carry around a computer, but to be able to use a computer in more places. If the place you're going already has a massive screen, and dedicated/ergonomic/efficient input devices, then being forced to carry a box around is not the optimal solution.
Now before everyone jumps up and down in support of laptops, please note that I'm not trying to suggest that there is something wrong with laptops, nor that they won't be popular. I've only pointed out that there are, and will always be, scenarios in which stationary computers are more optimal.
The fact people are buying more laptops doesn't mean it's ok to have your desktop line 2-3x more expensive than PC manufacturers and still performing at half the speed.
To say 'well more people are buying laptops anyway so it doesn't matter' diverts away from the real issue - that Apple's consumer desktops are bad value for money.
What they should do is just scrap the iMac lineup and drop the price of their Macbook Pros a little and introduce a cheap TN 24" display to go with it.
The 2.66GHz iMac is £949, 2GB Ram, 9400M
The 2.26GHz MBP is £899, 2GB Ram, 9400M
The 24" 3.06GHz iMac is £1799, 4GB Ram, GT130
The 15" 3.06GHz MBP is £1939, 4GB Ram, 9600M GT
The GPUs are close in terms of performance and it's not as if people are buying close to £2000 equipment to play games.
People might say but if Apple drop the high end MBP by £130, you still need to spend £200 for a 24" TN panel. But then you're getting dual displays and you get portability as well as the ability to upgrade your HDD.
You lose the IPS display but people who need one can buy one 3rd party (or E-IPS, S-PVA etc) or buy Apple's IPS display.
Then the lineup becomes:
Mini - for servers and the multitude of applications for a small desktop.
13" MBP for most users with additional 24" TN display as BTO.
15" MBP for higher end with additional display.
Mac Pro for the highest end raw power.
I think one thing holding back the switch will be hard drive capacity. But once we hit 1TB 2.5" drives next year, no problem.
Again here we go with the fixation on cpu speed and gigabytes of RAM: it does not matter. When you are running something like Windows Vista you could have a Cray 2 supercomputer and it would still be a steaming pile of turd.
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
In one sense computers have already gotten to that point. Today the cheapest computer can surf the web, write emails, and word process with no problem. To do these common tasks does not require a $1000+ machine.
The reason why $1000+ machines continue to sell. Is because software development is not static. Software continues to push hardware. The more capable hardware becomes the more software pushes its functionality.
What Apple do is cut off all options from the consumer that give them great value at their expense in order to maximize profit.
You continue to only come from one definition of "value". That definition is price. Value can mean different things under different circumstances. For people who buy premium products value does not mean price.
Eventually, I believe mobile phones will be the next consumer computers. Right now they are 600MHz ARM. With the Cortex A9 next year they move to multi-core. It will be a few years off but mobile hardware will reach that point of being enough. The Nvidia Tegra demo showed how you can slot a mobile into a laptop case and do most of what a netbook is expected to do and this will be in the Zune HD this year.
Mobile phones are already the next consumer computers. As I said earlier notebooks are now what desktops used to be, smartphones are now what notebooks used to be.
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
Apple has good software but bad value hardware. In terms of options and value they are behind. Sales show people buying notebooks not expensive notebook-style desktops.
The value of Apple's hardware is simply your personal opinion. In truth they compromise in one area to add value in another area. The iMac is selling extremely well.
That depends on what Intel do but I don't consider workstation performance to be a term that will always mean the highest end that money can buy. Once they get 60-core chips (projected by Intel in a 5 year timeframe), even high end users will only buy what they need.
Again if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
Windows 7 isn't officially out yet and while I personally don't see it being a match for OS X, others will. Once their software gets to the point where Apple run out of reasons to make fun of it, they have next to no selling point. It was clear from Bertrand Serlet's presentation at the last keynote, they are running out of reason to knock Windows. The sum total of his argument basically amounted to 'it's still Windows'.
Windows 7 is being touted as "we got it right this time" will do much to sway people one way or the other.
