Narrative: The Decline of PCs
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
The desktop PC is finally cool – The Verge (Mar 6, 2017)
I’m pretty sure this headline is using the term PC in its narrower sense, and it could therefore read more specifically: “The Windows desktop PC is finally cool” because I’d certainly argue iMacs have been cool from the beginning. But this also feels part of a broader shift in the fortunes of Windows PCs – for years they seemed the utilitarian counterparts to the various members of the Mac line: often uglier, bulkier, with shorter battery life, harder to use, and all the rest. But that’s really changed in the last couple of years: with help from Intel (and perhaps a bit of a nudge from Microsoft’s own Surface line) Windows PCs have finally started to be really competitive in pure hardware terms with the Mac. That’s a sea change, and it means the competition between Mac and PC is now as much philosophical as it is about performance – there’s no clear edge in hardware for either side, and which platform you choose will be about the respective approaches to subjects like platform integration, touch interaction, and services instead. But of course none of this is happening in a vacuum – this resurgence of the Windows PC is coming just at at time when Apple seems to have taken its foot off the gas for a while with regard to the Mac, and especially the non-iMac desktops. And that raises the stakes significantly. Apple has so far said lots about its commitment to the Mac, but only followed those words up with action in the MacBook Pro line on the hardware side and the professional apps on the software side. For now, it’s asking a lot of people to trust that more is coming, but I’d say the urgency for those changes and updates is growing all the time.
via The Verge (see also this pair of posts from BI over the last couple of days – I certainly don’t agree with all of what they say, but they’re emblematic of the narrative developing at the moment)
Samsung’s Galaxy Book crams desktop power in portable body – Engadget (Feb 27, 2017)
Samsung is doing its flagship smartphone reveal a month from now in New York, so it’s focused on other things at MWC. I already covered its VR headset update, but another announcement involved a couple of new Windows tablets. As is so often the case with these trade show announcements, specific prices haven’t been announced, but these are on the ultraportable side of the PC range, looking a lot like some of Samsung’s Android tablets but with Windows onboard instead, and with detachable keyboards. This definitely feels like the hottest segment of the PC/tablet market at the moment, with Microsoft’s own Surface, lots of alternatives from OEMs, and of course Apple’s iPad Pro coming at this from a different angle.
via Engadget
Video Pros Moving From Mac to Windows for High-End GPUs – Daring Fireball (Feb 23, 2017)
I’m linking to this piece from John Gruber rather than the source because he highlights the key point here, which is that for some creatives with high-end computing needs, the current Mac lineup isn’t cutting it anymore, and they’re switching to Windows. When the new MacBook Pros came out late last year, there was lots of complaining from the developer and creative communities about the computers being underpowered, with no recent updates to the Mac Pro either. I’ve written about this, and think there are two separate things going on: firstly, Apple’s base is about so much more than power users at this point, and it has to focus on the majority not the tiny minority; and secondly, it’s very hard to know how representative these one-off anecdotes are of the broader picture. Are lots of creatives really abandoning the Mac, or is it just a handful who are getting lots of attention because they reinforce a narrative? I wish someone would do some kind of representative survey here – I only have my own anecdotal evidence to go on, which is that most video creatives are sticking with Mac for now, but again it’s not representative.
via Daring Fireball
Gartner Says 2016 Marked Fifth Consecutive Year of Worldwide PC Shipment Decline – Gartner (Jan 11, 2017)
This is Gartner’s quarterly press release on PC shipments for the end of 2016 (IDC’s equivalent release is here, with slightly different numbers, and definitions). The thrust is that the PC market continues to decline, with a 6.2% drop for the full year, and a more modest 3.7% decline in Q4 alone. But the other thing worth noting is that there’s a stark difference between the performance of the big players and the rest – the top six grew by 1.4% and the top five by 2%, but everyone but the top six collectively declined by 18.8% over the full year. The big players are mostly doing OK, but at the expense of a plethora of smaller players, and this is the shape of things to come, with the big question being the number of “big” players that will be able to sustain this performance – Asus and Acer saw declines in Q4, while Apple did better thanks to the new MacBooks.
