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The Future of Wearable Power Is Energy Harvesting
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Smart Home Decade Dilemma
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Insider Extra: "Phablet" Impact Continues to Grow
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Insider Extra: The Wire-Free PC
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Insider Extra: The Real IOT Opportunity? Industry
February 10, 2015
Business Models For The Internet of Things (IOT)
February 5, 2015
Insider Extra: Is "Mobile Only" The Future?
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Sexiest New Devices? PCs...
January 29, 2015
Insider Extra: iPhone Next
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How Will Windows 10 Impact PCs and Tablets?
January 22, 2015
Insider Extra: Hands-On (or Heads-on) With HoloLens
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Whither Windows 10?
January 15, 2015
Insider Extra: Mobile Security: The Key to a Successful BYOD Implementation
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Smart Home Situation Likely To Get Worse Before It Gets Better
January 6, 2015
More Tech Predictions for 2015
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Top 5 Tech Predictions for 2015
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April 28, 2015
By Bob O'Donnell
Like many aspects of the tech business, the world of devices is driven by a number of simultaneous, but sometimes conflicting, trends. For years, much of the focus in devices was centered on which device would “win”. Somehow, the idea became widespread that in order for one device to win, the others had to lose. As a result we saw things like PCs being pitted against tablets in battles for the top device. But then as smartphones started getting more powerful and endowed with larger screens, they became the one device to rule them all.
Several years into these battles, it’s obvious that they were a fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world and understanding how the industry has evolved. Instead, it’s increasingly important to look at different combinations of devices and figure which types of devices work well in tandem.
From that perspective, it seems abundantly clear that the most compelling set of devices for many individuals is a large-screen, touch-enabled smartphone and a thin, lightweight 12-13” screen notebook (preferably with touch as well). Whether in a business environment or for personal usage, this combination seems to be the “dream team” of devices, offering access to virtually any type of application, or any type of information or experience in virtually any environment. From real-time social media and media consumption of all sorts, to document creation, information access, data analysis, messaging—it’s hard to imagine what you can’t do with these two devices.
Much of these results are due to the individual capabilities of each of the devices, but in conjunction with a data tethering package on your smartphone, you can also use the two together as a very effective package. Most notably, you can use your notebook in any environment you’d want, without the expense and hassle of paying for an extra modem and an extra data plan. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve enabled the personal hotspot feature on a smartphone to get access to email or a web site on my notebook. Conversely, there are often times that I discover things first on my smartphone, but want to access information in more detail on a larger screen on my notebook. And yes, believe it or not, there are still a reasonable number of web sites out there that only work to their full ability on a PC.
When tablets first hit the market, there were many who somehow thought that one device was in fact going to offer the best of both worlds—the mobility and connectivity of a smartphone with the large screen of a notebook. As time has gone on, however, it’s become clear that this view of the tablet did not come to pass. Tablets certainly have their roles, but they haven’t been able to take on that idealized vision of the single device, or even the primary device.
As the results from yesterday’s amazing Apple quarterly earnings clearly illustrated, large smartphones like the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are driving some enormous changes in the market, and it’s PCs (or in Apple’s case, Macs) that are maintaining a key role as well. Tablets like the iPad, on the other hand, are now suffering through a tough decline. In fact, the rate of iPad’s sales decline is now on the increase. While Tim Cook remains optimistic for a turn-around, eight straight quarters of decline is pretty hard to ignore, and even he acknowledged the cannibalization of iPad sales by both larger iPhones and thinner Macs. Of course, in Apple’s case, that’s not really a terrible thing, as they generally make better profits on iPhones and Macs than they do iPads anyway.
Longer term, I still believe there are fundamental challenges facing the tablet market. However, given the potential benefits that larger smartphones and thinner notebooks working in tandem can bring to many people, I’m still reasonably optimistic about the PC market’s future. Clearly, it will suffer through some declines in the short term, but by being seen, understood, and positioned as part of a device “dream team,” I think there are better opportunities than many currently believe.
Here's a link to the original column: https://techpinions.com/the-device-dream-team-large-smartphones-and-thin-notebooks/39909
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