- Aug 17, 2017
- 1,504
Many firms are apparently ditching PCs and going mobile-only
Phones have reportedly overtaken laptops as the ultimate portable work tool
www.techradar.com
Many firms are apparently ditching PCs and going mobile-only
- Thread starter vtqhtr413
- Start date
www.techradar.com
- Jan 27, 2018
- 1,266
Not something I could do, it would drive me nuts trying to accomplish any work on such a small screen.
- Mar 30, 2022
- 233
Working on my smartphone would be an absolute nightmare for me.
- Jan 21, 2018
- 814
"The report claims there has been a 16% year-on-year growth in mobile data usage among BT business customers in the last three years, with the highest ever level of data processed on the network taking place recently (Boxing Day, 2022)."
This period covers lockdown, when many people started WFH, alongside their kids being schooled at home. Initially many of these people were using their own home broadband and I remember reading articles about there being shortages of devices with bigger screens, schools didn't have lots of devices their pupils could take home, certainly in the UK where this survey must have occured. Some families will just have the one family PC, I'm thinking poorer people, maybe with a tablet,. So, in a typical nuclear family two adults and 2-3 kids are fighting over screen time on these larger devices while the others try to get things done on their phones. Surely this was a big contributor to the increase in smartphone usage?
I'm with those who say that a smartphone is totally unsuited to much of their work, and leisure uses, I'm typing while there are four monitors on this desk, only one of which is switched on currently, but they all get used a lot. Four smartphone screens would see very little work getting done here. I'm not a big speadsheet user but lots of administration workers spend ages with them on their screens, scolling through spreadsheets on a 6.5"/16.5 cm screen? Ure 'avin a laff in'ya BT?
This period covers lockdown, when many people started WFH, alongside their kids being schooled at home. Initially many of these people were using their own home broadband and I remember reading articles about there being shortages of devices with bigger screens, schools didn't have lots of devices their pupils could take home, certainly in the UK where this survey must have occured. Some families will just have the one family PC, I'm thinking poorer people, maybe with a tablet,. So, in a typical nuclear family two adults and 2-3 kids are fighting over screen time on these larger devices while the others try to get things done on their phones. Surely this was a big contributor to the increase in smartphone usage?
I'm with those who say that a smartphone is totally unsuited to much of their work, and leisure uses, I'm typing while there are four monitors on this desk, only one of which is switched on currently, but they all get used a lot. Four smartphone screens would see very little work getting done here. I'm not a big speadsheet user but lots of administration workers spend ages with them on their screens, scolling through spreadsheets on a 6.5"/16.5 cm screen? Ure 'avin a laff in'ya BT?
Andrezj
Level 6
- Nov 21, 2022
- 248
it just general administrative, for example meeting scheduling, online meetings, general communications, paying bills, and such
lots of voice to text activity
very low on technical tasks
- Oct 11, 2016
- 160
IMO our increasing dependence on internet, smart phones, connectivity, etc are huge national weaknesses. In the event of war, enemy attacks against our electric power grids, the internet's infrastructure, etc, will almost certainly accompany, precede or even supplant the use of nuclear weapons. If so, the enemy could bring our computerized way of life to its knees.
In Hawaii, a number of years ago, Hurricane Iniki merely "nicked" Oahu island, where most of our population lives. Even so, our power was down for several days. Banks kept records manually. Charge cards were not useful so purchases had to be by cash. However, trying to get cash from your bank account was slow & difficult, especially if you weren't a regular walk-in customer (because banks couldn't recognize the faces of people who banked online.)
Batteries sold out very VERY quickly. Cell phone users overwhelmed the carriers' towers so badly that my cell-phone-only neighbors came over to use my land-line phone day after day -- my land-line phone worked great throughout the power outages.
The scanners & cash registers at stores were useless -- a significant problem for food stores, especially. And that's just an outage for only several days. I shudder to think
what the Ukraine is going through now -- much MUCH worse than we had.
Extreme dependency on smart-phones &/or computers could be the ruination of some folks if another major war comes along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. I have a grandson who soon starts college. He plans to be a mechanical engineer. For Christmas I gave him a hand-held Texas Instruments computer that does advanced math (trig, calc, etc) merely by entering the equations. I ALSO gave him a top grade slide rule and 250 page instruction book. He understands the world we now live in so he plans to learn the use of both these tools, but NOT to the exclusion of learning to solve engineering problems by hand, in case neither of these or similar tools are available.
In Hawaii, a number of years ago, Hurricane Iniki merely "nicked" Oahu island, where most of our population lives. Even so, our power was down for several days. Banks kept records manually. Charge cards were not useful so purchases had to be by cash. However, trying to get cash from your bank account was slow & difficult, especially if you weren't a regular walk-in customer (because banks couldn't recognize the faces of people who banked online.)
Batteries sold out very VERY quickly. Cell phone users overwhelmed the carriers' towers so badly that my cell-phone-only neighbors came over to use my land-line phone day after day -- my land-line phone worked great throughout the power outages.
The scanners & cash registers at stores were useless -- a significant problem for food stores, especially. And that's just an outage for only several days. I shudder to think
what the Ukraine is going through now -- much MUCH worse than we had.
Extreme dependency on smart-phones &/or computers could be the ruination of some folks if another major war comes along.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. I have a grandson who soon starts college. He plans to be a mechanical engineer. For Christmas I gave him a hand-held Texas Instruments computer that does advanced math (trig, calc, etc) merely by entering the equations. I ALSO gave him a top grade slide rule and 250 page instruction book. He understands the world we now live in so he plans to learn the use of both these tools, but NOT to the exclusion of learning to solve engineering problems by hand, in case neither of these or similar tools are available.
It's not a new phenomenon, ever since the early 90's we have become dependent on technology. In the case of a cyber or kinetic strike on internet infrastructure I think people will struggle at first but will go on living the best they can, there was life before
the internet and there will be life after the internet 
.But a kinetic strike on the electrical grid or water system
would cause absolute chaos 
. Look at Ukraine and what they are going through, it's terrible 
. The saving grace is that countries know not to cross that line with a nuclear armed state because that would illicit a nuclear response. The problem is in a world war or war between two nuclear nations 
any cyber warfare or kinetic warfare tactics would most likely be on the table.On topic the saving grace with mobile phones it that there is not one centralized point to target, thousands of cell towers spread the risk. The problem is the routers that control 4G and 5G network traffic ARE a central point of failure and would be targeted in a war.
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