Mobile is the new PC and AArch64 is the new x64

[Joakim]

On Friday, 14 September 2018 at 09:23:24 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 22:56:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 22:41:08 UTC, Nick 
>> Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
>>> On 09/10/2018 11:13 PM, tide wrote:
>>>> On Monday, 10 September 2018 at 13:43:46 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>>> That's why PC sales keep dropping while mobile sales are 
>>>>> now 6-7X that per year:
>>>> 
>>>> This shouldn't be misunderstood as such, which I think you 
>>>> as misunderstanding it. The reason mobile sales are so high 
>>>> is because of planned obsolescence and the walled garden 
>>>> that these devices are built around. I've gone through maybe 
>>>> 3-4 phones in the time that I've had my Desktop, and I use 
>>>> my desktop every single day. I don't need to buy a new one 
>>>> cause it runs perfectly fine, there aren't operating system 
>>>> updates that purposely cause the CPU to run slower to "save 
>>>> battery life" when a new device and OS come out. That's not 
>>>> to say it isn't insignificant but the sales numbers are 
>>>> exacerbated.
>>>
>>> Right. Basically, "sales stats" should never be misconstrued 
>>> as "usage stats".
>>
>> The usage stats are similarly overwhelming, two-thirds of 
>> digital time is spent on mobile, more for the young:
>
> Yeah but 90% of the time people spend on mobile is just dicking 
> about. Sending IMs, facebook, point and click games. And thats 
> a huge part of the usage stats, people can now spend more time 
> online wasting time in more situations than ever before.

And people don't use PCs for such things? ;) I know a lot of 
people who did, which explains the 28% drop in PC sales since 
they peaked in 2011, the year after the iPad came out. Many of 
those people who used to buy PCs have switched to tablets and 
other mobile devices.

> PCs are generally seen a tool to accomplish tasks, for word 
> processing or a high end gaming thing, audio / video editing, 
> mobile is more entertainment. Not many people are doing what 
> you are by using your mobile as a desktop.
>
> I'm not saying that makes mobile worthless, what I'm saying is 
> that your hypothesis is like saying TV has taken over from 
> typewriters.

More like when computers first started replacing typewriters, I'm 
sure many laughed at that possibility back then too. :)

You've probably heard of the possibly apocryphal story of how 
Blackberry and Nokia engineers disassembled the first iPhone and 
dismissed it because it only got a day of battery life, while 
their devices lasted much longer. They thought the mainstream 
market would care about such battery life as much as their early 
adopters, but they were wrong.

But here's a better story for this occasion, Ken Olsen, the head 
of DEC who built the minicomputers on which Walter got his start, 
is supposed to have disassembled the first IBM PC and this was 
his reaction:

"Ken Olsen bought one of the first IBM PCs and disassembled it on 
a table in Olsen’s office.

'He was amazed at the crappy power supply,' Avram said, 'that it 
was so puny.  Olsen thought that if IBM used such poor 
engineering then Digital didn’t have anything to worry about.'

Clearly Olsen was wrong."
https://www.cringely.com/2011/02/09/ken-olsen-and-post-industrial-computing/

You're making the same mistake as him. It _doesn't matter_ what 
people first use the new tool for, what matters is what it _can_ 
be used for, particularly over time. That time is now, as top and 
mid-range smartphone chips now rival mid-to low-end PC CPUs, 
which is the majority of the market. The x86/x64 PC's days are 
numbered, just as it once killed off the minicomputer decades ago.