[huijzer]

You are heavily downvoted, but I think you’re right. The Windows + Intel combo appears to be in serious trouble for the PC and laptop markets.

The main problem I see is the slowing of Moore’s law and Dennard’s scaling. It used to be that you didn’t have to innovate on a laptop. You only needed to get the state-of-the-art chip on board to beat the competition. This is less so nowadays as can be seen from the Apple laptops which have improved on all layers on the stack. The newest Intel or AMD laptop doesn’t necessarily beat a 2 years old Apple laptop performance and usability wise.

Regarding Windows, Microsoft does care according to the build conference from yesterday: they announced plugins inside Windows and other cool new features. However, according to Nadella, Google makes more money on a typical Windows laptop than Microsoft does. I think this partially explains why Windows seems to have stalled innovation wise.

[taylodl]

> Google makes more money on a typical Windows laptop than Microsoft does

I hadn't thought about it, but that's absolutely true! When you think of the Adsense network and the amount of money Google is making by typical consumer browser behavior, Google is making a lot more money than Microsoft on a typical Windows laptop.

The OS is now a commodity. Microsoft needs a new strategy.

[bmarquez]

> The OS is now a commodity. Microsoft needs a new strategy.

Unfortunately they're taking the Google approach. Removal of Windows local accounts, telemetry (with all of the privacy issues), advertising, etc.

[tomjen3]

Microsofts strategy is to be the Windows of AI.

[QuizzicalCarbon]

Coincidentally, Microsoft makes more money from Android than it does from Windows.

[com2kid]

> However, according to Nadella, Google makes more money on a typical Windows laptop than Microsoft does. I think this partially explains why Windows seems to have stalled innovation wise.

This is why MS is, and has been for a long time, desperate to get into the ads space. They have continually failed.

There is also the PR/image aspect. Google can non-stop show ads for Google products on Android and no one bats an eye, Microsoft asks people if they want to store files on OneDrive (which is a really nice service!) and people freak out about evil ads in Windows.

[cocoafleck]

I don't see any ads outside of the app store on Android (and obviously the web browser). Microsoft puts them in the start menu which seems very different to me (I would be very angry if Android put them in the launcher). I do customise my set up a great deal so I am curious to know if your experience matches mine.

[com2kid]

I get notifications pushed to me from Google Photos asking me to print my photos out and make photo albums.

I'll occasionally get an ad from Google books.

These can be turned off (notification channels), but I'm assuming most users don't know how to, and they are certainly on by default.

[eitally]

I'm in the market for a new personal laptop. At work for the past 7 years I've been using ChromeOS devices. At work currently I have an M1 MacBook Pro 16. In the past, I'd been running Linux on x86 essentially since Windows XP.

In reading the current state of things (and seeing how craptastic Windows 11 is on my son's Lenovo X1 Carbon), I actively do not want to buy a Windows machine. There are very few hardware vendors that seem to actually give a crap about providing a high quality product & user experience, and - although I was fanatical about my Thinkpad T40 back in the day - I've become jaded by my Pixelbook that "just works", and now my MacBook.

I don't believe, because only Google & Apple are able to control the whole stack, anyone building Windows-based laptops is actually able of creating the level of quality & polish consumers would like to see. That's said, but not unexpected. Microsoft & Intel should have anticipated this.

[AzzieElbab]

PC demand had always been a mystery to me. Ok, fine, I have to compile a lot of code and sometimes run k8 on my 4-year-old Linux laptop, but who else needs a powerful PC besides gamers(who mainly use consoles anyway) and graphics designers? ML is cloud-based these days, right?

[taylodl]

Have you seen modern CAD software? That's pretty compute intensive. That's just one of many tools in the engineering space that is compute intensive. Remember, there are a lot of engineers!

Movie making and editing is still pretty compute intensive, as is animation. Thanks to YouTube, a lot of people have video editing work streams and they're looking for ways to get their work done faster and make their content stand out so that viewers will click those 'Like' and 'Subscribe' buttons so that they make more money.

