What is the Future of Personal Computing?
Tags: Tech, Lumia, Computer, Dock, Life

Ever since Steve Jobs stepped on stage and introduced the first iPhone in 2007, there has been a computer in all of our hands. The processing power in the first iPhone doesn’t compare to the iPhones today, and they won’t compare to the smart phones we will use 5 years from now. The future of computing has adapted and changed multiple times in recent years. So where are we going?

The first push into finding a different piece of hardware to work on, other than a laptop, was the tablet. Jobs again introduced a new type of personal computing with the iPad. The iPad was immediately everyone’s answer to the future of computing. It would be the new laptop and replace everyone’s 15 inch Macbook and clunky HP laptop. This, of course, didn’t pan out.

While the iPad has a real place in our world today, it has not replaced the laptop as a primary working machine for most people today. It is a great tool for email and other small tasks, but if you work for any lengthy period of time on a laptop, an iPad won’t work. The lack of a physical keyboard, not being able to run complete programs, and a mobile operating system all plagued the conversation for a future of an all iPad/tablet ecosystem.

These problems weren’t something Apple was answering, not many thought Microsoft would be the company to answer the bell…especially after failing to compete with Apple in the mp3 player market, the smart phone market, and the tablet market. They had been facing scrutiny and lack of stellar products. Enter the game changer, the Microsoft Surface.

In 2012 CEO Steve Ballmer introduced the first Surface. It was an odd looking device, although something about it felt right. It gave people the ability to use a tablet, but at the same time snap it up to the keyboard while in a meeting and take all the notes you desire. At first the Surface was hampered by its operating system. Not having the complete OS put it at the same level as the iPad, it was restricted. But it was a new device, it would naturally take a few cycles to get it right, although it did feel as if there was something coming that could fix our problem.

It didn’t take long for Microsoft to find a solution to the problem that they had created. With the introduction of the Surface Pro 2 in 2013, you had the ability to work on the Surface with Windows 8.1. A complete computer OS for a complete laptop experience in a simplistic package that the Surface always promised.

With the release of the Surface 3 in 2015, Microsoft hit a wonderful stride. The previous models were really fantastic machines, but the Surface 3 upped the game. The Surface 3 was such a great machine that Apple finally realized a few things: people enjoy a stylus (Steve Jobs was wrong about that) and most normal people need a physical keyboard. So they released the iPad Pro. Unfortunately, they forgot that the biggest problem with the iPad ecosystem was that it lacked a full operating system. So once again, the iPad Pro fell short of the Surface.

That trend only continued with Microsoft’s introduction of Windows 10, Surface 4, and the Surface Book. Windows 10 was an OS that was adaptable between phone, tablet, and laptop. The Surface 4 was a continued trend upward for a tablet replacing device. The Surface Book was all of a sudden a Mac Retina replacement (trust me, I made the switch and don’t regret it in the slightest).

It was the perfect storm of hardware advancement and OS deployment for Microsoft. Already the industry leader in cloud computing with Azure, mail with Exchange, and workplace applications with the Office Suite; they’re starting to make serious advancements in the personal hardware department.

The Surface Book, Azure, Windows 10, Surface 4, Hololens, and more were the upfront stars for Microsoft in the last year. Their smart phone department hasn’t been. The Lumia has done little to impress and with less marketing and development, the Microsoft push towards becoming a significant player in the smart phone market seems to be entering the closing stages.

I think that’s a smart business move right? After realizing a product isn’t working you make changes a few times and then move on from it after it fails. The difficulty that Microsoft has in front of them is that they really seem to have found something smart, something that could be the next frontier of personal computing if handled correctly.

That something smart is the Microsoft Lumia Display Dock. It’s an accessory on the forefront of simplistic computing. It basically turns your phone into a desktop computing experience when you simply plug the phone into a docking station. It’s a fantastic accessory that is attached to a dying device in the Microsoft Lumia.

Where Microsoft goes from here could be vital, or completely irrelevant, I can’t quite determine this aspect as of yet. They really seem to have found something that could potentially be huge. The future device to make this accessory powerful is a smart phone that has the processing power and display of a Surface Book, 8 hours of battery life, and a dynamically changing operating system that changes based off of the environment it’s in. An OS that can go from a phone to a desktop experience seamlessly. Unfortunately none of those aspects really exist in a smart phone to date, yet we have the accessory and the ideology to turn a phone into a personal computer.

That has to be the future. One device, different accessories to partake in the device when necessary in different environments. The subway, the office, and the conference room. Currently, we can try and use two devices in these scenarios. The future is one device, and the technology behind the display dock is the accessory behind the future.

There are plenty of flaws with where we are currently in the race to personal computing being down to one device. A few of them are a lack in technology for the actual smart phone, the lack of a laptop medium for the display dock, and figuring out the marketing behind it. Despite these gaps in both technology and ideology, the future has been presented by Microsoft. Not many people took notice, and not many more will for a few years due to Microsoft’s lessening pursuit of the smart phone market.

Whether it is Microsoft, Apple, or Google that takes this technology to the next level. Whether they do it in 1, 5, or 10 years in the future. Whether it runs on Android, iOS, or Windows. The future of personal computing is one device, and that one device will use multiple accessories to take advantage of that device in our many different situations.