As 'free money' is sucked out of the system (by reversing ultra low interest rates and QE), people are going to focus their spending on what they actually need - which often is not an Apple product.
> Global PC shipments tumbled to 56.9 million in the first quarter, down 29% from the same period a year earlier
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pc-shipments-fall-29-led-by-dro...
I dread our only-phone future.
The problems isn't just the form factor. It's primarily that phones and tablets are significantly dumbed down, closed, and more user hostile devices. Windows is already trending more toward the phone experience with dumbed down interfaces, forced updates, telemetry, and ads baked in and it has made it all but unusable. I want less of that, not more.
Computers need to work for, and be owned by, the user. We had that, and we're rapidly losing ground.
Also, text editor and gcc is all I ever need. How many hoops would I have to jump through to get GPL programs unprohibited on iOS?
My desktop is a dedicated workstation machine that I want to be running even when I lug my phone around the house.
You can basically s/phone/laptop above and it still doesn't quite work for me. Doing it with a phone only makes it worse.
Maybe for some it can work, it just doesn't for me. I very much prefer the concept of continuity, where I have a number of devices that I can pickup, and whatever I want to do can be carried over in a transparent way across all of them, while having each device be the best at what it is, some able to do unique stuff and some having overlaps in functionality.
I'm more afraid of laptops turning into phones, via Microsoft Store/ App Store, scary "unknown publisher" warnings, etc. It's getting harder and harder to run what you want on computers.
Will desktop and laptops become niche, or are smartphones/tablets finding a far broader and popular market?
You can grab your smartphone and even tablet while you're riding the subway/train/bus/whatever, but you would never use a desktop I'm that scenario. Same goes for the line in your supermarket, a quick trip to the restroom, during lunch, etc.
The smartphone didn't replaced the desktop. It replaced the newspaper/magazine/mobile phone
The truth of the matter is that the smartphone form factor is far more suited for a broader range of usages than your desktop/laptop, and the combination of those use patterns with technology limitations do warrant specialized app life cycles and UX patterns. Desktop/laptops are suited for entirely different use patterns.
However the masses generally don't need the level of engineering that Apple products typically feature - people have been compelled into forking out for it in order to status match with their peers (e.g. the green/blue text thing). Now times are tight, the Rolls stay on the forecourts.
(I love their design, engineering and attention to detail - Bauhaus for nerd stuff - and their mission to bring high quality to all. But I object to their walled garden, their cultishness, lack of configurability and, yes, the inordinate waste of natural/engineering resources going in to make what should be commodity devices, coupled with sucking money out of people who really can't afford it)
This analogy doesn’t make any sense: a Rolls Royce comes with a significant price premium, whereas Apple products tend to cost about the same as equivalent quality PC/Android devices, often cheaper in the M1 era, and most of the cost factors directly benefit the core function of the device whereas what makes a Rolls cost an order of magnitude more tends to be a lot of bespoke luxury details which don’t help you get somewhere faster, safer, or proportionately more comfortably. If you want a car comparison, I’d go with Audi/BMW – premium but still a mass market manufactured good which marks you as at most upper middle class.
Also, you’re not doing your argument any favors by repeating Google’s marketing push about blue/green text message colors. Green was the original color on the iPhone 1 and hasn’t changed. What did change was Google trying to make a play to get governments to bail them out of their decision to throw the messaging business to competitors like Facebook. They have plenty of pricey PR people getting paid to dissemble about that, there’s no need to contribute your time pro bono.
At some point there was a big deal being made about Google taking your data and so 'stealing your mind' (can't disagree tbh). However, in attempting to monetize your base urges, I would respond that Apple is trying to steal your soul!
(no longer any affiliation to either company, though I was in Cupertino for a bit in a previous life)
(I can agree with several other of your auxiliary topic comments)