The Future of Personal Computing

Personal computing has come a long way during the past decade. Earlier, a personal computer (PC) meant a desktop which is stationary and mobility was non-existent. Today, we all are carrying more computing power than ever in the form of our smartphones. Since the launch of the iPhone in 2007, personal computing got a new definition and technology in general got a huge leap. In this episode, I'll be writing about the impact of personal computing, how far has it come, and what the future looks like. Lets begin!

Impact of personal computing

We are currently living in a critical period of time. COVID-19 has made us realize a lot of things. Some of them are

• we are ridiculously underprepared and underdeveloped in terms of healthcare

• we have abused and harassed nature for a long time (in mostly urban areas)

• a lot of work can be done from home

and many more...

But from the above points, lets focus on the 'work-from-home' part. What is it that we cannot do by sitting at home? We literally have the entire world at our fingertips. 15 years ago, we only had desktops and feature phones (dumb phones). If this pandemic had happened back then, it would have been difficult to pass time at home.

Now I know that some of you will say that mobiles have made our generation lazy, arrogant, viewing a lot of inappropriate content etc. Yes that's true, but its like any other invention right? It is always invented with the intention to do good. So lets use it as it is intended. The problem comes from greedy businesses who think of bending the honest and noble intentions to make money. A prime example of this is TikTok. 

Whatever the situation might be, we can all agree that if used correctly, we can change our lives and careers drastically using smartphones. That one online course may get you a high-paying job. You can chat with your childhood friends with ease (wherever they may be in the world). You can find your special someone etc etc.

The bottom line is, smartphones are inevitable, and it is up to us as individuals to use this technology positively to improve and advance our lives.

How far has personal computing come?

It all started with the iPhone launch in 2007. Steve Jobs introduced the future of technology in the form of the iPhone. This paved the way for smartphones and also gave rise to Android. Since then, we have seen huge development in the field of smartphones. Companies like Apple, Samsung, HTC were competing like crazy to get more market share. Not to mention that smartphones were selling like hot cakes in developed countries. 

But after 4-5 years of the introduction of the smartphone, it was still viewed as a premium device, out of reach of people living in developing countries. Phones were costing upwards of $600, which was out of reach for the common man.

In India, there were local smartphone companies like Micromax, Lava (remember these :p) which became hugely popular. Mind you, these were not smartphone 'manufacturers'. They used to buy huge amounts of cheap Chinese mobiles and put their logo on them (literally!).

These smartphones had low quality. Their success was limited. The Chinese companies realized, why can't we directly enter India and sell our phones? That was the end of these Indian companies. RIP.

Thus, Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Motorola (owned by Lenovo), OnePlus etc. entered the Indian market and shook it up. They kept price as their number 1 priority. As you all know, these companies became hugely successful. India became more important to them than China. They started competing with each other like crazy (except OnePlus). They even started mocking each other at product launches, frequent Twitter fights etc. They started launching many smartphones at the same price, which made the consumer confused as there were so many options to choose from. To mix it up further, these companies also launched India specific sub-brands like Realme (from Oppo), Redmi and Poco (from Xiaomi), iQOO (from Vivo) etc. As you can see, India was spoilt for choice.

Adding to this technology boom was the introduction of Reliance Jio. Yeah. We all know what happened next. An entire nation of 130 crore (1.3 billion) people came online. Cutting the data prices from Rs. 150 per GB to just Rs. 11-12 per GB (among the lowest in the world) and also introducing 4G.

People got to know how they were fooled all these years by existing telecom operators like Vodafone, Idea, Airtel, BSNL etc. This caused the decline of all these existing telecom operators. Vodafone and Idea have thousands of crores in debt, and are going to be merged. Credit should be given to Airtel who realised their mistakes and worked hard and smart to identify cons of Jio like internet speed and worked on improving those aspects. Today, Jio and Airtel have respectable market share in the telecom industry.

So, the consumer is winning. We are getting great quality products at affordable prices. Also we have affordable internet. This is a clear sign of development.

What does the future look like?

At this point, you may be thinking, what is this guy writing? He's just summing up what has happened till now. There's nothing new here. Right?

Well, the actual blog starts here. I felt the above content was necessary to build a foundation and also a simple way to sum up everything that has happened.

So, the future. Always interesting to write about. Also there is a high probability that most of the stuff written below won't fruit into reality. But lets not stop the imagination.

As the great Albert Einstein once said

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world

I envision that in the future, everything, and I mean everything, can be done with our smartphone. Even our primary work device will be the smartphone. There would be no reason to have a separate laptop. Let me explain.

The main goal is to have one device that satisfies all our professional and personal needs

There is a problem that we are facing with smartphones. There are two reasons why we cannot use smartphones for our work as well.

