Here’s an interesting development. IDC, the International Data Corporation, has used its impressive market tracking skills for both tablets and handsets to project some intriguing figures. Apparently if Android devices continue to enjoy the kind of increasing adoption we’ve seen over the past couple of years they’ll outnumber Windows PCs by 2016.
When you sit down and think about the numbers it makes sense. In many homes now it’s becoming more common for each member of the family to have their own personal smartphone. Androids tend to dominate the lower end of the market so it’s understandable that many families would take this option when shopping for their kids, rather than going a more expensive route. Conversely, it’s less common for a household to have a Windows PC for each of its members.
As far as the global market goes many of the world’s less wealthy countries have adopted Android smartphones. This is once again due to Android’s dominance in the cheaper ends of the market.
If you’d like to go in to the specifics of the forecast then BusinessWire covered the numbers pretty well.
These forecasts made us think about the cultural trends that this information represents. We’ve already gone over how incredible the modern world of technology is in a previous post, but every once in a while something else comes along that actually makes us stop and think about how far things have come in a short space of time.
Back in 2007 it’s unlikely that anyone would have expected PCs to be outnumbered by portable smart-devices within the next decade. I personally was still rocking around with my Sony Ericsson feature-phone and showing off its incredible 2MP camera, with my dedicated 4MP camera tucked neatly in my back pocket. I didn’t own a PC, it was too expensive, but I did have an Xbox plugged in to my CRT television and I was slowly but surely working on expanding my DVD and CD collections. I don’t think I even had a Facebook account yet, or if I did it was a relatively new thing to me. I even remember hearing about this new “Apple iPhone” that had come out in America and thinking up reasons as to why it was a stupid idea.
Back then I pretty much considered getting my own personal PC to be one of the first things I would do once I left university. It was to be a symbol of how I was now a full-time and successful member of the workforce. I would finally be able to afford to join the rest of society by buying my own personal technology, with which I could do whatever I wished.
Now it seems that within the next 4 years Windows PCs will be not only less important, but less prevalent than mobile gadgetry in our lives. I’m definitely down with that, I love my smartphone and I don’t begrudge moving away from stationary computers as our primary source of digital connectivity, but it does represent a huge shift in our technological focus as a culture. Tech used to be something that you had at home, or at the office. It was that new TV, sound-system or PC that you’d just got. It was rarely something that you carted around with you. Remember, this is only around 5 years ago and it already sounds laughably old-fashioned when compared to the modern market.
These days I have a dual-core, internet-capable computer in my pocket with a touch-screen and 8MP camera. I use my phone for gaming, online socialising, reading books, keeping up with the news, googling stuff I need to know, organising my schedule and on the odd occasion I even use it as a phone.
Not only is this an impressive step forward in my personally-owned technology compared to just 5 years previous, but it’s made a huge impact on my personal life. No matter where I go or what I do I’m plugged in. I’m constantly contactable by all my friends with so much ease that I’m even greeted with the most mundane of announcements via my social media platforms. It’s true that I don’t really care that said person is “Totally over it today” or “Bored, gonna take a nap”, but I do actually notice it when that constant stream of information is absent.
Moreover, if I can’t think of something or don’t know the answer to a question then I can just search for it. Like I said, I use my phone for a lot of stuff while I’m out-and-about and most of it is internet-related.
In truth I find a freedom in this ever-present network connection. If I’m running half an hour late for an engagement then I can simply tell the person and relax. If I see something funny and want to show my friends I can do it right then and there and not worry about having to remember to tell the story or show the picture later. Due to the ease of sharing information I even find that I share my more enjoyable experiences more often, as do my online friends.
This article is way too short to go in to the greater implications of the members of our society feeling the need to share every little experience they have, or receiving instant information at the tap of a screen. But it’s incredible to think about the accelerated process that took us from having to wait to find something out, to always being just a few seconds away from knowing. The shift from sharing social information in person, to over the phone, to over the internet while at home, to today’s method of just doing it whenever and wherever is equally fascinating.
Whether or not we’re better off for it is a totally subjective matter, but that doesn’t make it any less remarkable in the meantime. We suggest you sit back for a second and think about what your life was like 5 years ago before the smart-device revolution. What kind of technology did you have? Did you care any more or less about social media then than you do now? How have your lifestyle and attitudes change? Let us know in the comment sections below, we’re always keen to hear about how people use their tech and why.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this level of Angry Birds and tweet the score to my friends…
Source: IDC via BusinessWire
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