Serlet's point was exactly that "its still Windows". It still uses DLL's, the registry, disk defragmentation. All of these elements that have been the cause of Windows problems.
My argument is from the consumer point of view remember, not Apple's. I am saying I think their desktop machines are bad value for money. I'm not expecting them to match the value but I think they are off the mark.
Apple's sales and revenue don't tell this story
I meant for working on the machine using apps, for example, the Macbook Pro 15" should have 1680 x 1050. Pro apps tend to have a lot of panels and 1440 x 900 is a bit too low.
I can agree it would be nice if the top 15" MBP had a 1920x1200 screen. Without Blu-ray and most web based video doesn't go past 1280x720, Apple likely feels 1440x900 is good enough for the majority of people.
In one sense computers have already gotten to that point. Today the cheapest computer can surf the web, write emails, and word process with no problem. To do these common tasks does not require a $1000+ machine.
The reason why $1000+ machines continue to sell. Is because software development is not static. Software continues to push hardware. The more capable hardware becomes the more software pushes its functionality.
You continue to only come from one definition of "value". That definition is price. Value can mean different things under different circumstances. For people who buy premium products value does not mean price.
Mobile phones are already the next consumer computers. As I said earlier notebooks are now what desktops used to be, smartphones are now what notebooks used to be.
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
The value of Apple's hardware is simply your personal opinion. In truth they compromise in one area to add value in another area. The iMac is selling extremely well.
Again if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
Windows 7 is being touted as "we got it right this time" will do much to sway people one way or the other.
Serlet's point was exactly that "its still Windows". It still uses DLL's, the registry, disk defragmentation. All of these elements that have been the cause of Windows problems.
Apple's sales and revenue don't tell this story
I can agree it would be nice if the top 15" MBP had a 1920x1200 screen. Without Blu-ray and most web based video doesn't go past 1280x720, Apple likely feels 1440x900 is good enough for the majority of people.
You can talk about value, markups, features, and other BS marketing terminology until you are blue in the face. The only thing that matters here is that Windows 7 is still a broken system (DLLs, registry, viruses, etc) and will deliver a shitty user experience. A mac equipped with Leopard, to me, is worth 10-times as much as apple asks for due to the mind-boggling amount of extra time, productivity and peace of mind they afford me over Winblows (any version) and all the mind-lobotomizing clusterf(@$*ck that is spending 10 minutes using that fuu@*(#cking hell of OS.
Eventually computers will reach a point where a certain level of performance is enough and consumers then just look for the cheapest price. The netbook market has shown how close we are to this point. Some people look at the MBA and see the MSI Wind for a fraction of the price and choose to put OS X onto it.
...
We're already at this point, the average machine can do just about anything a typical user needs. Consumers will buy what marketing tells them they need though.
You actually think all computers will be portable eventually?
It's almost as if you didn't read everything I wrote about repetitive strain injuries
Ah, but you don't have to use a laptop in that way for long periods of time. The designers I work beside used to have iMacs but due to screen faults, ditched them and went for Macbook Pros with external screens, keyboards and mice so no strain.
No disadvantages and they can buy a better main screen when they want, they get the MBP screen as a second display for messages, web pages and they can take it home when they need to work at home or take it away for a presentation.
They are easy to upgrade, the display replacements are cheap and to buy, they aren't any more expensive than iMacs yet retain their value better.
Carrying around electronics is a hindrance, not a convenience. The goal is not to carry around a computer, but to be able to use a computer in more places.
I would disagree - it adds a level of insecurity I'm not comfortable with. I'd rather my iphone did everything.
Ideally, I'd eventually like a watch to do this too - you'd just walk up to a display terminal somewhere and you could access your personal data but all data and processing is on the watch. Woz mentioned this concept at one point.
Marvin ... About this time machine of yours??? Maybe you are on to something though. Check this out
That is an interesting development and pretty cheap too. ARM will of course cause compatibility issues in the short term with software binaries but it has clear advantages. Up to 15 hours of battery life.
