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Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

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Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#101

Post by angus77 »

raganwald wrote: post #97
joebadmo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the post-PC era does not mean that nobody has a PC, it means that people don’t have to buy PCs to do non-PC things. Fewer people needing to buy PCs to do non-PC things means fewer people buying PCs. Fewer people buying PCs means fewer people exposed to the PC things early on. Fewer people who are familiar with the things that you use to make things. Seems reasonably lamentable to me.

This is like telling me that it's lamentable that I can't fix a car. Had I been forced to spend many waking hours tuning and maintaining my car, I would have learned something. Well, I spent those hours programming, and the people who love cars are using the time saved by their iPad to tinker ith internal combustion engines and electric vehicles.

Who's forcing whom to do anything? Why is having the option to do something such a bad thing? Windows gives its users plenty of opportunity to tinker. Most of them don't bother. With the ipad, however, the option itself is taken away.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#104

Post by gbog »

rdouble wrote: post #64
gergles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that the "post-PC era" will make it so that being someone who thinks that you can modify or change the computing experience is relegated to "oddball hobby" status, like it would be if someone today wanted to start playing with vacuum tubes. The current PC ecosystem lets you explore and create and play and learn on the same tools that you use to consume. You can build a lego kit with the instructions, or…

The point is that the "post-PC era" will make it so that being someone who thinks that you can modify or change the computing experience is relegated to "oddball hobby" status It was like that during the pre post-PC era, anyway.

Don't agree. I know of many non geeky pc user who learnt to sysadmin their machine and a lan in order to play CS.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#105

Post by gbog »

icandoitbetter wrote: post #31

There's a surprising amount of belief in historical determinism in the discussion here, which is utterly unjustified. It is easy to believe that the future will fix itself on its own. But such beliefs are mostly the result of not being able to imagine alternative histories in which things don't get to be so rosy. The truth is that so many things in the history of computing were improbable, and made possible by a sele…

Your last sentence is obscure to me, or revert what you say before.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#106

Post by gbog »

orenmazor wrote: post #103

This happened in cars ages ago. I'm the only one of my friends who knows how to debug a carburetor. hell, I'm the only one who cares. and thats fine. not everybody cares. some people just want to drive.

The guy who wrote Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance seem to think it is Not Fine.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#107

Post by gbog »

xarien wrote: post #17

Let me preface this by stating that much I'm about to post, I've learned from my 18 month old boy. Aside from the sentimentality of a parent watching his kid develop physical and mental abilities, it's a very interesting phenomenon watching the way the development occurs. Kids basically learn one of two ways: imitation and exploration. Imitation being quite simple, so I'll move right on the exploration. Now, there's…

This. When my kid will be big enough I'll buy him toys he can break, like Legos, later I'll buy him gadgets he can break, like PCs, open garden tablets. If it results in him having to fiddle the os in order to bypass the antiporn barrier I'll setup, it will be all for the best.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#108

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

Well, the ipad is not definitive.

It is just a PC with multitouch support, this does not mean that all the tools that create things are going to die, just because today they are designed for the mouse.

When Apple started with the desktop paradigm, there were not tools for it. The had to convince people to use mouse and clicks first, they even had to remove the cursor keys so developers were forced to adapt their software.

Ipad has made a fantastic job convincing people that yes, people love the multitouch interface so if you want to make money you need to adapt your software. Adobe and others are listening to the signal.

And if everything fails, we will always have Linux.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#109

Post by tuhin »

So essentially the promise and dream of the post-PC era comes at the cost of killing the current golden age of Computers? I would say we are being hyperbolic here.

For what it is worth I, (and I know of so many other people) have an iPad but end up spending my entire time (around 10-12 hours everyday) in front of a Mac. This is not going to change anytime in the near future because quite frankly the iPad is just not capable of doing all that I want to do on a "computer".

So yes. there is a post-PC era, but think of it as a new species that co-exists than an evolution that simply eliminates the last one.

Re: Why I’m scared of the post-PC era.

#110

Post by forgottenpaswrd »

timwiseman wrote: post #29
HappySushiCo wrote: post #3

The writer makes the wrong assumption that the current mobile devices (e.g. iPad) will never have the creation tools that the previous generations of computer have had. IMHO, it's only a matter of time. And in the same vein it's never been more accessible to build something better than what's out there and get it out to the public.

I think that may be a fairly safe assumption. The very form factor of the Ipad and tables in their current incarnation makes them poorly suited for most types of content creation. However, among content producers tablets supplement rather than replace other form factors of computers for the time being. Also, docking stations are likely to improve and become more common. A future tablet which would be more powerful th…

"The very form factor of the Ipad and tables in their current incarnation makes them poorly suited for most types of content creation."

Excuse me?

The Ipad and the tablets are excellent for content creations.

I created a program to analize the spectrum of voice in opengl, and multitouch is way more natural to manipulating thousands of things at the same time(realtime zoom, panning and selection). It feels like a highway for your mind not to be constrained by language(that is so slow).

If you program using blocks it is way faster and easier than using keyboard.

Do you really think that keyboard are so good for content creation, if you think so you need to look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sholes_typewriter.jpg

...look at the keys and then look at a computer keyboard.

teletypes used typewriter machines because people got used to it, and then people made programming for teletypes as it was the only possible input on these days.

It does not mean that it it the best input for a computer, far from it, you just have to redesign everything(as iphone did with the iphone) in the programming world too.

Of course, this takes work and good programmers are lazy.

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