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FRIDAY POLL: Will Desktops Be Irrelevant Soon?
In: web resources
7 Mar 2010
Happy Friday, people! Along with the venerable tradition of Follow Friday, today also marks this week’s edition of the Friday Poll.
Last week we wanted to know if location checkin services freak you out in terms of privacy concerns. Reactions were pretty mixed, although many of you felt like services gave you enough control over permissions and what to make public. Some were concerned about the “digital divide” between early adopters who probably have the experience to know how to use the tools wisely, and the more general public who may end up confronting more privacy issues due to unfamiliarity with these services.
This week there’s another hot topic on the table, thanks to a comment made by Google’s European Director of Online Sales John Herlihy, who said that Google’s focus is squarely on mobile because “in three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs.”
We definitely wanted to find out what Mashable readers thought about the future of desktops in light of the push towards mobile: Will desktops still be around? Can these form factors co-exist or will mobile rule the day in short order? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Mashable Answers
Pete Cashmore: Desktops will be a lot less relevant versus laptops and phones. Even for processor-intensive tasks, high-end laptops often suffice.
Ben Parr: No — it will take a lot more time than that. However, you will start seeing app stores replacing traditional purchasing of software in three years.
Josh Catone: “Irrelevant” is a pretty strong word. I don’t know that desktops will ever be irrelevant as long as we continue to use computers. While mainstream users will undoubtedly gravitate toward small, fast, easier-to-use machines like laptops, smart phones, video game consoles, tablets and other connected devices for most of their day-to-day computing, there will likely continue to be a need for desktops in many corporate environments and for resource-intensive tasks (like editing film or rendering computer graphics).
Brenna Ehrlich: No. While it would probably be more cost effective to have one device that caters to your every need, it still remains difficult to both read and write on mobile devices. That all speaks to the permanence of devices such as laptops, but I’m not so sure about desktops.
Matt Silverman: Not completely, but certainly less relevant as we get more processing power into laptops and tablets. If we can do gaming and audio/video production equally as well on a portable computer, then why not?
Christina Warren: No. I think the paradigm will change and that secondary and mobile devices will grow in importance, but no, I don’t see desktops becoming irrelevant in three years.
Tamar Weinberg: Nope. PC gamers will always be reliant on the type of hardware that only desktops offer. Mobile technology will become a lot more prevalent, but as desktops are usually always ahead of the game in terms of feature set and power, desktops will still have a place.
Barb Dybwad: Even mainframes are still around so, no, I don’t think desktops will totally disappear. The rise of netbooks though shows that a lot of people just need “good enough” for a lot of tasks and are willing to trade performance for mobility in lots of use cases. But I agree with Tamar that gamers will still demand the PC hardware experience, and other power-intensive tasks like video-editing and multi-track audio will keep desktops in service for some time even as some users will be doing more of that on laptops and mobile devices too.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ericsphotography
Reviews: Google, Mashable, iStockphoto
Tags: computing, desktops, future, Google, laptops, lunchtime poll, Mobile 2.0, polls, predictions, smartphones
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6 Responses to FRIDAY POLL: Will Desktops Be Irrelevant Soon?
xxdarkdarlingxx
March 17th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Google bought YouTube some time back. We've all been expecting this to happen for quite a while, now. No surprises, here.
And it's nothing to fret. Just relax.
Simply create a Google account and start using it to login to YouTube. It's easy…
Just go to Google's front page, and notice in the upper-rightmost corner the words "Sign in." Click on that, and then on the next page, down near the lower right, click on the "Create an account now" link. Then go from there.
Once you have that account, it can be used to sign-up for pretty much anything owned/operated by Google… including GMAIL and all kinds of other stuff… and including, obviously, YouTube, as well.
Actually, logging-in to YouTube via one's Google account has always been possible. It's the only way I've ever done it. So I wasn't aware of Google now having changed things so that YouTube-created logins will no longer work. I thought it still worked both ways… and, in fact, that might still be the case. As another poster here suggested, it might be some kind of temporary glitch or bug or something. If so, then you should be able to login user your true YouTube account soon.
However, if it's true that Google has now finally pulled the trigger on what we've all been expecting (that YouTube-created logins would one-day be replaced by Google logins), then, as I've explained, the only thing to do is go create a Google account and start using it instead. And I've explained how, above.
If YouTube has now abolished YouTube-created logins, and wants users to only use Google logins instead, then I suspect that once you've created your Google account, and have logged-in to YouTube, there will be some method of telling YouTube what was your old YouTube login (for which you'll need to know that password, of course) so that that old YouTube account can be tied to your new Google account. I don't KNOW this for a fact, but I can't see any other way for Google to do it.
So, again, relax. It'll all be fine.
Hope that helps!
Blair F
March 19th, 2010 at 1:11 am
GameStop or EB Games (owned by the same management, name just differs depending on where you live)
bob m
March 24th, 2010 at 4:35 am
I do agree that the chosen text is definitely a reflection of our times–the world, especially in religious relations, is very dark right now. I also think it's a fine example of what I see so much on this site alone, let alone so many other places–purposefully taking a quote out of context to make it seem much more than it is.
dogsrspcl
March 28th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
biodiesel and ethanol also do NOTHING to decrease global warming (they will actually increase CO2 emissions!)
we have to look back to nuclear energy, its actually much safer than the alternatives when you take damage to climate into consideration
Sheepdog
May 20th, 2010 at 4:01 am
Screw reporting them. You have no right to determine the policies and practices of privately owned radio stations.
Just quit listening, like you've done.
This is America. You don't have the right to force others to make life more pleasant for you. Not through legislative fiat, and most definitely not through judicial meddling.
*** EDIT ***
Actually, I understand that point. But the fact of the matter is, EVERYBODY with ANYTHING salable is going to promote the hell out of it. Payola is no different from Nike insinuating that people wearing their shoes are better athletes, or AXE suggesting that men who wear their scents are going to be ravaged by hot chicks in public places. It's no different from Coke or Ford or any other manufacturing entity paying to have their products seen and displayed in the contexts of television shows or movies. Nor is it any different from homosexual or ethnic activists agitating to have "their people" portrayed more often in the media, in positive roles.
Every product, every opinion and every agenda gets pushed to the masses in the never ending battle to win hearts, minds and pocketbooks. This is not a situation unique to modern day America. It has happened all over the globe, for thousands of years.
There are only two things unprecedented about the American version. (1) Its scale. (2) Its remarkable absence of coercion.
And it's that second point that I want to really drive home. Throughout the ages, coercion has been a tool for controlling minds. "Hail Caesar! (And if you don't you'll be sent to fight lions in the Colisseum)." "Convert, or Die (said by Muslims to Christians during the Crusades, and by Christians to heretics during the Inquisition)." "If you're going to buy cocaine, you're going to buy Pablo Escobar's cocaine (or we'll cut your children's throats and pull their tongues out through the holes.)"
What makes America unique is THERE ARE NO LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR REJECTING OTHERS' ATTEMPTS AT MARKETING.
But this has got to be a two-way street. If we can't be punished for rejecting a legal product, then we mustn't try punishing (via the legal system, anyway) others for trying to market it to us.
The freedom to reject the bulsh!t of advertisers means that advertisers must be free to bullsh!t.
Hhjjh I
May 21st, 2010 at 2:44 am
I think they should have them, depends on what color you're looking for though…