We are in a post-PC world

[deya]

That's what gets me about this surge in tablets. I would have thought they'd be cheaper in your neck of the woods than here, because we always have to pay through the nose for stuff like this. It's unusual because UK prices are usually ramped up, they know we'll pay - and we do. Things are almost always cheaper elsewhere.

So the theory goes that they're targeting markets to wean us off of PC's - Microsoft, and their big markets. And they're doing this by hitting these markets with loss leaders, heavily discounted tablets, Android in particular, a free OS.


Take Amazon, and their Kindle Fire HD tablet. They reckon they lose $50 on each tablet sold, and they do this to get people hooked into the Amazon 'eco system' - hoping that they'll make the loss back by users buying stuff from them. Shopping, movie subscriptions, apps, books, etc. £160 for a 16 GB tablet which probably ought to be £200, and it works, we have one here which belongs to my wife. She couldn't care less about Amazon steering her in the direction they want her to go when searching or whatever. I gave her the usual speech about being spied upon by Amazon etc, but she waved it aside - and she knows how the internet works regarding the security and privacy side of it.

She has a Win 7 Netbook and has never even looked at it since she got the tablet, which I find incredible. But I don't reckon she'll be buying anything Windows in the future. Another sale lost. Once they're on the tablets, they're addicted

Android is taking over slowly but surely and the competition don't like it, see here;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04...int/print.html

The pain of all those lost sales must really be starting to smart a bit.

[Jojo Yee]

Am sharing some of the same views as Deya's.

Here's another noticeable trend:

According to Cell Internet Use 2012, as of last year, more than half of cell owners (55%) use their phone to go online, a notable increase from the 31% three years back.

And 17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience.

[IO.Hazard]

Many market analysts and their analysis base their statements on the notion that "people buy this but don't buy that, therefore..." etc.

Luckily I found the Enough Already With The "Death Of The PC Era" Garbage article.

One of the article's statements simply nailed it:

There is no post-PC era. There's only a multi-device, "right tool for the job" era.

What your views are about it?

I simply loved it.

[MidnightCowboy]

Originally Posted by IO.Hazard

I simply loved it.

It makes a lot of sense to me too, especially...

"Computers aren't going away. They'll just get better, more connected to things you care about, more agile in being the right tool or tools for the job, and more consistently integrated with other devices you own".

After all, folks still buy brushes even though hoovers have been around for years.

[IO.Hazard]

Originally Posted by MidnightCowboy

After all, folks still buy brushes even though hoovers have been around for years.

Nice! Looks like you double nailed it MC.

[Dedoimedo]

Originally Posted by IO.Hazard

Many market analysts and their analysis base their statements on the notion that "people buy this but don't buy that, therefore..." etc.

Luckily I found the Enough Already With The "Death Of The PC Era" Garbage article.

One of the article's statements simply nailed it:



What your views are about it?

I simply loved it.

I have a similar article coming soon ...
Dedoimedo

[Jojo Yee]

Originally Posted by IO.Hazard

What your views are about it?

I simply loved it.

Agreed. As it is now, the statement "There's only a multi-device, "right tool for the job" era." is valid.

Here based on my understanding, the so-called 'post-PC' era doesn't mean this era has no PC's at all, but rather this 'post-PC' era has multi internet-connected devices than the 'PC' era when the only device you go to the Internet is via mostly a PC.

[MidnightCowboy]

Originally Posted by Dedoimedo

I have a similar article coming soon ...
Dedoimedo

Hope this will be sprinkled with your usual brand of unique humor in which case I shall read it avidly!

[deya]

Another article, another angle, a day later from the same site that IO.Hazard linked to;

http://blogs.forrester.com/tony_cost...he_post_pc_era

It's an interesting debate, opinions are divided.

I've been thinking about it a bit. Maybe the popularity of tablets is something to do with the way you can personalise them, the way you do with a smartphone? - it's yours. No one else uses it, you share it with no one, unlike a PC at home that may have different user accounts and is used by all the family?

Tablets allow you to store only your own music and images, install your own apps and games - only the ones that suit you. Then add to that the portability. It truly becomes your own personal PC, one which you can take anywhere, much more conveniently than a laptop.

I believe also that multi media, the way we use it and the way these things handle it is also a factor. Not only can they be hooked up to a PC or a smartphone, but hooked up to a compatible TV via HDMI they show another dimension to their capabilities. Streaming movies, videos etc. Here, at home, we never did that before with the laptops. But now we have a lead that's compatible with two different tablets - plug either one into the TV and off you go. Crystal clear picture, no buffering.

Tablets just seem to handle streaming media much better, they don't seem to be bogged down as much with other software and processes. They seem to operate better even with a weaker wi-fi signal. At least that's the way I'm seeing it .... and both those tablets connect easily to XP without any fuss. It's easy to transfer files from an older PC to new tablets, or just use the cloud.

Maybe you guys see it differently, I don't know. We've had two iPads here for ages, I've used one when I've had to but, other than that, no interest. But now, and for whatever reason, in the last few months I've taken more notice of tablets and have started using one more often.

Perhaps there's some novelty effect in it for me, most of the apps either puzzle me or are of no use to me. I'm definitely not the tablet target audience, that's for sure. And yet, looking around here I seem to be of the age group that's buying them most?

Maybe the target audience really is adults, as opposed to the kids?

[Jojo Yee]

Quoted key points from this article:

• "The PC market is in the worst shape since IBM Corp. released a desktop machine in 1981. PC sales have now fallen from their year-ago levels in four consecutive quarters, a slide that has been accelerating even amid signs that the overall economy is getting healthier."
  
  
• 'Apple's late CEO Steve Jobs declared that the world was entering a "post-PC era" shortly after the iPad came out three years ago. In a June 2010 appearance at a technology conference, Jobs likened challenges facing the PC industry to what happened to trucks in the U.S. decades ago as a shift away from farming caused more people to move into cities where they wanted to drive cars instead. "I think PCs are going to be like trucks," Jobs predicted at the time. "Less people will need them."'
  
  
• "Hewlett-Packard., the world's largest PC maker, saw a 24 percent drop in shipments in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago. That was HP's steepest quarterly decline since the company bought rival PC maker Compaq a decade ago."
  
  
• "The growing reliance on mobile devices is creating new opportunities and tensions throughout the technology industry. Internet companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Facebook Inc. that initially designed their digital services to be primarily consumed on PCs have been scrambling to tweak things so they work better on smartphones and tablets."