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.

On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> 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.

HTML is a somewhat open standard. I'm more happy with HTML and Javascript, as ugly as they are and as dominated by Google and Microsoft as they are, than having to target private companies' frameworks.

On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> 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
>>
>> 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.

You are making your arguments to fit your desires.


>>> 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.

You're seriously suggesting that markets never stabilise, say oil prices stay steady for a few years or some such?


>> 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.

And what happens when the emerging markets mature? Do they still just cling on to one smart phone in the house? Or are they yearning for more technology?


>>> 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.

So you're not averse to having some external hardware sat on your desk. Hmmm.


>> Or a high end graphics card?
>
> Smartphones come with very powerful graphics cards these days, plenty powerful enough to drive lots of graphic loads.

Not if you're into high end gaming.


>>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's no such thing as professional audio breakout box for android AFAIK. Up until a few years ago the problem was Android couldn't do low latency audio, I'm not sure if the situation has changed.


>>
>> http://authorearnings.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Slide29.jpg
>
> And how does that contradict anything I said?

It contradicts your statement...

"print is pretty much dead"

If you can make the argument that print is dead and ebooks booming when print still outsells ebooks in unit sales 2 to 1, and even more than that if you look at revenue then you need to see a shrink. :)


> 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.

You didnt read the article carefully enough. The growth is in "adult fiction", the market as a whole has fallen.


> 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.

So it's hard to measure but it's definitely going to die. LOL.


>> 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.

How much profit the author makes is irrelevant. The point is you can buy an ebook for an average of $2.95 or a print book for (uninformed guess) $8. And yet more people still choose the print book.

And this is what even now you dont understand. People like real books, they like the feel of it the immediacy, the intimacy. They like their kindles too.

It's not one or the other. I cant believe you dont understand that.

On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 22:27:41 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> 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.
>
> HTML is a somewhat open standard. I'm more happy with HTML and Javascript, as ugly as they are and as dominated by Google and Microsoft as they are, than having to target private companies' frameworks.

So you'd rather target an incredibly badly designed open standard than a mostly open source "private company's" framework that's certainly not great, but much better? It's no contest for me, give me the latter any day. And then of course, there's always cross-platform OSS toolkits like Flutter or DlangUI.

On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 23:42:03 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> 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
>>>
>>> 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.
>
> You are making your arguments to fit your desires.

I can't make head nor tails of this claim, you have a talent for vague non sequiturs. My arguments are based on data, the overwhelming sales numbers I linked. I have no idea what desires you think are involved, I suspect you don't either. :)

>>>> 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.
>
> You're seriously suggesting that markets never stabilise, say oil prices stay steady for a few years or some such?

Prices flit all over the place, that's not what we're talking about. Oil _production_ has been remarkably consistent and growing for many, many decades:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crude_NGPL_IEAtotal_1960-2008.svg

The only hiccup was in the early '80s because of extraordinary measures taken by governments, like price controls and cartel orders, which was still only a 15% drop.

If oil production ever drops 30% because some workable substitute comes along, as has happened to PCs now, yes, there is no chance of stabilization. It will be a steady decline from there, as these trends have a kind of momentum.

>>> 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.
>
> And what happens when the emerging markets mature? Do they still just cling on to one smart phone in the house? Or are they yearning for more technology?

They buy more mobile devices, the PC will be long since dead and gone.

>>>> 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.
>
> So you're not averse to having some external hardware sat on your desk. Hmmm.

My original post links to examples of using your smartphone connected to a keyboard and monitor or a laptop shell, so I'm not sure where you ever got the idea I was against "external hardware."

>>> Or a high end graphics card?
>>
>> Smartphones come with very powerful graphics cards these days, plenty powerful enough to drive lots of graphic loads.
>
> Not if you're into high end gaming.

The vast majority of PCs don't have cards capable of that either. For the few who want it, there will be specialized solutions, whether consoles or whatever.

