The need for "Modern PCs"

[persia]

[som99]

Image reposted

Hahaha nice one then I understand why you didn't want mine

Hah looks like someone really use that setup

[Einstein]

I read old computer magazines on the toilet

Enjoying two activities at the same time, I can verify the pleasure

[minator]

The implication of this thread is you can't do creative or even useful work on a Tablet or phone.

This is complete nonsense.

Not only can you use a phone for art I know people who have published books and got prestigious awards for exclusively using an iPhone.

Ever seen the audio apps available on the iPad?  There's some seriously impressive synths available Wavegenerator, iMS20, Animoog and more.

There's even a big multi-channel recording app - a DAW on a iPad.
Granted the first iPads or Android tablets weren't very powerful but the latest ones are now at G5 performance level.  Next year they'll be even faster.

Games are also getting good.  They surprisingly close to console level even on current phones.

The need for any type of desktop is rapidly dying out.  Computers have long since becomes fast enough for the vast majority of needs.

There will always be a need for faster machines but they're uses are limited. I have a high end laptop because I do high megapixel imaging, video and record music.  That said maxing out the machine is actually quite difficult, most of these apps are bound by the speed of the disc drive (even the fast SSD it has isn't fast enough).

Note I say it's a laptop - I haven't used a desktop as a main machine at home for 10 years now.

PC sales have recently fallen.  Tablets and phones are selling like hot cakes and are already hitting the PC market, unlike the PC market they are growing rapidly.   A new release of Windows is always a big earner for PC vendors, not this time though, Windows 8 doesn't seem to have much of an impact.


There is a bit of irony about discussing this on an Amiga site though.  Amiga's were never about raw CPU speed, they were about the clever use of hardware to do the heavy lifting - exactly what phones and tablets do.

In any case OS4 or MorphOS have never run on high-end hardware. If speed was important everyone would have switched to AROS years ago.

[kedawa]

Yeah, speed has very little to do with it, but a proper workstation offers I/O connections and a technical openness that current tablets just can't match.
I'm sure some day there will be tablets or tablet accessories that will make desktops entirely obsolete, but at the end of the day, it'll just be another form factor, rather than a different class of device.
I could see having a docking station that connects to external monitors, a proper keyboard and mouse, or any sort of standard peripheral, as well as an OS that's open enough to do any sort of general purpose computing, but the big sellers today are nothing like that.

[persia]

Keyboards and printers aren't wired devices anymore.  My iPad plays through my Apple TV connection without wires, and mice, well, they're sort of old school, but if you want a bluetooth mouse they are available.

I fail to see this fascination with wires.

Yeah, speed has very little to do with it, but a proper workstation offers I/O connections and a technical openness that current tablets just can't match.
I'm sure some day there will be tablets or tablet accessories that will make desktops entirely obsolete, but at the end of the day, it'll just be another form factor, rather than a different class of device.
I could see having a docking station that connects to external monitors, a proper keyboard and mouse, or any sort of standard peripheral, as well as an OS that's open enough to do any sort of general purpose computing, but the big sellers today are nothing like that.

[Thorham]

I fail to see this fascination with wires.

My Steelseries mouse and mechanical keyboard have wires, and that's fine with me.

[NovaCoder]

The implication of this thread is you can't do creative or even useful work on a Tablet or phone.

This is complete nonsense.


Games are also getting good.  They surprisingly close to console level even on current phones.


PC sales have recently fallen.  Tablets and phones are selling like hot cakes and are already hitting the PC market, unlike the PC market they are growing rapidly.   A new release of Windows is always a big earner for PC vendors, not this time though, Windows 8 doesn't seem to have much of an impact.

Yes tablet games are getting very good, almost up to current gen console quality now.

I downloaded Rayman for my Nexus 7 last night and was very impressed with the graphics and game play.

[TheBilgeRat]

The implication of this thread is you can't do creative or even useful work on a Tablet or phone.

This is complete nonsense.

Not only can you use a phone for art I know people who have published books and got prestigious awards for exclusively using an iPhone.

Ever seen the audio apps available on the iPad?  There's some seriously impressive synths available Wavegenerator, iMS20, Animoog and more.

There's even a big multi-channel recording app - a DAW on a iPad.
Granted the first iPads or Android tablets weren't very powerful but the latest ones are now at G5 performance level.  Next year they'll be even faster.

Games are also getting good.  They surprisingly close to console level even on current phones.

The need for any type of desktop is rapidly dying out.  Computers have long since becomes fast enough for the vast majority of needs.

There will always be a need for faster machines but they're uses are limited. I have a high end laptop because I do high megapixel imaging, video and record music.  That said maxing out the machine is actually quite difficult, most of these apps are bound by the speed of the disc drive (even the fast SSD it has isn't fast enough).

