How Long Will PCs, Tablets & Smartphones Reign?

A recent Gartner report revealed that worldwide shipments of PCs, smartphones, and tablets will increase by 2 percent — reaching the highest level of year-on-year growth since 2015. 

Gartner’s Research Director Ranjit Atwal insisted the results exposed a common misconception: that the PC market is dying a slow death.

“Our latest online end-user survey shows that users depend just as much on PCs or tablets as they do on smartphones," Atwal said. 

"Forty percent of respondents said that they use mostly a PC/tablet for certain daily experiences, such as reading and writing detailed emails or watching videos, while 34 percent mostly use a smartphone for its convenience while on the move,” he continued.

As the report shows, these three devices types (PCs, tablets, and smartphones) — what I refer to as ‘The Big Three’ — is going nowhere. And yet, they’ll be absorbed into a broader “connected world of devices”.

The future is bigger than ‘The big three’

With smart home assistants, VR headsets, smartwatches, and beacon technology all playing their own roles, the future is far greater than just PCs, tablets and even the mighty smartphone.

I believe there will be a significant innovation in the types of devices that remove the friction in this emerging connected world. I don't think any one device will stand out, we will use, wear and attach devices to ourselves and other things that will make it easy to get to what we want when we want it.

I also predict these devices will likely emerge to serve highly specific purposes; devices which will be amalgamated into the devices we use on a daily basis. Here’s an example, a health monitor that will connect us with our medical practitioners and provide a round-the-clock feed of vital reports, statistics and early warning signs.

What device do you think will be the first to breach the digital wall and turn ‘the big three’ into ‘the big four’? Let us know in the comments below!

Read the full Gartner report here.