>>>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's no such thing as professional audio breakout box for android AFAIK. Up until a few years ago the problem was Android couldn't do low latency audio, I'm not sure if the situation has changed.

If and when that becomes a market that actually matters, somebody will cater to it, just as google optimized the Android video stack for VR a couple years ago:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/android-7-0-nougat-review-do-more-on-your-gigantic-smartphone/11/#h2

>>> http://authorearnings.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Slide29.jpg
>>
>> And how does that contradict anything I said?
>
> It contradicts your statement...
>
> "print is pretty much dead"
>
> If you can make the argument that print is dead and ebooks booming when print still outsells ebooks in unit sales 2 to 1, and even more than that if you look at revenue then you need to see a shrink. :)

Or I actually understand market dynamics, :) which it's now become clear that you don't. This print decline is never going to stop.

>> 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.
>
> You didnt read the article carefully enough. The growth is in "adult fiction", the market as a whole has fallen.

It's funny how you keep making mistakes and then act as though I made them. The article notes that the indie ebook market has likely "taken off," more than making up for the slight drop in ebook sales from publishers.

Adult fiction is examined because it's a particularly relevant market. Since you like that Author Earnings site so much and link to more graphs from his report, you should've taken a moment to read what he actually writes. He notes in his latest report:

"a huge chunk of those print dollars are actually going to textbooks and other academic/professional print titles (strangely, the DSM-5 Psychiatric Manual of Mental Disorders was a particularly high 2017 seller). Textbooks, which are generally priced in the $60-$200 range, skew the dollar total significantly toward print. As do children’s books (including Board Books), another huge category of book sales where almost all purchases are in print.

When we leave out textbooks and children’s titles, and look only at adult fiction & trade nonfiction, the picture changes somewhat..."
http://authorearnings.com/report/january-2018-report-us-online-book-sales-q2-q4-2017/

So the reason to look at the 4 to 1 ratio of ebook sales to print of adult fiction online is because it's a bellwether, as one of the largest market segments that's actually driven by consumers. Textbooks and giant medical manuals are the last to switch to any new tech, as they're selected or purchased by large, hidebound institutions that always adopt new tech last or are more about signaling, ie students and doctors showing off that "I be learning" or "I can look up stuff" with those fat print books that they almost never crack open. Children's print books sell because many parents are wary of exposing their kids to too much screen time.

But since adult readers are showing so overwhelmingly that they don't care for print, even those last educational/medical holdouts will soon switch en masse and the print collapse begins.

>> 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.
>
> So it's hard to measure but it's definitely going to die. LOL.

I don't know what you find contradictory about that. A dying market doesn't want to signal that it's going away: that's why the newspaper ad revenue chart I linked before ends in 2014. Their newspaper trade group stopped publishing the data then, clearly because the ongoing collapse only made them look more and more irrelevant.

Similarly, we're not getting all the data now because it doesn't suit Amazon's or indie authors' interests to tip their hands. When they've finally killed off print, they'll start trumpeting their numbers and how they did it.

>>> 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.
>
> How much profit the author makes is irrelevant. The point is you can buy an ebook for an average of $2.95 or a print book for (uninformed guess) $8. And yet more people still choose the print book.

Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter: you don't know much economics. The fact that the indie ebook author makes a lot more profit is one of the most important factors in this market, and is one of the main reasons why the indie ebook market is currently booming.

As for prices bearing on buyers, you should actually _look_ at your data linked above. It notes that prices of indie and Amazon print books are 2-3X those of ebooks, which is why the ebooks sell 10-60X as many units!

You try to extrapolate that same price ratio to publishers' ebooks, but the article I linked explicitly noted that publishers will often stupidly charge more for their ebooks than the print version, and your whole argument was invalidated by the note above about textbook/manual prices skewing print prices upwards.

> And this is what even now you dont understand. People like real books, they like the feel of it the immediacy, the intimacy. They like their kindles too.

Heh, the go-to last-resort argument of fans of a dying tech: people just love "the look" of VHS more!