1. Small display size

2. Processor architecture

The first point is obvious. We cannot work on our smartphones for a long time due to the small display size. We still need a laptop or desktop to do that. Even I am writing this blog on my laptop as it gives me more space to think and be creative. However there is a solution for this problem - foldables.

Foldables are folding phones (duh!). There are different types a phone can be folded. Each type of fold serves a different purpose. Here are some of the commercially available folding phones.

• Royole Flexpai - This was technically the first folding phone to be released for public. It was a horrible phone and felt ridiculously unfinished. But hey, it could really be folded out into a tablet.

• Samsung Galaxy Fold - The first full-fledged quality folding phone from a reputable brand. It was criticized a lot at first due to various display and dust issues. They did relaunch an improved version 6 months later, but credit to Samsung for taking a brave step into the future.

• Motorola Razr - This was a different type of foldable phone. It resembled the previous Motorola Razr flip phone, which was a feature phone. The effort was appreciated, but the phone turned out to be a flop. The Verge described the phone as the 'flip-flop' :p

• Samsung Galaxy Z-Flip - This phone has the same form factor as the Razr, but is a better phone overall. Very durable hinge mechanism, good display makes this the best foldable you can buy today.

Folding phones are cutting edge technology. As a result, they are very expensive. All the above mentioned phones cost above Rs. 1 lakh. Definitely not worth buying now.

Here some interesting concepts of folding phones

• Microsoft Surface Pro Duo

• Huawei Mate X

• TCL

We also have the LG G8x ThinQ which has two displays. But I wouldn't call it a foldable because it is just a regular slab phone to which a cover case is attached, the cover case containing the second other display.

Moving on to the second problem of smartphones - processor architecture. There are mainly two types of processor architecture -

1. ARM - used in smartphones, tablets

2. x86 - used in laptops, desktops

I would not go into much detail related to the inner functioning of each architecture type. x86 is an older architecture and has been around for a long time. All Intel and AMD chips have x86 architecture. All Qualcomm, Exynos, Mediatek, Kirin chips have ARM architecture. ARM processors have longer battery life than x86 processors, and are way more efficient.

Since x86 is older and has been widely used in laptops and desktops, all software developers have developed their software complying with the x86 architecture lying underneath. These software cannot be run on an ARM processor. There lies the problem. Due to this fundamental architecture difference, developers have to develop their applications to comply with ARM architecture, which takes a lot of time and effort.

As a result, smartphones don't have the regular software support right now. This prevents us from using them as our primary device for work.

However, there is another underlying problem over here - OS support. As you know, Windows is the most popular x86 operating system. Android is the most popular ARM operating system. Both are vastly different. It is very difficult to combine these two operating systems to work as a single unit. (obviously!)

The bottom line is, we need a single OS that will transcend both our current laptop needs as well as our smartphone needs.

So what is being done about these problems?

Companies are actively working to find a solution.

• Apple's iPad Pro is currently the best iteration of this vision. The hardware is top-notch, has a lot of power and iPad OS improves on the user experience. But many experts still feel there is a long way to go for this reality. Simply speaking, the iPad Pro cannot replace a traditional laptop, but is extremely close

• Razer, a company which makes gaming laptops, launched a very interesting concept called Project Linda, where the smartphone docks into the trackpad area of the laptop and is converted into a full fledged laptop. See more details here - https://www.razer.com/projectlinda

• Samsung has launched the Samsung Dex, which looks very promising. We can connect our smartphone to a monitor and the smartphone has been converted into a full-fledged desktop. However, it is still at a very early stage and has very little developer support.

• Microsoft has launched Windows 10x, which aims to solve the processor architecture problem. Windows 10x is an x86 based OS, but it runs all software in containers. This concept looks very promising! See more details here - https://www.howtogeek.com/442767/what-is-windows-10x-and-how-is-it-different/

• Google has launched Chrome OS, its desktop version of Android. It looks promising, but currently has a lot of compatibility issues.

• ARM-powered laptops are also cropping up, powering them are the Qualcomm 8cx chips which are ARM chips. These laptops have very long battery life.

As you can see from the above examples, all companies are actively pursuing the goal of having one device for all needs. Each company is being creative and trying different approaches to solve the problem. Everyone wants to be the first to crack this concept, maybe because they have realized that this is indeed the future. However, none of the above concepts are ready yet, and it may take another 2-3 years for us to see some quality outcomes.

Whatever developments happen in this field, it is an indicator that the technology industry is certainly moving at a rapid pace. I can't wait to see what's in store for us in the years to come!

Safe to say, the future of personal computing looks very promising!

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