>Smartphones will be their first and last computer
No, unfortunately smartphones are toys at best. Nobody uses them for real work, just consumption and browsing facebook. When they go to work, they will use a real computer.
> Smartphones (for me) have always been about consumption, not creation.
One of the top uses of smartphones is creating and sharing photos and videos. They're also very capable tools for a variety of creative tasks that aren't focused on making files on a computer.
That is not true, people think they couldn't survive without their smartphones but anecdotally, and as a systems engineer, I feel free without it. I use a PC for work and play, but not having a computer in my pocket constantly spamming me with trivial notifications helps me delineate life and the digital world. I used to waste way too much time on my smartphone as well, with a daily screen time of 5 hours, so now I find that I've got more time for hobbies, friends & family. </anecdote>
"smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations"
First ever computer I used was a Sinclair ZX 80 - the computing power, storage and connectivity of current mobile devices seem like something out of a science fiction story compared to that.
> Well yeah, smartphones lose most of their functionality without the existence of the internet
Well no, pocket computers - which is what smartphones are - don't need an internet to be useful. Here's what they can do for you without an internet connection:
- phone
- SMS
- mapping and navigation
- media player
- photo and video cameras
- electronic book reader
- calculator
- torch
- basic computing applications
- sensor platform for audio/acceleration/gyro/barometric/temperature measurements
- portable monitor for borescope
- ODB scanner for cars etc.
- ...and thousands of similar applications
Smartphones outsell computers 5 to 1 and for the next billion smartphone users a smartphone will be their first computer. Dismissing them as mere refinement of what went before is to ignore the scale of their impact on the world.
One may as well dismiss laptops with modems as "more fully featured telegraphs", or "smaller mainframes".
Smartphones are already more powerful than the desktop computers of, say, a few years ago and are already capable of comfortably running a browser and an office suite without any performance problems.
So it isn't a question of computing power, it's a question of utility: who actually needs this? What benefit does it provide over and above just having a cheap PC to do PC things and a smartphone to do smartphone things and syncing documents between the two? It's not cheaper, it's not more convenient, it's not more productive, it's not more powerful, so what's the point?
> Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption. In this regard they differ critically from PCs, because PCs are equal devices in the sense that the same device is used for creation and consumption. This means that anyone with a PC can create as well as consume, if they so wish. This cultural equality is diminished by an exodus to devices which can only really be used for consumption.
So smartphone companies put so much emphasis on the camera and, to a lesser extent, other built-in input devices, because...?
> Smartphones have powerful CPUs and fast network connections, except that you aren't actually allowed to use these resources in any meaningful sense, because doing so consumes battery power, and people don't want the precious battery life of their phones drained unnecessarily.
True, and this is a big hurdle for ~every attempt to gain traction with modern peer-to-peer protocols. Approximately no-one wants their smartphone battery to die in four hours flat so they can help serve decentralized YouTube on IPFS.
> Part of the “cloud” movement is probably driven by the fact that while smartphones have substantial computational resources, you can't actually use them because of battery life. So instead the computation is done in the cloud, creating a dependency on a centralized entity.
They didn't replace PCs, though. "Real" computation (by these standards) availability has continued to grow alongside smartphones. I'm skeptical how many more PCs would have been sold in a world without smartphones, and exactly how much more "creation" would be going on (though nb. I think "smartphones are just consumption devices" is a totally bizarre take disconnected from reality in the first place)
> They have ruined web design.
Heh. Yes, kinda, but then again several of the best versions of sites (that have multiple versions) are the mobile one. I'm pretty sure web design ruined web design, not smart phones.
> They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence.
Pretty damning that the most popular and widely used computing platform we could come up with, falls under this category. If only non-mobile operating systems weren't almost all completely terrible to use, for normal people.
> With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device.
Do I need to link to a billion search results dispensing the advice, "you're going to want to disable [MS virus scan / selinux / auto-updates / telemetry / et c] using [the command line / the "about" settings page / et c.] or it'll just keep [getting in your way / breaking / misbehaving]", or can I assume everyone's familiar with that?
> Note that the word “smartphone” is already a major misnomer, because a pocket device that can run apps is not primarily a phone at all. It’s primarily a general-purpose personal computer that happens to have a couple of built-in radios for cell and WiFi service […]
I love this. It explains both why locking down your customers' iPhones is evil (assuming it is Wrong™ to sever freedom 0 from a computer), and why people accept it (somehow they act as if it is not a "real" computer).
Is smartphone dying? You can use digital camera for photos, mp3 player for music, scientific calculator for math. Looks like a smartphone is being assaulted from all fronts.
> Everybody generally wants a few core services from their smartphone: send and receive brief messages, directions, ride hailing, listen to a podcast or some streaming service, mobile payments, take photos (perhaps most importantly).
Complete access to a large % of Western civilization's collective knowledge is also kind of nice.
Mostly used for restaurant open hours and random Wikipedia articles. But still.
Knowing where nearby gas stations are, checking when a store closes, comparison price shopping, checking nutrition facts, there are many uses for a smart phone outside of the ones you listed. And, as always, the long tail is long.
> Smartphones are devices we use constantly, all day, probably some absurd number of times per hour, and it is a statistic that is surely going up.
I might be the odd one out here, but I'll often go days without so much as touching my phone. Either I have my laptop with me, which is better than my iPhone at everything save being a phone, or if I'm just looking to burn time I'll read my Kindle. I have friends who are constantly glued to their phones, and I simply don't understand the attraction.
In some ways I agree but it's mostly a pervasive error in perception. Often smartphones are over-marketed as productivity enhancing devices, and that somehow smartphones and tablets are making PCs obsolete.
I see them as overpriced for what they provide and I agree with him that a lot of the power available in a smartphone's hardware goes under-used.
The point is that folks expect to use their smartphones for a vast array of tasks, and they are _expected_ to use their smartphones for these tasks (by family, employers, friends, merchants, etc.) This is a social problem much more than a technical one, as I see it.
Because smartphones are replacing general purpose computers.
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