[HN Gopher] Post PC
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Post PC
Author : ingve
Score : 24 points
Date : 2020-11-30 20:34 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asymco.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asymco.com)
| Causality1 wrote:
| Every time I try to use non-PCs like I use a PC I run smack into
| one brick wall or another.
|
| Let me give you an example. I wanted to relax while playing a
| game and listening to a podcast. My phone has plenty of
| horsepower for doing both. Oopsie, there's a problem. I can't
| hear my podcast over the game,and android has no way of setting
| the volume of different apps to different levels unless the app
| includes its own internal volume control.
|
| Mobile devices are littered top to bottom with this sort of "I
| can run but not walk" horseshit.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > They also don't see performance along new dimensions which
| devices offer with glee. For example connectivity to cellular
| networks (still missing in even the fanciest laptop but available
| on my watch.)
|
| What? Laptops with cellular connectivity have been available for
| years.
| disposekinetics wrote:
| I have never wished my laptop had cellular connectivity, I have
| always used a portable hotspot for that.
| SahAssar wrote:
| So you have wished for it, you just used another device as a
| bridge to get it.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Portable hotspots are nice, sure - I do have one. Still feel
| like it'd be more convenient to have cellular connectivity
| built right in though; you always have some connectivity then
| provided you're not too remote.
|
| I've considered switching to Google Fi solely because they
| provide data-only SIMs associated with your normal plan that
| I could then pop into a laptop. (Rather than making you pay
| twice as most providers do.)
|
| Haven't been able to justify it yet though, I'm on a pretty
| good grandfathered plan at the moment.
| lumost wrote:
| the extra price per device that carriers charge makes this
| cost prohibitive. I'd be very interested in a laptop with
| cell service if I had a shared data plan across N personal
| devices.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > I'd be very interested in a laptop with cell service if
| I had a shared data plan across N personal devices.
|
| My understanding is that's what Google Fi does:
| https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6330195?hl=en
|
| They seem to be nearly the only ones, at least that I've
| found. (But I'd be glad to find more!)
| leoc wrote:
| > The term Post-PC was first coined by MIT scientist David D.
| Clark in 1999 and was quickly adopted by both Microsoft's and
| Apple's former CEOs.
|
| Up to a point, Lord Copper. See (once again) Jobs' discussion of
| the "Digital Hub" concept at Macworld 2001 San Francisco
| https://youtu.be/AnrM4n6S3CU?t=2585 . This January 2000 Fortune
| interview
| https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000...
| is also relevant. It also turns out that Walt Mossberg described
| the Newton as 'a sort of "post-PC" device' in 1993:
| http://allthingsd.com/19930812/the-apple-newton-messagepad-r... .
| novok wrote:
| At first the only computers you could use were trains
| (mainframes)
|
| Then they became buses (mini computers)
|
| Then they became pickup trucks (desktop PCs)
|
| Then they became vans (laptops)
|
| And now finally, they are sedans & SUVs (smartphones & tablets)
|
| One day, the motorcycle and electric scooter will become popular
| (watches, AR glasses)
|
| The vast majority of car owners although, given the choice, will
| buy a sedan or an SUV. Pickup trucks are popular for some
| subcultures and some forms of professional work, and will always
| be needed and will never go away. Mainframes / trains have
| morphed into datacenters, but are functionally similar. None of
| these form factors will go away, except maybe minicomputers, but
| the vast majority of the populace will move onto the smallest
| safest thing, unless they need the extra space that a pickup
| truck gives them :)
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >For example connectivity to cellular networks (still missing in
| even the fanciest laptop but available on my watch.)
|
| Most "Fancy" PC laptops have cellular
|
| >PC cameras are comical in comparison.
|
| Microsoft's cheapest ($400) Surface device has 2 1080P cameras,
| on 5MP one 8MP. Great cameras actually, company I work for uses
| them for all their tutorial video recording, looks so much more
| professional than the current MacBook Pro camera.
|
| Don't think this writer has any experience outside of the MacBook
| ecosystem, it's only Apple who are woefully trailing behind in
| these areas. I fully expect them to catch up by Q2 next year but
| to pretend these things haven't been standard for years in the
| rest of the laptop ecosystem is silly.
| mst wrote:
| > For example connectivity to cellular networks (still missing in
| even the fanciest laptop but available on my watch.)
|
| What? Lots of laptops have a sim card slot.
|
| My fairly long in the tooth Thinkpad Helix 2 does and so far as I
| can tell so do lots of the modern Lenovos.
|
| A quick google suggests that many Dell Latitudes do as well.
|
| I wonder if the author is accidentally conflating "fancy laptop"
| and "MacBook".
|
| Edited to add: I was getting 12h+ on thinkpads going back as far
| as 2005, the "all day battery life" thing isn't that new to me
| either though I'm sure the M1 based machines would last 18h+
| given a similar level of use so it's still not at all shabby.
| protomyth wrote:
| Verizon was selling cheap HP laptops with cellular years ago.
| We bought 120 of them for one grant.
| stjo wrote:
| You payed less than $10 per laptop?
| Zandikar wrote:
| They said Grant, with a T, not Grand.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "But I'm also willing to bet you're reading this on a phone."
|
| How much are you willing to bet?
|
| What is interesting about this website is that it isn't
| accessible via https, archive.org nor search engine cache.
|
| These increasingly rare holdout sites cause me to take note of
| just how much I have had to change the software and
| configurations I use in order to accomodate the rise of
| manadatory TLS use (at least on sites posted to HN).
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| > "But I'm also willing to bet you're reading this on a phone."
|
| Chuckled a little as well as I read this on my PC.
| BatFastard wrote:
| Interestingly enough in the past 3 years, I have purchased 4
| phones, 1 tablet, 1 watch and one iMac. However I have upgraded 6
| PCs with new graphics cards, SSD drives, motherboards, and
| processors. My children have gone from phones to PCs are their
| main method of consuming content. It just richer on a PC than
| anywhere else.
| onli wrote:
| > _PC cameras are comical in comparison._
|
| PCs usually do not have cameras. Laptops do, sometimes. But they
| are not meant to take photos - would you carry your laptop around
| for that?
|
| The article does not get the facts right. There is huge R&D
| investment on the side of the big PC hardware manufacturers, just
| look at the big ones, AMD, Intel and Nvidia. There are also
| really nice Windows/Linux laptops. And great peripherals, with
| big changes over the years, just compare modern cases like a
| Lancool II 215 (which isn't even expensive) to what was common a
| decade ago. And of course the PC market did not grow as much as
| the smartphone market in the last decade - smartphones started
| from zero (well, add a few years), while many people that need a
| laptop or a PC do have one already.
|
| Nonetheless the available market numbers for PC components and
| systems are not as bad as articles like this make it seem - and
| that was true even before the pandemic. Writers like this just
| always forget that when they want to paint a negative picture of
| PCs in favour of smartphones/tablets or when there is another
| round of "consoles will end PC gaming", which was never true in
| the slightest. There is no need for a closed off hardware
| platform like the Mac to save the PC.
| amelius wrote:
| Funny thing is that an Apple computer or any smartphone deserves
| the title "Personal Computer" more than my Linux PC (which has
| multiple accounts which can be used simultaneously).
|
| I think we'll see more Personal Computers and devices in the
| future. For example, Oculus Quest is only usable with a personal
| Facebook account, so I would say it's a PC by definition.
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