Mobile is the new PC and AArch64 is the new x64

[Joakim]

On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 15:41:41 UTC, tide wrote:
> On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 15:11:42 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>> I say that almost 30% drop in PC sales over the last 7 years 
>>>> is mostly due to the rise of mobile.
>>>
>>> I think a large part of it is that PCs got fast enough for 
>>> most people about 7-10 years ago. So it was a combination of 
>>> mobile, and people no longer needing to get newer faster 
>>> machines. The upgrade cycle moved from "I need a newer faster 
>>> computer" to "I'll wait till my current system is worn out". 
>>> (For a lot of people anyway)
>>
>> Sure, that's part of it, but that suggests that once 
>> smartphones reach that performance threshold, they will 
>> replace PCs altogether. I think we've reached that threshold 
>> now.
>
> I feel only looking at sales stats is irrelevant. I know people 
> that have lost their phone and just bought a new phone. They 
> get stolen a lot more easily. If your screen breaks you are 
> better off buying a new phone as the cost of replacing the 
> screen is going to be almost as much as a new one. Someone I 
> know had to fight his boss to repair his phone cause he didn't 
> want a brand new iPhone, he still has an Android device and 
> they switched to Apple a while back. Note, it still costed more 
> to buy the new phone than repair his old one.
>
> Computers last much longer, I've had the one I have right now 
> for 8 years. It runs everything I need it to. Faster than a 
> smartphone or tablet, or even most newer laptops still. There's 
> no reason to buy a new one, not that I would buy a prebuilt one 
> anyways. Which I'm pretty sure are what those sales represent. 
> Can't really count a CPU sale as a "PC" sale as it might just 
> be someone upgrading from their old PC.

DIY PC sales are estimated at around 50 million a year, they 
don't move the needle compared to mobile sales. And yes, 
smartphones get broken easier and need to be upgraded more often, 
_just as the PC was once a shoddier product than a DEC 
minicomputer_, as Ken Olsen noted.

What _matters_ is that mobile is approaching 10X the sales of 
PCs. That pays for a lot of innovation and upgrades that the PC 
base simply cannot pay for: they just don't have the numbers. 
That is the _same_ way the PC swamped the minicomputer, and 
mobile is now doing it to the PC.

On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 15:49:33 UTC, tide wrote:
> That is, it is not just the performance that affects the sales 
> of phones. There's a lot of factors that lead to there being 
> new phones sales. Know someone that's gone through 3 phones in 
> comparison to just the one I have. Treadmills eat phones for 
> breakfast.

You're conflating my two arguments. Performance has nothing to do 
with why mobile sells a lot more already, that's all about 
battery life, mobility, 4G networks, etc. Performance is why 
mobile's about to kill off the PC too, because it's finally 
performant enough.

On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 22:03:12 UTC, Gambler wrote:
> You're right about APKs. Not sure whether it changed since I 
> looked into it, or I didn't read the docs correctly in the 
> first place. The overall dev/distribution process, though, 
> still looks... uh, involved compared to compiling and running 
> an executable on PC.

I suspect the 10-15 command-line steps listed there to build a 
GUI app on Android itself are _much less_ work than on any other 
platform, especially since you don't have to install any big SDK 
like VS, Xcode, or Qt where plenty of things can go wrong.

Of course, it can always be made simpler.

> In general, I am still convinced of the overall negative effect 
> of mobile devices on computing. They are designed to be used 
> mostly for consumption and social sharing. They have a lot of 
> limitations that currently drag the whole IT ecosystem down.

I think you want to cling to that opinion regardless of the 
evidence.

> Some excellent high-level criticisms:
>
> https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-about-the-iphone-and-technology-now

An interesting interview, thanks for the link. Mostly not about 
mobile, but he seems to think the iPhone was too limiting and 
should have come with a stylus? Neither critique applies to 
Android, which is the vast majority of the mobile market, where 
Termux and the stylus of the Galaxy Note are available, if you 
want them.

