As we eagerly await the results of today’s Presidential election, we decided to check out the tally of a recent poll from Lifehacker. While it won’t tell you our political fate, it will give a glimpse of our technological future.
In light of a WSJ story, the site asked readers whether the increasing popularity and functionality of smartphones means more people are ditching their laptops. Here are the results as of post time:
Note that more people (1,439) thought “Yes” or “Maybe” it could be done to the 1,345 who said “No Way.” You can see where this will head in a few years. Just look overseas. While we are a very PC-based country, people everywhere from Japan to Uganda are leapfrogging past them altogether, straight to mobile. There are a number of reasons for this–infrastructure, cost, culture–but in many ways we are not too dissimilar. We’re already seeing this trend in the Midwest and urban areas, where lack of broadband and/or high cost prevents people from shelling out for a computer, but a cell phone is a necessity.
As we become a truly nomadic nation, smartphones will get better and laptops will get smaller. In ten years, we might not even be able to make the distinction.
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The jump in Japan etc. over laptops and straight to mobile is indeed an interesting one. On the other hand it is argued to lead in part to the applicationization of the internet as Jonathan Zittrain describes in his new book (phones are more readily used to consume than to create). However, I see also power systems as one major obstacle to phone use as multi-purpose computer – and one not easily circumvented given present-day physics. A phone’s battery is small and an hour or so of intensive surfing will quite likely run it dry, especially if it’s been in normal use for the first part of the day. A laptop can give you 4 hours of active wireless surf time – and also leaves you within reach by mobile even if its battery dies.
November 4th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
19% is a very good number considering how much smartphones will improve in the following years with competition between the big players in the market.
Battery power is a big deal since we all want to stay connected. The advantage of the G1, Nokia’s E71 and some others is that you can carry extra batteries. That’s a lot better than an extra laptop battery.
It will be interesting to see the results of the same poll in five years.
November 5th, 2008 at 1:19 pm