I use to go outside and work on the go on the field or lab, standing up, with a laptop you must sit down for working, non sense for me(we are bipeds, we designed for standing up a big part of the time, when we sit our bodies metabolism change, we become less active). I can talk with other people and show things on my tablet just moving my hand, or the tablet where the person is. With a laptop the computer does not move so I HAVE TO MOVE THE OTHER PERSON!
I use arms for holding my tablet in the car, in the lab, and a gorilla one for the field that I could attach to anything(a tree, any structure), and a backpack when I don't use it.
I just need one tablet which I could do real work, run UNIX programs, and add a pixel qi display for working under the sun, and I will have my dream machine.
Do you eschew clothes, eat only raw foods, sleep outside, and run to work (on bare feet) each day?
But watch a couple clips for me:
http://youtu.be/Jx7VNP5UO2k?t=5m9s (at 5:09) http://youtu.be/5jzAAPccBaU?t=2m27s (at 2:27)
That's the future. That's when the tablet becomes extremely useful. Productive-yet-portable in a way a laptop can't be. What I think the Microsoft guys really nailed is that the tablet is ultimately just another tool. The "post-pc" era still has plenty of PC's in it; they just work alongside tablets and phones.
I mean, there is no deep conceptual difference between something like leafsnap and what is shown there.
But even looking at that, it still doesn't show why a tablet form factor (thinking >9" diagonal) is better for this things than something sized like a larger phone, or a foldable thingy like the (sadly dead) MS Courier.
Other than that, it's not so much the form factor that's different from now, it's the software. As awesome as Ubuntu Tablet is, I think all of our tablet OSes carry too many PC relics with them. The OS in those videos looks nothing like software now.
Exactly. When people cry about PC sales diminishing, I am in no way alarmed, because for some things PCs will always be required, such as CAD, programming, etc...
As for the video, I don't think that sort of future is anywhere near us, especially not as soon as 2019. When you look how far technology has come since 2007, it hasn't really come THAT long of a way. Sure, smartphones have gotten bigger and all-touch, and tablets have increased in popularity and usability, but the general usage of technology is still the same. Especially when businesses are still using 90s technology like fax machines, I don't see it happening soon.
2030, perhaps, but 2019 is too soon.
What you have obliquely hit upon is what makes tablets destined to be the center of workplace computing. You CAN hold it, like a notebook or sheaf of paper. You can walk around with. You can also lay it on a table and type on it, or use a keyboard with it for sustained typing for most office tasks.
The deskbound will be left behind when everyone else is walking around, and will suffer tribulations.
Since I'm fond of parity/ECC, I'll continue to build my own machines out of server/workstation class components with fast SCSI/SAS disks, the later until we get good enough with SSD lifespan and all that (I can remember Ted T'so, I think it was, being horrified to learn that Firefox wrote 1.8MB of data for every page it loaded...). In my experience since 1995 this class of systems don't die before I take them out of service 5+ years later, so the investment works out pretty well depending on how I account for the opportunity cost to research, procure and build them. I like building things, so there's intangible value to that as well, and it makes it easier maintain my parents' computers.
People like you used to be the whole PC market. Now you are less than 5%. I would argue that 95% of the PC market constitutes a kind of "overshoot" of success, since, until recently, there were no alternatives that could overcome the manufacturing efficiencies of PCs. 95% of the PC market is made of users who don't need PCs (meaning Computers they Personally control), and their PCs are locked-down and use trailing-edge versions of Windows.
The other segment I can think of are the really hard core PC gamers, who I don't have any sort of reading on (decided to give that up in the mid-late '80s to limit damage to my hands on up). 5% might be too low, but I'd accept it as a working estimate. E.g. my parents would today be well served by small unconfigurable boxes as long as they can speak to a regular big monitor, keyboard and mouse, and I plan to move them from Windows XP to something non-Windows like Chrome/Chromium OS in a year or three. Hmmm, I suppose there's also the big machine to satisfy a big ego market as well. Big machine as in way overpowered to run MS Office for a Pointy Haired Manager.
The rest of the "PC" market is as you note, although it's not inconsequential. But it has very low margin, is trailing edge in every way, and by now has got to be "mature", in that replacements almost certainly dwarf new installations, especially with the declines in new business formation. I'm not focused on it, don't know how it will move, but again something like the machines that could well serve my parents, e.g. based largely on tablet technology cores, could well disrupt it and take it over from Dell etc. as they are today.
Which I mention because there's got to be a reason Microsoft is investing in Dell going private, although it might not make much sense (e.g. the acquisition of Skype which I gather put the final nails in the coffin of Microsoft's mobile phone ambitions, since that make them radioactive to the carriers).
This isn't really a flaw, tablets aren't going to replace computers they are just another computer that is used differently. They are better for reading and passing around.
Products like the Surface Pro I think are overselling the form factor.
The iPad, Nexus, etc. are marketed as supplemental devices, not laptop replacements.
The general population already has a solution for this. It's rare that I see an iPad without some sort of cover that also can act as a stand. While you're sitting on the couch, this isn't as big of a problem because you can rest your arm(s) on your lap. But stand/cases are the answer people have come up with.
At this moment I'm consuming HN sitting on the couch with an iPad on my thigh and using one finger.
I do admit there needs to be some work on the ergonomics-- thinner does not mean better-- but the general 'holding it' concept works great, for me at least.
That said, I think people trying to use tablets like baby laptops are a little nuts, but to each their own. :)
That could also be said to be a flaw in books, but that's an interface that had some staying power. And most people probably use a tablet, like a book, setting on a surface or propped up on something.