Thought Convergence

This post represents some convergence in my own thinking. I've been reading articles on Tech Republic and ZDNet a lot lately and several of them have started me to thinking. Personally, I am in love with tablets. This isn't something new for me, I was in love with tablets long before the iPad brought the whole concept out into the open. It started many years ago when I saw a Windows Tablet that I think ran Windows 98...it may even have been 95.

Since then, I have looked at tablets with screens from 5 to 13 inches, and Operating Systems from Windows (desktop) to Windows CE, to custom Linux based systems. I probably would have bought one or more of them if I had the money, but I never did...and still don't.

Tablets Are For People Who Hate Computers

This article was one of the spurs of my thoughts, but I don't think he quite gets it. The article could as easily have been titled...

Tablets Are For People Who Don't Get Computers

or

Tablets Are For People Who Aren't Smart Enough For Computers

...if he'd wanted to be mean.

But, whether he changed the title or not, the author still managed to miss the true lesson of the iPad's popularity.

Most people don't need the computing power of a PC.

The modern PC is an incredibly versatile and powerful tool. No Tablet running a smartphone OS can match it. Apple and Google brag about the number of apps available for their Operating Systems, but with a PC, whether Mac or Windows, the number of apps aren't padded by hundreds of fart apps. You can do just about anything with a PC, from record directly from your guitar to creating and publishing magazines. You can calculate a trajectory to take you to the moon, or play fast paced games with incredible graphics with people on the other side of the world.

Many of those things you could also do with a tablet, but why would you? For most of those tasks, a tablet is a mediocre tool at best, with only one advantage, portability.

So, where is all this leading?

Utopian Convergence of PC and Mobile, How Far Away is it?

Here's another article from Tech Republic that got me to thinking. Part of that thinking came out in my last post. There are too many things that I lose if I give up my PC. Yes, I gain a certain amount of convenience if I go to a tablet, but I lose my keyboard and my big monitor. I'll leave out my third reason why the PC won't die soon, because I am referring to my personal computing, not work computing.

Convergence, not tablets will be the cause of the end of the PC era as we have known it....except that it will still be personal computing, so the PC era won't end. Here is what I imagine, 3 devices working as one.

Your phone becomes your one connection to the greater world. It is still a phone, and it will have all the functions of a smartphone, but it will also act as your modem for all the other devices. Maybe your tablet has its own data connection, but the cellphone carriers need to realize that people cannot afford to pay for a data connection for every device, they need one plan that covers many devices, so your cellphone plan covers the data for your tablet...wirelessly, not by making your phone a WiFi hotspot, but because it wirelessly connects as a modem to your tablet. You can't really use both at the same time, so why not one data plan for both.

But, it doesn't end there. When you get home, you dock your tablet, though ideally, this too would be wireless, but that dock isn't just a connect to a keyboard. Your dock includes more, and might even have its own processor. It definitely needs a big monitor and a big hard drive...after all, it is part of your home entertainment system. You dock your tablet beside your 20"+ monitor and it becomes a second monitor on this larger system, and your phone is still your modem. It might even have a docking socket of its own.

This goes beyond networking. I am not talking about 3 devices that talk to each other, I am talking about three devices that act as one. With the possible exception of the large hard drive in the dock, you see the same thing on all the devices. They are hooked up to your TV, and when you go sit on the couch, you use either the phone or the tablet as the remote, because what you have on your TV is sort of running on the phone too.

At this point, I am up to four displays on this system, the phone, the tablet, the desktop monitor and the TV....and why not? Your phone doesn't control your TV, it is part of the same system. One display (TV) is showing the latest episode of True Blood, and another (phone) is showing the controls. Everything works together because there is only one computer.

That's my dream.

Post-PC??? BS!!

Steve Jobs said some months ago that we were in the beginning of the Post-PC era. And of course, since Steve Jobs said it, the messiah of technology, it has been repeated over and over again by one Apple loving pundit after another. Well, it's all BS.

Steve Jobs is trying to sell iPads. He believes we are in the Post-PC era, because he wants us to believe it, and buy an iPad. The problem is that despite the millions of iPads sold, the device is still defined by what it doesn't do more than what is does do. The things it does, it does very well, and for many people that is enough, but there are so many things that it doesn't do.

And don't go thinking that Android on Tablets will solve the problems, because it won't. It has virtually all of the problems of the iPad, except that you can install the programs you want instead of the ones Apples thinks you should have.

So, why are you going to keep your PC for a while longer, despite the words of the Prophet Jobs?

1. Keyboards
   
   Yep, we still need to type more than 140 characters at a time...at least occasionally. Now, yes, you can dock your iPad or use a keyboard with your Android Tablet, but if you have to do that to be productive, then what is the point of a tablet?
   
2. Monitors
   
   I don't know about you, but I am not giving up the 21" monitor on my desktop, or the 15" LCD on my portable for a 9.7" LCD. At least not for everything. That dinky LCD makes the tablet more portable, but when I sit down at home, I want size. Maybe I'm alone in that, but I don't think so. And yes, you can hook up a monitor to some of the tablet docks, but is that really the answer with the present state of tablets?
   
   When one of these tablet docks will put my tablet directly beside my monitor so that I can use them together as a dual monitor set up, then we might have something. But, that also starts to sound a lot more like a PC.
   
3. Work
   
   I don't know about your employer, but mine just bought new PCs and knowing the way my state agency goes, it will be years before we get to replace them, and I just have a hard time believing that they will be replaced with tablets...especially ones that don't have keyboards unless docked.
   
   Employers don't want the majority of their employees running around with portables. At Dell you had to make a special case to get a portable, and basically prove that you would be using it on the move...often. Employers want their peons right where they can find them, and that means chained to their desks by means of their PCs.
   

To me, these three reasons are telling enough to show that the PC will be around for at least another 10 years. Will tablets keep selling? Undoubtedly. The small form factor will allow us to carry them, and the ease of use will continue to attract those who don't have the smarts or inclination to master the PC.

Windows 8 is showing the way. The PC, both Windows and Mac, must simplify, but Windows is trying to bridge the gap, not between tablets and PCs as some suggest, but between the simple interface of the smartphone/tablet, and the power of a PC. I could have added a fourth to the list above, content creation. Drawing, Photoshoping, writing, editing video, these and much more may be possible on the next generation of tablets (more likely two or three), but the small screen, and the need to use your finger are going to hinder precise tasks, and the lack of a keyboard already makes writing impossible. I could never have written this essay on a tablet.

So, let's get over this idea that the PC is on its way out. You and I both will be using PCs in one form or another for years to come. We may spent less time working at a desktop. We may replace our portables, or use them less often, but the PC will still be there.

And, I have not even touched on the argument that tablets are still PCs and still part of the same ecosystem, and therefore a tablet dominated world is still just a minor variation on the PC era.