|
|
|
|
|
|
by angusgr
4987 days ago
|
|
|
A few weeks ago I would have largely agreed with the post, but recently I had a bubble-bursting experience. I'm currently in the middle of running an "Arduino for Beginners" workshop series at our local hackerspace. We have 25 attendees, 24 of them are brand new to the hackerspace. All the attendees are technically literate and interested, but only one or two are programmers or heavily into technology. Everyone brings their own laptop. The first hour of the first session was almost entirely spent with everyone setting up their laptop with the Arduino software. At least 3 of the attendees took closer to two hours, both with weird Windows problems and driver issues and random slowdowns, unexpected software alerts, etc. One took more than the workshop's 3 hours to get running smoothly, her laptop finally deciding it needed to install many dozen security updates. All four of the people whose Windows computers caused them such slowdowns told me "I barely ever turn this on any more, I just use my iPad/tablet and phone at home." This is purely anecdotal and it's a small sample size, could easily be non-representative. But it did make me think, if I wasn't a geek and a hobby programmer/tinkerer then I'd pretty much just do email & web browsing at home, occasionally update/print my resume or write a small flyer.
Would I need a PC? Why would I bother to own one, especially if PC maintenance was of no interest to me? |
|
|
I think this embodies a larger distinction: Are you mostly a consumer or a producer? The line isn't firm, but for someone who mostly consumes, a tablet or equivalent makes total sense for the reasons you enumerate.
For almost anyone who produces or aspires to produce, however, I don't think that laptop/laptop-with-docking-stations/desktop-style machines are going anywhere, for the reasons that are being articulated throughout this thread. I especially like the guy with four monitors. Personally, I only have two, but one is very large, and even then I'd like to imagine that it's not the size, but how you use it.[1]
Again, I don't think this distinction is hard and fast, so the person who just wrote their own operating system, followed by a 1,000 page fantasy novel, on their iPad can reframe the comment they're about to make. But I do think the distinction serves a useful purpose in talking about where things are going.
[1]Technology porn photos, for interested parties: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writin... .