via Gartner Says 2016 Marked Fifth Consecutive Year of Worldwide PC Shipment Decline – Gartner
The demand for AI is helping Nvidia and AMD leapfrog Intel – The Verge (Jan 11, 2017)
This is a good summary of the way in which Intel is now being challenged not just in mobile by ARM architectures but in AI by Nvidia and AMD too. That means that Intel is now falling behind in the two most important new chip use cases, not just one, and that its big bets on IoT and wearables will likely end up looking marginal next to AI as the next big opportunity for chip vendors. Add in cars, where Nvidia is also doing very well, and suddenly things start to look pretty bleak for Intel. There’s a great deeper dive here on the WSJ too.
via The demand for AI is helping Nvidia and AMD leapfrog Intel – The Verge
The PC is interesting again – The Verge (Jan 4, 2017)
Rather than linking to a whole set of separate CES press releases from various PC makers, I’ll link to this. It’s a great summary of what we’ve seen in PCs at CES and to some extent over recent months in general. Though PC sales overall are declining, there are still some interesting things happening with form factors, performance, and more, and increasingly spec- and performance-wise, Windows PCs are now the equals of the Mac. The big question, then, becomes philosophical differences in approach as regards things like touch, convergence of operating systems across device types, and so on.
via The PC is interesting again – The Verge
Want a Peek at the Future of Laptops? Check Out Samsung’s New Chromebooks | WIRED (Jan 4, 2017)
There’s a little too much hype in the headline here – this isn’t the future of laptops as much as the present, but as Chromebooks rather than Windows machines. The sort of convertible model Samsung is using here has been growing among Windows PCs for years now. In some ways the more interesting difference is that these laptops are being priced more like mid-range Windows PCs rather than cheap alternatives, as Chromebooks have been in the past. OEMs seem to be banking on Android integration to sell these machines now that price isn’t really a factor anymore.
via CES 2017: First-Look at Samsung’s Chromebook Plus and Chromebook Pro | WIRED
Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake review: Is the desktop CPU dead? – Ars Technica UK (Jan 3, 2017)
This is a fairly damning review of the latest set of Kaby Lake chips from Intel, some of which were announced late last year. The thrust is that in desktops in particular but also in the rest of the lineup Intel is making only incremental improvements over its Skylake processors. This is particularly interesting in the context of Apple’s recent MacBook Pro upgrades, which used the Skylake chips because they couldn’t do what they wanted to with Intel’s newest. Without meaningful competition in PC chips, this isn’t as dangerous as it might be, but it doesn’t bode well that Intel isn’t pushing the envelope in what’s still its core market.
via Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake review: Is the desktop CPU dead? | Ars Technica UK
Lenovo VR Headset Based on Windows Holographic For Close to $300 | Variety (Jan 3, 2017)
This will arguably be the year of piling on in VR, with many companies jumping on a bandwagon led by Sony, HTC, and Oculus. Lenovo, of course, has two possible routes to VR – mobile and PC-based. This article is about a PC solution, but at a price closer to some mobile VR technology than most of the PC stuff out there today. Microsoft does seem to be getting some big names on board, though of course we’re months from seeing how these products actually perform in the wild. See also this piece from The Verge with some more details.
via Lenovo VR Headset Based on Windows Holographic For Close to $300 | Variety
Microsoft might add ‘game mode’ to Windows 10 for maximum gaming performance – The Verge (Dec 28, 2016)
This isn’t coming out of left field – one of the big consumer features of Windows 10 has been its gaming emphasis, so this is a natural evolution. Gaming has been one of the big consumer success points for Microsoft amid broader questions about its strategy and especially monetization among consumers going forward.
via Microsoft might add ‘game mode’ to Windows 10 for maximum gaming performance – The Verge