[mrgreenfur]

I wonder how much of this downturn is due to not much exciting hardware being release by manufacturers? Intel hasn't released anything much in the last few years, video cards are already overpowered for 99%, phones are pretty much all the same, etc.

Seems like there is no need to upgrade pc hardware or phones these days and VR/IoT hasn't really taken off in any way.

[sahaskatta]

I wouldn't agree. Innovation for portable laptop/tablet form factors had been slow for quite some time, but I think there's a small uptick again. Everything from the Razer Blade which supports a external dGPU to devices like Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book are pretty exciting.

On other fronts, $99 "laptop containers" which utilize your smartphone's computing power are popping up:

SuperBook: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andromium/the-superbook...

NexDock: http://nexdock.com/

And finally: $250 Chromebooks have started to get so good that it's actually viable replacement for a large portion of people who do most of their work in a browser anyways!

[mixmastamyk]

Yes, iPhone is also down because of incredible demand last year for the larger handsets. So this year, it is back down slightly below normal, but should even out next year.