> http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

He mostly states the obvious, of course touch is not the future 
of HCI interfaces. He mentions speech as a posibility in the 
addendum linked at the end, there are people working on it now (I 
can't believe it's been two years since this article was written):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/11/google-home-review-a-step-forward-for-hotwords-a-step-backward-in-capability/

That excellent overview notes a problem with discoverability of 
voice commands in Google Home, so they'll have to come up with a 
kind of "manpage" for that. ;)

As for his preferred haptic approach, it's only really suited for 
certain kinds of spatial manipulation, which is actually a narrow 
minority of how people use computers, and the tech for that just 
isn't there yet. I too could make up some fantastical interface, 
like direct brain reading, but it's meaningless if the underlying 
tech hasn't been invented yet.

> Specific Example #1:
> Web design had been devastated by touchscreens.

Not sure why that matters if you agree with Kay that HTML is an 
abortion? :) I actually think it's great that mobile is killing 
off the web, as the Comscore usage stats I linked earlier show.

> Instead of figuring out
> how to create more powerful interfaces designers spend their 
> mental
> capacity on how to cram information onto tiny screens of unknown
> orientation. The vocabulary of reliably available user 
> interactions has
> shrunk to actions people can do with a single thumb. Worst of 
> all, this
> is spreading to desktop apps. I've seen in this in my 
> day-to-day job.

Broadening your complaint out to non-web GUIs, it is true that 
people overuse mobile screens now, rather than using the right 
screen for the job, ie mobile is best about 80% of the time, so 
you shouldn't use it 90% of the time. The devices and software I 
linked in my first post are changing that, by bringing 
multi-window GUIs to mobile devices.

> Specific Example #2:
> People brought up on mobile devices do not know how to type on 
> a keyboard:
> http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201803290068.html
> This is not limited to Japan. Again, I've seen this in real 
> life.

I don't know people of any generation who didn't have to spend 
some of their adolescent or adult years learning how to use a 
keyboard, ie it's never been something you're born with or pick 
up in grade school.

Honestly, we're in a weird time right now where voice is good 
enough for basic tasks, but keyboards are still needed for 
programming and other complex tasks. When voice gets good enough 
in the coming years, we will simply ditch the keyboards and stop 
forcing the kids to learn such outdated tools.

> Do you think that someone who can't type on a keyboard will be
> able to use _Unix terminal emulation_ to create software? 
> Termux is a
> cool project, but it doesn't target "billions of people". It 
> targets a
> handful of experienced Linux users who want to fiddle with 
> Android.

I see, so an iPhone is way too simple, but a terminal is way too 
complex? Is there any consistency to your complaints?

Nobody said Termux "targets" billions, only that it gave them 
access. 99.99% of the people running PCs never bothered to write 
a single line of code on them either. Termux gives a _lot_ more 
people that same access, it's up to them if they decide to use it.

Of course, it can always be made even simpler and easier, but 
this is likely the best you're going to get for free.

> And yes, we do need computing power for new things. I agree 
> with that article on machine learning hype. But that doesn't 
> change the fact that without all the video cards modern machine 
> learning architectures would be impractical, whether or not you 
> consider them particularly useful or good.

I don't see why the hardware matters at all if the software use 
it's put to is not useful or good.

> Computing power was the enabler.

Yes, that was my initial point of this thread: the computing 
power in your hand these days is much more powerful than the PC 
ever was, because it's in billions' more hands and the mobile 
chips are now just as fast.

On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 23:56:23 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 15:11:42 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 10:25:30 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
>>
>>> Some analysts have predicted that PC sales will plateau at 
>>> some point and if that's where we're at now then 30% drop in 
>>> shipments is not death of the market.
>>
>> I see no reason why they would plateau, looks like wishful 
>> thinking to me.
>
> Might be, but so is trying to convince everyone your 
> predictions are correct so they will focus their work on the 
> issues important to you.

Not at all, because if my predictions are correct, this language 
will disappear along with the PC platform it's built on. And I've 
never suggested anybody work on anything "important to [me]," my 
original post even stated that D may never do well on mobile.

In other words, this thread isn't about me or my work: it's a 
warning about D surviving the coming PC collapse. I've opened an 
escape hatch with the Android port, but it's up to D devs to take 
it.

