No Exciting Computers

I had a bit of time to think as I walked the 3 miles to my office this morning. Mostly I thought about how I had already crossed the threshold of distance to where summoning Uber seemed a waste even though it was raining. What driver would pick me up for such a short drive. I did think about other things and one of them surfaced again when I go to the gym at work and prepared to get another 30 minutes of exercise. I briefly glanced at the locker-room TV and noticed that one of the ESPN commentators has the same laptop I do. It seems like the vast majority of people have settled on the same few laptops. There just doesn't seem to be any exciting new computers these days.

Naturally I have spent part of my day thinking about the state of computing hardware and what would make me excited. The size of a laptop is something that used to differentiate various models. Now it seems we have settled on small, medium, or large and each has its merits. We also used to have peripherals such as floppy, CDROM, or DVD disk drives. Now it seems that everyone relies on network connections and doesn't need removable media any more. What about case material? Well you have the brushed aluminum look, solid black carbon fiber, or some colored plastic cover. All of that is boring. About the most exciting difference between laptops is the lit brand logo that appears on the back of the screen. Some love the simple Apple logo while others prefer the 3 intertwined-snakes for the gamer specific Razer laptops.

As I thought about the lack of excitement in the computer market right now, I realized that we can't really blame the hardware manufacturers. It is tough to get excited about new hardware when it all runs the same old software. You have your choice between Windows, MacOS, or Linux. Even then Linux really isn't an option for most people as it is still more of a hobbyist's operating system unless you are working with servers.

So what will it take to get me excited about a new computer or laptop? I don't know. Perhaps this just means there is a new opportunity out there for something extraordinary to come along. I would hate to think that computers have evolved as far as they will go.