> It's not one or the other. I cant believe you dont understand that.

Yes, yes, we all know how many people are still rocking VHS tapes, iPods, point-and-shoot cameras, etc., all the tech I've pointed out has basically died off.

Print is as dead as VHS, not in sales yet, but in terms of having a future. Everybody knows this, even you.

Anyway, I'll stop lecturing you on basic economics and business, and bow out from responding to these often silly arguments from you from here on.

On Tuesday, 18 September 2018 at 07:53:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 22:27:41 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
>> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> HTML is a somewhat open standard. I'm more happy with HTML and Javascript, as ugly as they are and as dominated by Google and Microsoft as they are, than having to target private companies' frameworks.
>
> So you'd rather target an incredibly badly designed open standard than a mostly open source "private company's" framework that's certainly not great, but much better? It's no contest for me, give me the latter any day. And then of course, there's always cross-platform OSS toolkits like Flutter or DlangUI.

Thinking about it a bit more, the openness of the platform is more important. Android and iOS are effectively closed platforms. You *can* sideload apps, but it's rare to find someone willing to do so. If you're not on the app stores, your app isn't going to get a thousandth as much traction.

Windows, on the other hand, has long been an open platform; you can develop for it and publish your programs and Microsoft won't get in the way.

So an open source cross-platform toolkit controlled by a single entity isn't bad. I use GTK+ a lot, for instance. But the web and HTML is a better situation than Android and iOS and their toolkits.

On Tuesday, 18 September 2018 at 18:06:37 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
> On Tuesday, 18 September 2018 at 07:53:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 22:27:41 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
>>> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 15:47:14 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> HTML is a somewhat open standard. I'm more happy with HTML and Javascript, as ugly as they are and as dominated by Google and Microsoft as they are, than having to target private companies' frameworks.
>>
>> So you'd rather target an incredibly badly designed open standard than a mostly open source "private company's" framework that's certainly not great, but much better? It's no contest for me, give me the latter any day. And then of course, there's always cross-platform OSS toolkits like Flutter or DlangUI.
>
> Thinking about it a bit more, the openness of the platform is more important. Android and iOS are effectively closed platforms. You *can* sideload apps, but it's rare to find someone willing to do so. If you're not on the app stores, your app isn't going to get a thousandth as much traction.

I'll note that you wrote "app stores," and for Android there are actually multiple. There's the official Play store from google, the Amazon appstore, app stores for OSS apps like F-Droid or Fossdroid, and over 400 app stores in China, where those first two app stores are almost never used:

https://www.appinchina.co/market/app-stores/

Anyone can install any app store on their Android device and get any apps they want, though as you note, most outside China just go with the pre-installed Play or Amazon store.

> Windows, on the other hand, has long been an open platform; you can develop for it and publish your programs and Microsoft won't get in the way.

Though that is now changing with their new UWP platform, which by default must be installed from their own app store, the Microsoft Store. The link for the Windows/AArch64 device in my original post notes that they expect most Windows/AArch64 apps to be UWP apps, and so you'd get them from an app store just like Android most of the time. I read that they do have similar allowances for side-loading UWP apps as Android though, and of course older win32/64 apps on normal Wintel devices isn't affected by this.

> So an open source cross-platform toolkit controlled by a single entity isn't bad. I use GTK+ a lot, for instance. But the web and HTML is a better situation than Android and iOS and their toolkits.

I don't think the app stores are that big a deal as long as side-loading and multiple app stores are always allowed. Of course, that's not the case on iOS, one of the many reasons I've never really used an iOS device.

On Tuesday, 18 September 2018 at 07:53:31 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Monday, 17 September 2018 at 22:27:41 UTC, Neia Neutuladh wrote:
>>
>>
>> You are making your arguments to fit your desires.
>
> I can't make head nor tails of this claim, you have a talent for vague non sequiturs. My arguments are based on data, the overwhelming sales numbers I linked. I have no idea what desires you think are involved, I suspect you don't either. :)

Data and statistics are open to interpretation and you consistently interpret them to fit your desired direction.


