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Comment by bee_rider | Hacker News Reader

Smartphones are not even that similar to laptops. Smartphones wiped out beepers, old cellphone, PDAs, and decimated MP3 players and cameras.

Laptops, of course, have the much bigger screen and keyboard, not really replicated by smartphones. They have use-cases that smartphone can’t cover well for hardware reasons. So they’ve stuck around (in a notably diminished form).

If good AR glasses become a thing… I dunno, they could easily replace monitors generally, right? Then a laptop just becomes a keyboard. That’s a hardware function that seems necessary.

What niche is left for the smartphone?

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>Smartphones are not even that similar to laptops.

I believe that was the entire point of the comparison. Smartphones replaces SOME use cases of laptops in the same way ubiquitous smart glasses could replaces SOME use cases of smartphones.

I’m not sure how to respond to your post, because it seems to ignore the vast majority of mine, including the parts that look at pretty similar ideas to what you’ve brought up.

Well, I wasn't sure how to respond to yours missing the entire conceit of the post before it, so I guess we're even.

I don’t think I missed anything. Maybe if I’d only posted the bit you quoted that would make sense.

But I also don’t think either of us is gaining anything through this interaction, so... shrug

You're missing the fact that the original comparison with laptops was a bit tongue in cheek

I don’t think I missed anything. But maybe my post was not very clear?

The post I was responding to clearly meant “like smartphones replaced […] laptops,” which is to say, they don’t think AR glasses will replace smartphones (because smartphones didn’t completely replace laptops). I get that.

Then I pointed out that smartphones did more-or-less replace a number of other electronic devices. And there are some reasons they didn’t fully replace laptops. Then I went on to think about the niches that could exist should AR glasses become a major thing.

> which is to say, they don’t think AR glasses will replace smartphones (because smartphones didn’t completely replace laptops). I get that.

I actually read it as "it will be a replacement in some ways, but also very much not be a replacement in many other ways"

A large plurality of young people rarely use a laptop if they’re not so called knowledge workers, most everything can be done by phone. Maybe clubhouse style group audio chats will make a comeback and people will jump on the ambient computing trend as clearly better than interacting with screens all day

The screen itself isn't really the problem people are talking about when they refer to "too much screen time". Suddenly having the screen be your entire field of vision sounds like an even worse situation for the average person's attention.

Totally agree as far as AR goggles but the meta glasses have no screen, they’re just a voice in your ear

It always seems insane to me when people book plane tickets, do taxes, banking, writing email and stuff like that on a phone. That's big screen tasks, you can't do those on your phone, not enough space to navigate safely.

All of this will be done by AI soon.

Yes, I’m sure you’ll be able to blame AI when you are prosecuted for tax fraud because your return was full of hallucinations and lies.

Not just young people, I see a lot of elderly adults using tablets and phones as their primary computing device. They're cheaper and more user-friendly if you don't care about performance or multitasking. At the same price, a tablet is a far better choice than a laptop.

If you are afraid of technology, Android or iPadOS is lightyears ahead of Windows or MacOS.

A lot of lower income people might only have a cheap android phone.

It's more than enough to handle paying bills, applying for jobs, etc. Hell, a Bluetooth keyboard and a bit of grit + GitHub CodeSpaces and you can write develop applications.

You can also cast your screen to a TV or on a handful of phones use USB c to HDMI.

Smartphones are mobile. Glasses with a keyboard would require either being fixed to a keyboard location or a keyboard with the form factor of a smartphone, and if that’s the case why do you need the glasses?

The idea is that you'd use smart glasses without keyboard most of the time, mostly in the same scenarios you'd use a smartphone today. But unlike a smartphone, smart glasses can also replace a laptop if and when needed by pairing with a keyboard.

Smartphones replaced laptops. A huge amount of people don't own a laptop or desktop PC - they do all computing via smartphone or maybe tablet. My wife almost never opens her laptop, nor does my mom

But people still do buy some laptops.

It is hard to say when the peak of laptops in circulation was, right? Because simultaneously the tech has been maturing (longer product lifetimes) and smartphones have taken some laptop niches.

I’m not even clear on what we’re measuring when we say “replace.” Every non-technical person I know has a laptop, but uses it on maybe a weekly basis (instead of daily, for smartphones).

I don't know any non-technical people who own laptops, personally. Other than work laptops

Sure but lots of people use work laptops as general laptops. Which is why we keep having to advise people not to do that.

Global PC shipments haven’t decreased over the last 20 years. It’s more like smartphones have expanded the number of people who do computing.

Millions of smartphone users never owned a laptop (or even a desktop computer) to start with. Smartphones are their only real exposure to computing.

You have missed the point utterly. “AR glasses will replace smartphones the same way smartphones replaced laptops” — they didn’t replace laptops. Therefore AR glasses won’t replace smartphones in the same way smartphones didn’t replace laptops.

I’ve already responded to this sentiment in another thread. I do kind of find it puzzling that folks are reading my post and coming to the conclusion that I missed the point, but hey, if I confused enough people then I guess I’ll take the blame. I’ve tried to address in the follow up.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44330537

FWIW when I first skimmed your comment I came to the same conclusion as everyone else. I don’t think people are reading closely.

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