>>> I think a large part of it is that PCs got fast enough for 
>>> most people about 7-10 years ago. So it was a combination of 
>>> mobile, and people no longer needing to get newer faster 
>>> machines. The upgrade cycle moved from "I need a newer faster 
>>> computer" to "I'll wait till my current system is worn out". 
>>> (For a lot of people anyway)
>>
>> Sure, that's part of it, but that suggests that once 
>> smartphones reach that performance threshold, they will 
>> replace PCs altogether. I think we've reached that threshold 
>> now.
>
> If it was just about performance, but it's not.

Of course, it's not just about performance but once that 
threshold is crossed, you can start doing everything else, like 
adding the multi-window interfaces that the mobile devices I 
linked initially have.

>>>>> And just because there's been a trend for 5 or 6 years 
>>>>> doesnt mean it will continue so inevitably.
>>>>
>>>> Sure, but these trends almost never reverse. ;)
>>>
>>> It doesnt need to reverse for "the PC is dead" to be false.
>>
>> Plateaus almost never happen, it's not the natural order of 
>> things.
>
> OK the market stabilises.

I don't see how you changing the word you used changes anything 
about the underlying phenomenon: that doesn't happen.

>>> Because for about £300 you can get an intel NUC system with 
>>> 120GB SSD, which is more powerful and more upgradeable than 
>>> your £700 mobile device. And some people still want that. And 
>>> because most people have more than one TV, some have multiple 
>>> phones, phones and tablets, and desktops, and multiple games 
>>> consoles. And they still use them all in different situations.
>>
>> That's more on the high end, where people use many devices. On 
>> the low- to mid-end of the market, where most of the sales 
>> happen, people are happy to buy fewer devices that get the job 
>> done.
>
> Most households have more devices than ever before, and 
> hardware is only getting cheaper. The idea that people will 
> have to choose just one device is plainly wrong.

You need to get out in the world a bit more. The majority of 
smartphones these days are bought in emerging markets where 
_nobody in their home has ever owned a PC or used the internet_. 
I've talked to these working stiffs in developing markets, you 
clearly haven't.

They're not about to spend $200-400 on a PC when they could 
barely afford the one $100-200 smartphone in their home now. But 
they might buy a $50-100 laptop shell like the one in the youtube 
video I linked in my initial post, attach it to their Android 
smartphone, and get some kind of basic work or learning done with 
a traditional multi-window interface, which has been built into 
all Android devices since 7.0.

>> I find it strange that you think the PC won't also be rolled 
>> up by mobile like this.
>
> Can you put a 3GB hard drive in your phone?

Why would I ever want to do this when I noted my phone has 128 
GBs of space? ;) If you mean 3 _TB_, yes, I simply attach my slim 
1 TB external drive and back up whatever I want over USB 3.0.

> Or a high end graphics card?

Smartphones come with very powerful graphics cards these days, 
plenty powerful enough to drive lots of graphic loads.

>Or a soundcard with balanced outputs?

Some phones come with high-end DACs and the like, or you could 
always attach something externally if you really needed to.

There are even high-end, movie-level camera systems being built 
around smartphones now:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/8/1/17639752/red-holographic-hydrogen-one-phone-fcc-approval

>>>>> Yes you can bring up examples of people who made mistakes 
>>>>> predicting the future but that works both ways. You're just 
>>>>> as guilty of seeing a two points and drawing a straight 
>>>>> line though them.
>>>>
>>>> Except none of these examples or my own prediction are based 
>>>> on simple extrapolation between data points. Rather, we're 
>>>> analyzing the underlying technical details and capabilities 
>>>> and coming to different conclusions about whether the status 
>>>> quo is likely to remain. So I don't think any of us are 
>>>> "guilty" of your charge.
>>>
>>> Of course you are, you're making predictions and assuming the 
>>> trends will continue, you assume the technical details are 
>>> all important. Im saying they are only part of it, that 
>>> people have requirements / preferences outside of how 
>>> powerful the device is. Lots of people were predicting ebooks 
>>> would kill the real book market a few years back, turns out 
>>> people still prefer to have an actual paper book to read, 
>>> ebooks peaked a few years ago and real books have been in 
>>> growth ever since. That was people seeing a trend and 
>>> assuming it would continue just like you are.
>>
>> No, print is pretty much dead, it's just hard to track because 
>> so many ebooks have gone indie now:
>>
>> https://www.geekwire.com/2018/traditional-publishers-ebook-sales-drop-indie-authors-amazon-take-off/
>>
>> What are these magical "requirements/preferences" that you 
>> cannot name, that you believe will keep print alive? That will 
>> be really funny. :)
>
> You obviously didn't research thoroughly enough, the site that 
> was the source for the geekwire article shows quite clearly 
> that print books still outsell ebooks almost twice over.
>
> http://authorearnings.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Slide29.jpg