Music making is getting more and more compute intensive, especially nowadays as all the what once were physical processors in the signal chain are all being virtualized. Add in amp simulators, cab simulators, AI drummers, and of course nobody wants any latency, and you need some modern processing muscle to make it all work.

Apple makes the Mac Studio for a reason - and it's not for gamers!

As far as developers are concerned, no, you don't need much horsepower to "compile a lot of code", but you may need a lot of horsepower to run that code if it's in one of the aforementioned software categories.

[AzzieElbab]

I understand this point, and I agree. What I am saying is that number of creators is tiny when compared to the number of consumers. IMHO the demand for creator tools is too high considering all you need to consume is a browser or tablet, or game console

[moffkalast]

CAD as the other guy points out, video editing/rendering, 3D modelling and animation for gamedev/movie industry, crypto mining. ML is so niche it's a rounding error.

> gamers(who mainly use consoles anyway)

Listen here, I'll have you know PC gaming is almost half of the entire gaming market: https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Newzoo_PC...

[AzzieElbab]

Ok. So what is your theory about the declining market for PCs? The only other thing I can think of is that companies bought tons of laptops for remote workers during lockdowns, which did not last as a trend.

[moffkalast]

Well yeah duh, the shortages were not only from the lack of production, but also from sudden demand as everyone started WFH. All of those people haven't broken their brand new laptops in 2 years yet. There was also government stimulus worldwide which lots of people used to buy new computers.

Overall I think there's also a slight decline in desktop/laptop usage as a whole, as younger people grow up doing everything on touch devices instead, but that's more of a slow generational shift.

[rejectfinite]

>but who else needs a powerful PC besides gamers(who mainly use consoles anyway)

1. Gamers depend on market and games. Have fun playing CSGO2 on a console.

2. If you even do web browsing, youtube/netflix and documents work on a PC its nice to have a beefy one that does not lag. You can skip the GPU but a nice i5 or i7, 32GB RAM and big SSD is really nice to have and use. Plus all the extras.

[unity1001]

The non-technical people use PCs. Macs are extremely expensive for an overwhelming majority of the world population. So when someone needs a 'computer', its a Wintel laptop.

[rejectfinite]

And what do the technical people use?

[unity1001]

Depends. A lot of techies still use Windows (AMD or Intel, depending), including in Europe where the purchasing power is higher. Apple people seem to be a certain subsegment of computer users even in Europe, and they may not necessarily constitute the large part of any significant engineering segment anywhere - unlike the US, where Apple usage is quite high in certain subsegments among the technical people.

Normal people around here (W Europe) dont even know about 'Windows'. They know about their 'computer'. And 'the Internet', which is actually the web browser in their laptop. These are not uneducated dumb people either. Any normal, non-techie person, including other white collar professionals. They mostly know about various software that is heavily used in business though - Excel, Word, Powerpoint etc. Or SAP etc, if they are more specialized professionals.

...

What Im thinking is that the reduction in demand of computers and laptops is because existing hardware has developed quite beyond the needs of the majority of users. An average, 75%ile gaming laptop that comes in for ~1500-1700 euros these days, is capable of running most AAA games with good quality visuals and performance. They are capable of running any game from the last decade and earlier. And they are as cheap as an equivalent desktop - which may or may not bring any visible performance and quality improvement. This is the most taxing application that the majority uses and other stuff like business software are in no way anything demanding compared to these, so why someone who bought a new laptop 2-3 years ago need another one today...

This could only change with a new paradigm like consumer-grade, locally installed AI applications or virtual reality bumping up the hardware requirements. Or, through (probably soon to be illegal) planned obsolescence.

[rejectfinite]

You are right but one thing. Gaming laptops are terrible and a bad deal.

>And they are as cheap as an equivalent desktop - which may or may not bring any visible performance and quality improvement

They will. Either cheaper or better performance for same price.

[unity1001]

> Gaming laptops are terrible and a bad deal... They will. Either cheaper or better performance for same price.

I found them pretty competent. An Asus ROG G17 easily gives at least ~80% performance of what the components would give if they were in a desktop. (RTX 3070, Ryzen 9). And does it with almost ~50% less power consumption...