PC Software Era Turns Into App Era

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smartphones/tablets(or whatever the flavor of the month is) will never replace desktops.
apps will never replace programs.
i will put money on NOTHING happening in 18 months.
 
Even if this is true, they are referring to the marginal rate. PC sales are growing but slower than smartphones because the ownership of PCs is much higher. The relevant quantity is the user base, and PCs will have that edge for longer than 18 months (as implied by this article).
 
Personally I don't think apps will ever truly replace full programs...at least for the sake of my sanity I hope not.
 
What actually constitutes an "App"? Where is the separation line between an "App" and a full fledged program?

I think that needs to determined before anyone can claim otherwise.
 
Why? Because certain phones/tablets are "magical & revolutionary" devices? The reality distortion field must be on overdrive today...

http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/9119/pc-numbers-set-to-hit-1-billion/

Lets see, 1 billion PCs by 2012, 2 billion by 2015. Yeah, I can totally see $0.99 apps replacing a free browser that has nearly the same functionality. /sarcasm

Most apps are nothing more than ported flash/java applications anyway. Don't kid yourself, if consoles haven't killed the PC (and they haven't), neither will apps.

What you might see instead off "apps" taking over are phones making an even stronger move towards PC like functionality. Eventually, I *can* totally see a PC as portable as a phone, with a docking station at home. The you won't be buying "apps" (i.e fad of the week), you'll be buying software for your phone.
 
@tsnorquist I agree with that, I think what we're really getting at is the fact that consumers are becoming more interested in getting their software from a walled garden, ie, the "app" store, this is increasingly occurring with PC software if you look at services like Steam, this could just be the next evolution of software sales, and companies like EB games, or other software sales might need to invest into their own "app" stores if they want to stay in the marketplace, this will of course depend on whether content producers beat them to the punch which is also a new trend, think iStore, Live Marketplace, also Sony and Nintendo have their own online stores for their platforms. This however could be a pain for competition and pricing because then we have only one distributor who determines pricing rather than competing retail companies which can reduce prices.
 
The "app era" is really the Software as a Service (SaaS) era. Traditionally you controlled your own data and it was used locally or within a local network, whereas now it's controlled by a corporate entity and conveniently available everywhere.
 
Uhhhhh... "app" is short for "application" which is an implementation of "software" so this whole article just seems silly. Renaming "software" to "app" and having it work on small devices doesn't really change anything about the era.
 
Apps are a supplement to full blown PC software, not replacements. Remember, they are selling 462 Million App enabled devices AND 448 Million PCs. App enabled devices are cheaper and OFTEN FREE with certain contractual agreements, so this makes sense.
 
"(...) PC units are growing as well, albeit at a much slower pace. 356 million PCs this year, 377 million next year and 448 million in 2012."
How did they come up with those numbers ? Based on the sales of assembled systems bought from vendors ?
That's like saying that people've decided to quit eating, based on a drop in restaurant profits...
 
I think if the reason people like the app stores so much is because all of their programs can be in one central location to search through. Many windows users aren't used to this. After using Ubuntu and other linux distributions with their repositories, the glamor fades a bit.
 
Some of you guys are missing the point. The article is not stating an app is better than a full blown application. In this case, I believe the term 'app' refers to these light weight games / applications made famous by Apple and available across all platforms.

This is signifying a time where apps are insanely popular by piquing interest from the masses. Which, of all Apple's faults, I credit there ingenuity in this. While the app concept has been around in the PC world (how many of us has downloaded a tiny tool to make using the PC easier?), it is combining it with the single click transaction that is golden.

The iPhone is crap without iTunes and the App store. These two venues allow for a new trend of purchasing - the micro transaction. Same concept at a candy store - except instead of nickles, people comfortably plop away 20 bucks a month, one dollar at a time.
 
Smartphones have

A Central Processing Unit
A form of short term working memory
A form of long term storage memory
Various forms of Input / Output

Yes they are computers, they could even fit the description of Personal Computer. The term PC comes from back when computers used to be the size of a room with "small" computers being the size of a refrigerator. PC's were created as a form of micro computer that could do all the basic tasks of a computer but without the large power / space requirements. With a smart-phone having the ultra compact form factor it could be argued that it meets the original intended definition of Personal Computer.

Now that we that out of the way, "Apps" are just ultra compact pseudo-code based programs written for a specific execution engine. In Android's case its just a modified form of the Java VM. So honestly there is no difference between "App" and "Software", their both the same thing just at a different scale. Heck one of the coolest games I've played is Pocket Legends, a 3D rendered MMO for Android. Upon connecting it downloads its own updates and stores everything on the SDCARD, it can take 20MB+ of data.
 
Sales of traditonal PCs with software compared to gadgets with apps is going to yo-yo for quite some time yet.

For a technology to be compelety replaced, the replacement can't have huge negatives. The negatives to mbile OSes and apps are huge.

Performance of mobile gadgets and apps will improve of course, but the very basic nature of those the negatives of mobile vs. PC are not.

Phones and laptops break very easy and its very easy to for them to get lost or stolen. You can't rely on them to solely store any important information. When flash memory dies or when your ipad gets dropped your not getting your data back.

This is also a big reason why SSDs haven't replaced mechanical drives yet, not just size/price like everyone assumes. When SSDs completely die, and they do, your data is history. When old drives die, you can more often than not find someone that can get it back. I know I can most of the time, and when I can't, data labs can. There not much a lab can do for an exploded flash chip from battery/PSU power surges.

You can't count on people backing their stuff up, because most just do it. Trust me, I run a computer store. Sure you can keep your data online, but there's lots of data people want to keep but don't want it on the internet. That might take all day, or ruin their privacy and lives if that data ever leaked out.

Clouds are getting popular, but as soon as a story hits the news that someone's "special" photos of his wife leaked onto Facebook from a hacked LiveDrive, people will look back to the trusty old PC. Hell my Hotmail just got hacked by someone who sent out links to Chinese e-tailers and they tried to makes changes to my PayPal account. Think I still trust Hotmail?

Also, the first time people lose everything they had on their smartphone/tablet they will realise they just can't do away with PCs.

Texting, mobile Facebook, mobile photos and casual app popularity are totally skewing sales assumptions. Millions of phones are selling just for these purposes alone.

This is leading "experts" to assume smartphones are suitable PC replacements. If you are going to assume that, you might as well wrongly assume smartphones will kill digital cameras and photoshop too.

This is not a changing of an era. This a new additional and alternative market trend.
 
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