The term “PC” refers to both desktops and laptops. Both are in decline as general purpose computing moves to the smartphone.
The same will happen to smartphones. You can already see it. Manufacturers trying so hard to invent features nobody needs, just to have an excuse to buy a new device.
There are whole parts of non first world societies where laptops are not a thing and everything is done on phones and tablets.
Literally nobody is typing up their 10-page essay on their phone.
- garbage multi tasking
- slightly laggy typing
- no real ability for multiple apps to work on the same data
-10" is still a tiny screen and almost as unwieldy as a small laptop 7" is too tiny yet still not pocket size.
Since a tablet usually does not have by definition a cellular modem it can't replace your phone plus the cameras and microphone normally blow.
I find the idea that most people are using a tablet in place of a real computer laughable.
Unfortunately, smartphones exist in this world where everyone has far tighter control over hardware/software integration. So, its much harder to run the latest software on an old smartphone than it is to run the latest software on an old PC.
Of course its not because the hardware is necessarily incapable, but more because everyone assumes they can get away with new market/platform/support rules "because mobile."
As far as extensibility and/or openness of the platform goes, that may define general purpose computing for you but the industry has abundantly shown that it doesn't for most people.
I don't think folks are doing programming and graphic design on their phones...
Obviously a day may come where people plug their phones into docking stations that are equipped with a keyboard and a monitor, but it seems likely that we'll stick to lightweight laptops for a long time.
Right now it takes about 4 years to sell one billion PCs[1]. Considering that includes business sales, a significant chunk of that includes people with multiple PCs.
Compare that to smartphones, which sell well over a billion per year[2].
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-...
[2]: https://www.investopedia.com/news/smartphone-sales-be-flat-y...
Now you are using sales as a proxy for users which is nearly as false.
People buy and rapidly dispose of phones for a variety of reasons.
They break, are lost, get stolen. Having a new model is a status symbol. Current models are supported by the manufacturer for only a few years on the Android side. Newer models are significantly better than last years.
PCs easily last 5-7 years. Decreasing revenue from new models annually doesn't imply that the users or the platform is no longer relevant.
Reports of the death of the pc are greatly exaggerated.
The people who learned to program in this way will appreciate the ability to control a device in this way and will naturally steer towards platform allowing them to do so.
Moreover, even Apple is changing these days. Making Swift available is a step towards more ubiquitous app development. And with Swift Playgrounds you can learn to actually program on your device, even though it's not the same as controlling it the way we're used to. It's not unthinkable they make further concessions and at some point iOS devices could be programmable to a certain extent.
(I'm asking about usage, not sales - I know the latter have fallen off a cliff since Moore's Law topped out.)
Mobile internet usage worldwide blew past desktop usage in October of 2016 and hasn't slowed down since, and even that's just looking at web page views. I'd argue that holistically, smartphones have been the dominant technology platform for many years even before that, since apps are the primary interface to most services on the platform.