> If oil production ever drops 30% because some workable substitute comes along, as has happened to PCs now, yes, there is no chance of stabilization. It will be a steady decline from there, as these trends have a kind of momentum.

Only if the new product meets all the use cases of the old product. Again this is what you dont understand.


>> So you're not averse to having some external hardware sat on your desk. Hmmm.
>
> My original post links to examples of using your smartphone connected to a keyboard and monitor or a laptop shell, so I'm not sure where you ever got the idea I was against "external hardware."

If you're gonna have all that on your desk it's no stretch to think well i'll have computer on there too.

Oh shit yeah I forgot we're only allowed one computer.


>> Not if you're into high end gaming.
>
> The vast majority of PCs don't have cards capable of that either. For the few who want it, there will be specialized solutions, whether consoles or whatever.

It's one of the many use cases that mobile doesnt meet. It's one of the areas where PC sales has been growing year on year.

But of course that doesnt fit your wishful thinking scenario. Obviously people will ditch PCs for consoles, oh wait they said that 15 years ago, and now they are saying the opposite.


>> There's no such thing as professional audio breakout box for android AFAIK. Up until a few years ago the problem was Android couldn't do low latency audio, I'm not sure if the situation has changed.
>
> If and when that becomes a market that actually matters, somebody will cater to it, just as google optimized the Android video stack for VR a couple years ago:

It's not about it being a market that matters, it's a fact that the kind of processing power and hardware you need for digital audio workstation isnt met by mobile devices and likely never will be because it's like 3d rendering. People doing this stuff always want more cpu cycles, and more bandwidth and storage.

It's not like browsing the web where it gets to a point where it's good enough, it's never good enough.


>>>> http://authorearnings.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Slide29.jpg
>>>
>>> And how does that contradict anything I said?
>>
>> It contradicts your statement...
>>
>> "print is pretty much dead"
>>
>> If you can make the argument that print is dead and ebooks booming when print still outsells ebooks in unit sales 2 to 1, and even more than that if you look at revenue then you need to see a shrink. :)
>
> Or I actually understand market dynamics, :) which it's now become clear that you don't. This print decline is never going to stop.

And yet sales of print books have been up for each of the last three years.

And you call that decline.


>>> 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.
>>
>> You didnt read the article carefully enough. The growth is in "adult fiction", the market as a whole has fallen.
>
> It's funny how you keep making mistakes and then act as though I made them. The article notes that the indie ebook market has likely "taken off," more than making up for the slight drop in ebook sales from publishers.

LOL, if i tried to say "PC sales are likely levelling out" you'd be all over it, oh wait you were. Hypocritical much.


> So the reason to look at the 4 to 1 ratio of ebook sales to print of adult fiction online is because it's a bellwether, as one of the largest market segments that's actually driven by consumers.

You're cherry picking the one bit of data that fits your narrative and then making up some BS about it being a bellwether for the whole market. Tell you what you find me one reputable source that backs up your BS about adult fiction being a bellwether.



>> It's not one or the other. I cant believe you dont understand that.
>
> Yes, yes, we all know how many people are still rocking VHS tapes, iPods, point-and-shoot cameras, etc., all the tech I've pointed out has basically died off.

Because DVDs (and now streaming) did everything VHS did and more.
Because phones can do everything an IPOD does and more.
Because phones do everything P&S cameras did and more.

Phones do not do everything a desktop PC can do, far from it.
Phones cant do everything a DSLR can do, and likely wont.
etc..

15 years ago, around the time of the original xbox, people were saying the PC gaming market was doomed, and yet its doing better than ever.

Why? Because it offers something you dont get with console gaming.

Again something you're blind to.


> Print is as dead as VHS, not in sales yet, but in terms of having a future. Everybody knows this, even you.

Except that it's not and you know it.


