Remember how it was common knowledge a few years ago that tablets were fated to completely replace PCs, that by 2016 PCs on a desk would be as rare as ethics in an investment bank?
Yeah, not so much. I was one of the few people pushing back against that idea, and I was right.
The problem with tablets is that they aren’t really all that portable (where a smartphone is better) and you can’t get anything done on them. A real computer is a far better productivity tool.
At least 60% (and probably more) of the fall of PC sales is due to the fact they last longer now — a five-year-old PC is just as good as a new one, which was not true at all for the first twenty years of personal computer history.
But apparently people were shocked that sales fall when the replacement rate declines.
Remember how it was common knowledge a few years ago that tablets were fated to completely replace PCs, that by 2016 PCs on a desk would be as rare as ethics in an investment bank?
No?
I thought everyone’s need to have functioning eyeballs and working wrists would militate against that? If I want to get things done and I need to transport it, I head for laptops. Otherwise I use a desktop with a nice screen.
At least 60% (and probably more) of the fall of PC sales is due to the fact they last longer now — a five-year-old PC is just as good as a new one, which was not true at all for the first twenty years of personal computer history.
I honestly thought it was because all of these computer manufacturers kept fucking up later iterations of their OS.
Yeah, it was all over the place for a while.
Since died off as it was never realistic that tablets replace PCs.
The OSes being terrible had something to do with it. Turns out people don’t want their work machines to run like a smartphone app with only one window and every element as large as Half Dome.
Who coulda known?