Note I say it's a laptop - I haven't used a desktop as a main machine at home for 10 years now.

PC sales have recently fallen.  Tablets and phones are selling like hot cakes and are already hitting the PC market, unlike the PC market they are growing rapidly.   A new release of Windows is always a big earner for PC vendors, not this time though, Windows 8 doesn't seem to have much of an impact.


There is a bit of irony about discussing this on an Amiga site though.  Amiga's were never about raw CPU speed, they were about the clever use of hardware to do the heavy lifting - exactly what phones and tablets do.

In any case OS4 or MorphOS have never run on high-end hardware. If speed was important everyone would have switched to AROS years ago.

[youtube]nRB8Jor8tPs[/youtube]

[commodorejohn]

Not only can you use a phone for art I know people who have published  books and got prestigious awards for exclusively using an iPhone.

They got awards for using an iPhone? That's just sad. What kind of trend-junkie Wired-reading my-farts-smell-trendier-than-yours ninnies give out an award for that?

Again, it's not that you can't do work on a tablet - it's just that, as tablet advocates like to repeat any time you criticize tablets, "they're not designed to be useful for work!" (They seem to think this is a selling point.) You can do it, sure. You can also do ice sculpture with your fingernails; that doesn't mean it's any kind of ideal solution.

Ever seen the audio apps available on the iPad?  There's some seriously  impressive synths available Wavegenerator, iMS20, Animoog and more.

There's even a big multi-channel recording app - a DAW on a iPad.

Yes, there's audio apps available on the iPhone. There's also several orders of magnitude more audio apps available on the PC. Even the free VSTs outweigh iOS virtual instruments by a huge margin. Get back to me when you can do this on an iPad, and then I'll be impressed.

There is a bit of irony about discussing this on an Amiga site though.   Amiga's were never about raw CPU speed, they were about the clever use  of hardware to do the heavy lifting - exactly what phones and tablets  do.

That's quite a bit of a stretch. Tablets use one of a handful of prefabbed CPU/GPU solutions; it's nothing like the Amiga, where the OS and the hardware were designed for each other.

I fail to see this fascination with wires.

Well, they're quite handy - they carry power for stuff, so you don't have to be changing batteries all the damn time! Quite nice.

[bloodline]

That's quite a bit of a stretch. Tablets use one of a handful of prefabbed CPU/GPU solutions; it's nothing like the Amiga, where the OS and the hardware were designed for each other.

To be fair to Apple, they do design their own silicon (their A series application processors) and operating system...

[commodorejohn]

Yeah, that's true - though do you know whether they did any design work on the non-CPU components, or are they just synthesizing a system out of other people's parts?

[bloodline]

Yeah, that's true - though do you know whether they did any design work on the non-CPU components, or are they just synthesizing a system out of other people's parts?

As far as is publicly known, Apple hand designed the CPU and integrated 4 PowerVR GPU cores on to a single chip connected via a custom designed bus...

I don't see that as much different to the Amiga, where the engineers hand designed the "GPU" and integrated it into a single system with a Motorola CPU

[vidarh]

I could see having a docking station that connects to external monitors, a proper keyboard and mouse, or any sort of standard peripheral, as well as an OS that's open enough to do any sort of general purpose computing, but the big sellers today are nothing like that.

My ~80 GBP 7" tablet has full HD HDMI out and support for USB keyboards and mice, as well as USB support for mass storage.  Most low end Chinese tablets do... And most of the Allwinner A10 ones (the bulk of the low end Android tablet market) can run "full" Linux instead of Android and also tend to come already rooted and with unlocked bootloaders, taking care of the "open" part for the most part (only downside is lack of open source driver for the hardware acceleration on the Mali GPU).

The may not be the biggest sellers, but there are *dozens* of models of them, and they pretty much make up all of the low end of the tablet market.

It's certainly no speed daemon - about as fast as my 2 years old HTC Desire HD, other than for 3D where it knocks the pants of the HTC phone, but for that price it's pretty impressive. You can also get "Mini PC's" based on the same SoC that just does away with the screen / touch and are about as large as the Raspberry Pi - I plan on taping one to the back of my TV's.

[persia]

Tablets have pretty much wiped out netbooks, which to be frank, were cr@p devices anyway.  

The main disadvantage to tablets is that you can't develop software on them, at least not yet.  iOS will likely never allow that, but if you have a Mac you can develop your own software and download it to your tablet/phone without the Apple Store, but you can't distribute it to the world.

Now when Micro$oft comes out with it's intel Surface it would be possible to develop directly on it....

[Iggy]

Wow. Even without getting personal I can create a thread that keeps you guys making polarized contentious statements for days!
Cool!
BTW - I don't really like tablets.
Still using laptops and netbooks.

Moving over to the Coffee House for a few indirect jibs.