Just 15 years ago, we had desktop machines running at sub-100MHz with just 16MB Ram and 250MB of drive space. An ipod today has a 600MHz CPU, 256MB Ram and 32GB of storage. People are generally happy with mobile performance now. In 10 years, maybe less, they will put that performance into a phone.
The next consoles will achieve photoreal because they have hardware tessellation and fully programmable shaders that execute generic code.
As in the past notebooks were not able to fully replace the functionality of desktops, smartphones will never be able to fully replace the functionality of notebooks.
Laptops currently do replace desktops for a lot of people so I believe one day smartphones will eventually replace the notebook.
if Intel makes 60 core processors, high end software will make use of all 60 cores.
Sure but if you can encode an HD movie in 3 minutes on a 30-core and 2 minutes on a 60-core, which will you buy? It doesn't really matter. In the end it's about how well computers service our needs. Unless our needs get far more complex, we'll satisfy it fairly soon. I'm not talking about processing that requires supercomputer processing running continuously but things that most people would need.
The highest end personal need I see is in 3D content creation regarding animation be it games or post-production work. As I say, once GPUs like the R770 get into mobile form, there's no point in going faster because the quality of the content won't get better than photoreal.
Ah, but you don't have to use a laptop in that way for long periods of time. The designers I work beside used to have iMacs but due to screen faults, ditched them and went for Macbook Pros with external screens, keyboards and mice so no strain.
No disadvantages and they can buy a better main screen when they want, they get the MBP screen as a second display for messages, web pages and they can take it home when they need to work at home or take it away for a presentation.
They are easy to upgrade, the display replacements are cheap and to buy, they aren't any more expensive than iMacs yet retain their value better.
I would disagree - it adds a level of insecurity I'm not comfortable with. I'd rather my iphone did everything.
I'm familiar with the laptop scenario you describe. As the IT manager at a small company, i've signed off on quite a few setups like that. It is an excellent solution for quite a few users, but it is entirely dogmatic to claim that there are no disadvantages.
Before I get to that list of disadvantages, just one word for you... servers.
Are servers going to be laptops too?
The primary disadvantage is cost. The cost of a docked laptop, external, display, and peripherals is significantly more than an equivalent workstation. Quite a bit of the hardware is more expensive and much of it duplicate; pointing device, keyboard, display, power supply, etc.
Batteries cost money to buy and also to discard. There will always be a market for non-battery powered computers.
Repair is more difficult and the parts are more expensive. My desktop support people can swap out a dead workstation graphics card in 5 minutes flat. Not so easy in a laptop.
Then there are a variety of security issues. Some companies take extreme measures to prevent employees from taking data home. Believe it or not, some companies lock away everything but the display and input peripherals. There is also the concern of laptops being lost or stolen when out of the building. Our business laptops now come with built in encryption at a lower level than the OS. This is useful but is also less flexible than allowing secure access to data over the internet. If a laptop is stolen, you'll never be 100% sure that the data wasn't accessed.
Let me reassure laptop lovers that i'm not saying laptops are bad. I'm just pointing out that there are, and always will be, scenarios in which portable computers are less desirable than stationary ones.
The future I envision is a mixture of a variety of form factors. Most people will have a pocket computer, a portable computer, and a number of locations at which they have access to a full blown computing setup. This might be just at work but will also frequently include the living room or home theater display, a home office setup, and perhaps more limited computers in the kitchen, car, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Basically, anyplace with a display screen will become an interactive computing environment. When these things get cheap, sure we'll have portable computers. But stationary computers will remain and probably even rise in popularity. Why carry around a box of electronics when you don't have to?
TVs can be portable but most people choose stationary versions. Boomboxes became far less popular when it became cheap enough to put a radio/music-source in every room of the home. I predict the same for computers. Laptops will continue to be wildly popular and even become more popular in the short and medium term. But further in the future, as prices drop, I predict that people will buy multiple stationary computers to station around the home. They'll still have a laptop, but carrying it around and docking it will be seen as a primitive and cumbersome requirement.
Did you really say bathroom?
lol, yep.
You've never blogged from the toilet or twittered while showering? Life must be so incomplete.
