When I switch on my Linux Machine, I am greeted by four desktops on the status bar. In one I open a browser, on another a music player , a file manager , writer and spreadsheet on the third and probably a simple notepad on the fourth for coding purpose.
The activities generally fall into the categories of Work, info, entertainment, communication and utility. It is good to be switching between these desktops for Rest and Recoup. There is simply no need to look elsewhere or any other device . May be I am old fashioned; nothing much has changed over the years except that there is an android app on my phone for almost anything you can do on a laptop except stuff like video editing , web designing or coding.
The world has changed a lot in the last decade. Let’s see how most people use the various devices today. In India, Desktop Computer which was a kind of status symbol in the early nineties, a necessity at home around the beginning of the millennium is all but extinct , at least as homes are concerned.
The laptop PCs that replaced desktop PCs at homes have just become the portable avatars of Office computers. It is only the students who buy laptops and that is only because no school/college provides them with PCs for doing their projects .
Then there are the middle aged and the retirees, gen X,Y or whatever they are called, who are used to PCs at Work place (or may be who have been used by PCs!) .They do own personal laptops ; but do they ever switch them on ? They sure do, but only for the annual tasks like filing of income tax or may be monthly tasks like portfolio management.
So, at home, what do we have or what do we really use in place of desktops and laptops ? Obviously, it is the tablets and the ubiquitous smart phones. Steve Jobs declared in 2010 that we were entering the post PC era. Of course it could well have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Big boys in the industry can make things happen. Probably what he didn’t foresee was the phenomenal growth of Android. In India, it is not the iphones that displaced PCs but Android phones.
Today, it is the combination of android and whatsapp that is holding sway on the way we go about consuming infotainment contents. How often do we hear this “It’s nice but how do I share it on whatsapp ?” Recently , I helped a friend extract an embedded video clip from an online magazine to facilitate sharing on whatsapp.
How do we read news and articles ? From classic mail & news aggregators like MS Outlook or Netscape Mail (later Mozilla Thunderbird) that could handle RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds along with emails , we have moved on to Smart phone apps like In-shorts, Dailyhunt, Flip-board and so on. Be it BBC or Dainik Bhaskar, every Media House has its own smartphone apps. Yet, most people are served these stories through Whatsapp groups ; sensational stories, selectively forwarded and re-forwarded from group to group to be followed by likes, shares and the inevitable arguments.
So in a way all our infotainment needs are fulfilled (or controlled) by just one App ; ie Whatsapp, ably supported by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The world moves on . Computers , be it Desktop or Laptop, now strictly belong to the work space. Tablets and smart phones are for personal space. So if a company wants to sell something it has to be through smart phones app. If some one wants to be heard , he has to channelize his views through smartphone apps, specially whatsapp. The Web sites the virtual home of an organization or an individual need to be ever-conscious of how they appear in a hand held device.
These are some thoughts, that occurred while redesigning the blog site for our audience of present times!
Wonder where do we go from here!
Wow! How very true! Just a decade ago, all this would have been in the realm of fantasy. And the days of analog machines, 386, 486, Pentium 1 seem ancient. Android and Smartphones have effected a quantum shift and it is interesting as to ‘where do we go from here’
Serious writing can only happen on laptops, at least for me. In any case WhatsApp messages or conversations are short and terse and thus can be done on the ubiquitous smartphone that are becoming grander not only in features but the heavy pullout from the wallet when you buy one. A laptop screen also is easier while reading long articles – but then my thoughts are of a seenager!
I spoke to many people before writing. I am a changed man. Much humbled.
-I promise not to force/nag anybody to login to his/her computer.
-I promise to make any web page I make , mobile friendly.
Note the font size/ spacing and the layout this blog.
I promise to test everything on the small screen before sharing.
That is the trend. I accept it gracefully.
My only concern is that the device you use must be influencing the way you think and behave. When you write with a pen you are more deliberate as it wouldn’t be easy to erase.
When you use a calligraphic pen, well you get artistic.
When you use a broad brush , well, you can even paint with your eyes closed .
So be it.