> Anyway, I'll stop lecturing you on basic economics and business, and bow out from responding to these often silly arguments from you from here on.

So you finally got tired of repeatedly having your ass handed to you on a plate. :)

On Wednesday, 19 September 2018 at 18:14:47 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
> Only if the new product meets all the use cases of the old product. Again this is what you dont understand.

Why did the iPhone, and after that the smartphone industry as a whole, completely crush the classic cell phones when they have such a poor battery life? Smartphones don't have everything previous phones had. The pros simply outweighed the cons.

You don't need a new product to do everything the previous product did for it to be successful enough to replace it.
I used to be all about being able to replace a phone's battery manually. With basically any newer smartphone now, you can't anymore.

Just because phones aren't doing everything PC's are doing doesn't mean they can't overtake their market. All they need is to have sufficient advantages over them, and even if you don't think this is the case right now, the average user could very well disagree.
Just like with removable batteries (which wasn't even a really technical thing).

On Thursday, 20 September 2018 at 05:45:52 UTC, Laurent Tréguier wrote:
> On Wednesday, 19 September 2018 at 18:14:47 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
>> Only if the new product meets all the use cases of the old product. Again this is what you dont understand.
>
> Why did the iPhone, and after that the smartphone industry as a whole, completely crush the classic cell phones when they have such a poor battery life? Smartphones don't have everything previous phones had. The pros simply outweighed the cons.

Longer battery life is a convenience not a requirement.


> You don't need a new product to do everything the previous product did for it to be successful enough to replace it.
> I used to be all about being able to replace a phone's battery manually. With basically any newer smartphone now, you can't anymore.

You can still buy the old brick phones with longer battery life. Smartphones have taken over but they havent killed that market completely.


> Just because phones aren't doing everything PC's are doing doesn't mean they can't overtake their market. All they need is to have sufficient advantages over them, and even if you don't think this is the case right now, the average user could very well disagree.
> Just like with removable batteries (which wasn't even a really technical thing).

It's not about phones overtaking desktops in the market, that's long past, it's about phones killing the desktop market completely.

All the advantages in the world are no good if it doesnt do something you **require** it to do. If I'm doing pro audio Android is useless, no hardware, not enough processing power, no DAW apps. Doesn't matter if it has an amazing screen, 3 sims, year long battery, etc etc..

On Thursday, 20 September 2018 at 08:15:39 UTC, Dave Jones wrote:
> Longer battery life is a convenience not a requirement.

What is a convenience and a requirement is completely subjective. I'd classify the removable battery example as a requirement more than a convenience, but other people don't.

> You can still buy the old brick phones with longer battery life. Smartphones have taken over but they havent killed that market completely.

Just like you can buy pretty much any old thing, obviously markets don't get 100% killed, nobody here is talking about complete, absolute annihilation of the PC to the point that is doesn't exist anymore...

> It's not about phones overtaking desktops in the market, that's long past, it's about phones killing the desktop market completely.

You're just playing on words here.

> All the advantages in the world are no good if it doesnt do something you **require** it to do. If I'm doing pro audio Android is useless, no hardware, not enough processing power, no DAW apps. Doesn't matter if it has an amazing screen, 3 sims, year long battery, etc etc..

Correction: "All the advantages in the world are no good if it doesn't do something MOST PEOPLE **require** it to do".
I personally wanted phones to always have a removable battery, but I'm not representative of the whole population. You're doing pro audio. Do most people in the world do pro audio ?
I think not.

"no hardware": if it exists in this plane of the universe, so it must have hardware in some way, don't you think ?
"not enough processing power": IIRC the very beginning of this train-wreck of a thread was the fact that processing power on smartphones is constantly increasing... So that's probably just a matter of time.

There will always be a niche, almost negligible market for anything. There are still  people using vinyl records after all. If that's the point you're trying to make, then yes, it's quite sure that the PC market will *technically* go on forever, there's no arguing about that. I just don't think this is the kind of market this thread was all about.