I predict that eventually everyone will have displays embedded in their showers at home. It is the perfect place to catch up on traffic, weather, and a bit of news before heading out in the morning for work. And of course, wherever there is a display in the future, there will also be a computer. Or at least an interaction capable display hooked up to either remote or local computing resources.
Shower computers will likely be touch screen, capable of selecting what to watch or perhaps for things such as text-to-speech of email. Imagine an iPhone like interface embedded in the wall. When the technology gets cheap, lots of people will want this... and our last bastion of leisure, our last technology-free zone will be gone forever.
Somehow though, I can't picture a laptop in the shower. Toilet maybe, shower no.
Before I get to that list of disadvantages, just one word for you... servers.
Are servers going to be laptops too?
They won't be laptops but they won't be desktops as we know them - also, technically they would be servers, not desktops either although desktop machines are used. Large desktops require a significant amount of power and cooling. The future is green so those machines can't stay around.
Right now, people are using Apple TVs and Minis for colocation servers. But you can run a website from your iphone. It's better running 1000x 1W (not sure exactly on the power) machines than 1000x 110W machines.
It's better for scalability to go smaller. If technology jumps as much in the next 10 years as it has in the last 10, it can happen. In 10 years 200MHz -> 2 x 2000MHz and it's over 20x the speed as clock seed alone isn't enough. Another 10 years and we can get another 20x by adding more cores as well as bumping the speed. Maybe sooner.
It seems like a bad idea to use laptops for servers but if a laptop in 10 years can take the place of 20 or more current desktop size servers, there's no need to go for the bigger machines. They could be like today's blade servers (like the bottom part of a laptop without the keyboard and optical unit).
Batteries cost money to buy and also to discard. There will always be a market for non-battery powered computers.
Today's batteries do. Admittedly they haven't progressed much over the years but there is the possibility for far better battery tech in future. I'd personally prefer all machines to have batteries as it saves having to think about a UPS device.
Repair is more difficult and the parts are more expensive. My desktop support people can swap out a dead workstation graphics card in 5 minutes flat. Not so easy in a laptop.
Graphics chips won't always be external though, they are moving onto the processor or at least integrated. 2010 will see the beginning of this change. The need for better and better graphics is not infinite. People always say all things are infinite like the need for storage, processing and GPU but our needs are finite. Once they get an integrated GPU that can output photoreal 1080p or higher on multiple screens in real-time, there is nothing else to aim for. It won't be worth-while for companies to make external GPUs.
Then there are a variety of security issues. Some companies take extreme measures to prevent employees from taking data home.
Secure web access as you mentioned will probably be the route they take but employees can get 24/7 access using a mobile device e.g. SSH over iphone 3G. Future mobile networks will be much faster.
stationary computers will remain and probably even rise in popularity. Why carry around a box of electronics when you don't have to?
Why have a stationary box you can't carry when you need to? The mobile device gives you the choice to leave the box of electronics behind but the option to take it with you.
TVs can be portable but most people choose stationary versions. Boomboxes became far less popular when it became cheap enough to put a radio/music-source in every room of the home.
The Sony Walkman killed the Boombox and the ipod killed that.
Large TVs and displays I agree will have to remain stationary but they could connect seamlessly to our personal devices.
To take a step back, let's look at the crux of the issue.
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Why have a stationary box you can't carry when you need to?
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That frames the issue strangely in my opinion. It makes more sense as, "why carry something around when you don't need to?"
Certainly, pocket computers are different then portable computers like laptops. Pocket computers can be carried everywhere without much incurred inconvenience. Larger portable computers such as laptops are terribly inconvenient. The reason why we're willing to carry them around is that they allow us to accomplish a great deal. The tradeoff is worth it. When we can accomplish the same things without carrying a box around, that's preferable.
And as always, the caveat so that the above isn't misunderstood. Laptops are great and will continue to be used. Portable computers can be used in environments where computing would otherwise be impossible. But they just won't completely replace stationary computers. I'm baffled that anyone would claim otherwise.