Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere

Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by msabalau on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @08:20PM (#9965514)

From a consumer perspective, it's unclear why a typical person needs a pc or laptop. For video content, a Chromecast is easier than fiddling with plugs and almost as cheap as an HDMI cable. A console provides a vastly superior gaming experience to a similarly priced laptop and almost no one needs to write a dissertation. And if you need to type at home for some reason, a $120 chromebook will do the job just fine--that may be a "laptop", but it's one that's worse than irrelevant to Microsoft.

And smartphones are better than PC in all sorts of ways. They can always be with you, they can function as a camera and video recorder directly, they aren't a box into which you need to figure out how to get your content into. They take up less space, and can easily be customized with cases for style and self expression.

Home computers started as a niche interest, and they'll return to that.

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Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by quanticle on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @08:33PM (#9965580)

>From a consumer perspective, it's unclear why a typical person needs a pc or laptop.

Simple ergonomics. Forget dissertations, I get annoyed writing Hacker News comments on my phone. Technology may change, but human physiology doesn't, and until we get telepathic interfaces, a "human sized" interface is going to be most comfortable for any task that takes longer than a few minutes.

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Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by sospep on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @09:05PM (#9965677)

Try talking to it. Voice recognition is really good on most platforms today. I realize that its not always an option but can be very handy at times.

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Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by norea-armozel on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @05:25PM (#9971688)

I tried doing that with a tumblr blog I have and it didn't work out. It's faster and easier to write by keyboard. Seriously, I can't see how anyone talks to a phone while trying to get their thoughts out. Correcting a sentence or copying/pasting a series of sentences is much easier with a mouse/keyboard combo than a touchscreen/voice combo.

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Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by rhino369 on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @08:44PM (#9965617)

It's most a form factor issue. People want phones that fit in their pocket or purse and they want something with a real physical keyboard and large screen for stuff like big emails, doing productivity stuff, couch surfing, etc.

Maybe the pc or laptop form factor will morph into a docking station for mobile device.

PC laptops are so damn cheap that cost isn't an issue for all but the poorest. Who already do use mobile only.

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Re:Microsoft, capitulation and the end of Windows Everywhere by eitally on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @06:20AM (#9967577)

If you own a camera separate from your phone, the odds are good that you also want or need a PC/laptop to manage your photo collection.

I wrote the majority of my dissertation using Google Docs ... but switched to Word when I had to try and figure out the byzantine formatting required by my department.

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