It's the post-PC era

Personal computers, as you have no doubt heard, are obsolete. The future is in tablets and smartphones.

Oh yeah?

Then why are bigger and bigger monitors so popular? How are you going to carry that in your pocket*?

When you want to work on a document, plus pull things from this spreadsheet, plus keep your outline and your notes in front of you, all at the same time -- no tablet you're willing to walk around with will work for you. It won't be too long before there are reasonably priced desktop displays -- by which I mean your entire desk's surface will be a nice tough sheet of superglass backed by a 300 dpi color sunlight-readable display. It probably will have multitouch sensitivity, too. And about 80 million pixels.

That's going to be a PC, though. Network connection, local storage, a bunch of ports to connect other devices, standardized expansion ports so you can upgrade hardware a few times before you decide that this year's model is just so much better. I wouldn't be surprised to see most of it in a beige, white or black box sitting under your desk, either.

But the post-PC era is all about app stores, you protest? Oh, please. We've had that in UNIX land for decades: the ports system, then the various packaging systems, and then the app repositories, now with friendly searchable interfaces and recommendations and all sorts of fun things like that. App stores are kind of limited compared to that, really.

Storing data in the cloud? There's NFS and Samba and DRBD, cluster filesystems and Amazon S3 storage and Google filesystems of doom and a thousand others to suit the exact need.

There are an infinite number of possible ecological niches for computing devices, and one of them continues to be the PC. The essence of the PC is general-purpose computing. Adaptability, flexibility, customizability. The ability to run the software you want and hook up the hardware you buy or make. It's never going to be the post-PC era until we have neural interfaces and AI assistants.




*Even given really good microdisplays in your glasses or contact lenses, plus really good microprojectors, there will still be a place for monitors.

It's the post-PC era

Personal computers, as you have no doubt heard, are obsolete. The future is in tablets and smartphones.

Oh yeah?

Then why are bigger and bigger monitors so popular? How are you going to carry that in your pocket*?

When you want to work on a document, plus pull things from this spreadsheet, plus keep your outline and your notes in front of you, all at the same time -- no tablet you're willing to walk around with will work for you. It won't be too long before there are reasonably priced desktop displays -- by which I mean your entire desk's surface will be a nice tough sheet of superglass backed by a 300 dpi color sunlight-readable display. It probably will have multitouch sensitivity, too. And about 80 million pixels.

That's going to be a PC, though. Network connection, local storage, a bunch of ports to connect other devices, standardized expansion ports so you can upgrade hardware a few times before you decide that this year's model is just so much better. I wouldn't be surprised to see most of it in a beige, white or black box sitting under your desk, either.

But the post-PC era is all about app stores, you protest? Oh, please. We've had that in UNIX land for decades: the ports system, then the various packaging systems, and then the app repositories, now with friendly searchable interfaces and recommendations and all sorts of fun things like that. App stores are kind of limited compared to that, really.

Storing data in the cloud? There's NFS and Samba and DRBD, cluster filesystems and Amazon S3 storage and Google filesystems of doom and a thousand others to suit the exact need.

There are an infinite number of possible ecological niches for computing devices, and one of them continues to be the PC. The essence of the PC is general-purpose computing. Adaptability, flexibility, customizability. The ability to run the software you want and hook up the hardware you buy or make. It's never going to be the post-PC era until we have neural interfaces and AI assistants.




*Even given really good microdisplays in your glasses or contact lenses, plus really good microprojectors, there will still be a place for monitors.