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Comment by brigade | Hacker News Reader

I know a number of old people that never learned how to use or were never confident in using a desktop OS that now only use tablets. My father as well, but for other reasons.

Also think of how long the shift from desktops to laptops took; for a decade they were just secondary machines and everyone who had a laptop also had a desktop. Now... the only person I know to even own a desktop built it himself 6 years ago and stopped upgrading it altogether a few years ago in favor of laptops.

A similar shift to tablets isn't as inevitable as the shift to laptops was (in hindsight), but if it's happening it's proceeding in much the same way, only faster.

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I think as long as people have asses we will have chairs, and as long as there are chairs there will be desks and we will want to use our hands at them.

So I don't think the physical keyboard is going away, it will still be the most efficient way to bang out a school paper, computer code, or a thoughtful business email.

The screen we prefer to look at while sitting down will probably always be larger than the one we prefer to carry around.

> it will still be the most efficient way to bang out a school paper, computer code, or a thoughtful business email

Those are niches. Most computer use is and will be going fwd, consumption. Majority of creation will be photos/videos/minor typing (txting, tweets, short emails)/other forms that don't require keyboard.

It's been a while since I was in high school, but aren't students still required to write long-form reports? I recall writing book reports and essays about historical events. In college I distinctly remember having to write a least one multi-page document for most courses (and for virtually all courses outside the hard sciences). Most people stop there, but those continuing on to grad school (even in the hard sciences) will need to write many 5- to 15-page documents, as well as a 50- to 100-page thesis.

I don't doubt that most people will not need a keyboard most of the time, but not needing a keyboard in the house seems more likely to be the niche. The niche will be 23 to 30 year-olds who have finished school but don't yet have kids in school, and the 55's, and up, whose kids have finished secondary school. Perhaps the computer will again be relegated to the spare bedroom / home office, but I can't imagine a scenario for the majority of middle-class households that doesn't have some sort of physical keyboard.

>It's been a while since I was in high school, but aren't students still required to write long-form reports?

This is a tangent, but I'm a grad student in English lit at the University of Arizona, and, based on what I've seen, the answer is often "no;" a lot of students say they've never had to write anything longer than two or three pages before taking Intro to Comp.

Some, to be sure, have done substantive writing, but that appears to be the norm.

A lot of 18-year-old freshmen also appear to be MUCH more proficient at typing on phones and tablets than I am, which definitely gives me a bit of culture shock, and reminds me of the typing proficiency I have that many of my own professors appear not to.

So I agree, PCs aren't really the greatest platform for content consumption (except perhaps for very involved 3D games). But how much has this been a driver of PC sales historically?

The PC was doing just fine before websurfing came along and even before DVD playback.

1. It's possible to connect a keyboard to an iPad/Android tablet. (and larger screens as well) 2. You imply that only a minority of people would be doing "heavy" production work on a computer. The trends seem to be the opposite of that, at least in modern cities (I doubt office workers can avoid keyboards and decent-sized-screens.)

Also, isn't a "thoughtful business email" a bit of contradiction? ;)

Hey, I was joking! I even indicated this with an emoticon! Why the downvote?

One liners including 'jokes' aren't really appreciated on HN. HN is not reddit, and has a different ethos. Some people do manage this occasionally, but in general if you make smart aleck one liner comments, usually you'll be downvoted into oblivion.

And yes, don't complain about being downvoted. From the HN guidelines, http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. "

I'm not complaining, I really wanted to know what I did wrong. I was a bit worried that the reason for downvote was the content; as it turns out it was the form, which is perfectly understandable and I have no complaints about it whatsoever.

If you look at my comments you'll see that I don't use this form very often - or maybe even at all. I had slightly worse day yesterday and that's the result and I'm sorry. Do you think I should delete this and the three more comments in this thread, which were made in similar manner?

"Do you think I should delete this and the three more comments in this thread, which were made in similar manner?"

No (imo). Obsessing about 'correct form' and karma is just as bad as completely ignoring it. Everyone gets downvoted once in a while. Learn from your mistakes, and go with the community ethos, and you'll be fine. Karma is just a number on a webpage.

> Obsessing about 'correct form' and karma

I didn't even think about karma, honestly, I asked having in mind the quality of the thread. I'm still rather new here, I started posting just a couple of months ago and learned by watching others and not from a textbook of rigid rules and that's why I'm still sometimes unsure about how to proceed; even more so because I actually do care about the 'ethos' (although I probably wouldn't use this word) more than about points of any kind.

Either way, thanks for advice and for taking the time to respond even though this was probably one of the least exciting topics you could discuss here, I appreciate it very much.

I think it's important to separate two things. One is the tablet trend, but along with that you have an OS platform play.

I think it's completely plausible that in the next couple of years Apple and Google will launch add-ons to your average tablet that gives you a big, high-res screen to do work on along with a tablet.

Or maybe apps will be able to show content on other tablets (like AirPlay does to a TV today) so that you will have more space available for the apps you use.

I think there will be an opportunity for iOS and Android to innovate in this space, in a far more profound way than the "no compromise" dual-UI that is the current Windows 8.

You can have a docking station with a keyboard and larger screen.

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