And how does that contradict anything I said? _You_ said that 
ebooks have peaked while print keeps growing, whereas the article 
I linked and this guy's data show ebooks growing and print 
continuing to decline.

I never said ebook sales had passed print yet, only linked to 
that article saying that it's hard to measure now but it's likely 
print is still declining, and that print is effectively dead, as 
it's only going to keep declining into irrelevance.

> and yes that's with indie published books included.
>
> Another interesting thing from that report was the average 
> price of indie ebooks was $2.95
>
> http://authorearnings.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Slide26.jpg
>
> So even selling ebooks for peanuts cant catch them up.

They aren't selling them for "peanuts," they've simply stripped 
out a bunch of legacy costs like paper, editors, publishers, and 
the like. The reason authors still prefer indie ebooks is they 
get more money per book even at that lower price, as the rest of 
the supply chain and distribution had squeezed them down to only 
5-15% of the much higher print price.

Anyway, ebooks are a dumb format, it's the LaserDisc of 
publishing. What killed VHS was the DVD, ie it will be blogs and 
other more interactive content that kills off print, not simply 
slapping the same outdated, static format online as an "ebook."

On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 06:23:27 UTC, Gambler wrote:
> On 9/15/2018 11:25 AM, Joakim wrote:
>> 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. :)
>
> Sure. Xerox production department sabotaged the initial release 
> of Alto, because they were invested in "smart" typewriters. But 
> I don't think this is a valid analogy.

It's more valid than yours, considering it was the typewriter 
makers who got scared. ;)

> Here is mine. PCs are like books, while tablets and phones are 
> like TV. TV is a more modern medium, but it's highly 
> centralized and strips the audience of control. A successful TV 
> program usually reaches more people than a book, but television 
> has much higher barrier of entry for creators. Moreover, while 
> it is theoretically possible to learn something by watching TV, 
> in practice it's oriented towards "news" and entertainment and 
> _this matters_.
>
> So should we celebrate dwindling books sales and multi-million 
> ratings of some morning show simply because the show makes a 
> lot of money? Should we encourage underdeveloped countries 
> "skip" books and move "directly" to TV?

This is quite a dumb argument, because mobile has a lot more 
similar with PCs than it does with TV. There are some superficial 
similarities, such as centralized app stores and how many people 
watch stupid youtube videos, but tons of people were whiling away 
their time surfing the web on a PC long before mobile ever came 
along.

You do realize that microcomputers like the Macintosh and the PC 
were once the underpowered toys, the "TV" in your silly analogy? 
Here's an interesting comment from below the Ken Olsen post I 
linked earlier:

"I worked at DEC in an engineering group during the mid-1980s. 
Someone brought in an early Macintosh and I recall talking to a 
colleague who was fiddling with MacPaint at the time. I asked 
what language compilers it had and was told there were none. I 
asked about database packages and got a similar answer. At that 
point I dismissed it as an expensive toy, not a “serious” 
computer. After all, I was working with minis and mainframes that 
cost thousands, if not millions of dollars, and that were used by 
dozens and even hundreds of people.

In those days DEC was the second largest computer company in the 
world, and our sights were set on IBM, still ten times our size. 
It was hard to see these little eight- and sixteen-bit machines 
as any kind of serious threat. Of course with the
benefit of 20-20 hindsight it’s easy to see their inevitable 
domination of the computing industry as they grew cheaper and 
more powerful."

Guess who else is making laughable complaints about compilers not 
being available on the first iPhone today? You guys are ignorant 
of some fairly recent history here, this has all happened before 
and history is just repeating itself, with mobile supplanting the 
PC this time around.