Report: Smart Phones Outsell PCs

Fry's Ad Offering Smartphones

In something of a landmark event, a widely publicized report asserts that smart phones are now outselling PCs. The tech consulting/analysis firm Canalys, which prepared the document, estimates that 488 million smart phones were shipped in 2011. PCs followed with 415 million units shipped.

Granted that "shipped" and "sold" are not quite the same thing, as anyone working the wholesale business will quickly tell you. The data nonetheless offer a compelling illustration of a shift in how mass market consumers and providers create, retrieve, and send information.

While it's easy to infer that Apple is the big winner here, a closer look at the data offers a different perspective. The Android system has definitely taken a big bite from the smartphone market. Samsung is selling lots and lots of phones. Apple's best move, according to the data, is not the iPhone -- it's the iPad. The iPad maintains a dominant place in its category, up to now. No wonder Amazon rushed the Kindle Fire (KF) to the market (before all of KF's kinks were worked out). Even less wonder why HP dropped out of the tablet race, even though its tablet was pretty good.

I suppose all of this sounds "business-y" and a little too enamored of data for its own good. That's a point taken. However, you can't deny the revolution in communication that's now in everyman's -- and everywoman's -- hands. It's as if we've moved from the horse and buggy era into the that of the automobile, from stage to movies, from sailing to flying.

Printed Books vs Reading Machines: A View from the Hospital

One curiosity of my hospital stay is that I have the inclination to read. I also, thankfully, have the ability to read in relatively unencumbered positions. This situation led me to think about the advantages of printed books as opposed to the various reading gadgets on the market.

What's most interesting so far is that I'm finding a printed book much more convenient to handle, to read, and to store in a hospital environment. I don't have to provide electricity for a printed book. I can drop a book without fear of damage. I can spill things on a book (I'm not advocating this) and it's not the end of the world.

I can't do any of those things with a reading gadget. I am using a laptop computer now. For reading newspapers such as the Financial Times, blogs, and even viewing YouTube clips, the laptop is great. Obviously, the laptop makes writing this blog entry possible. The annoyance of a laptop is its relatively large size, implicit need for a stable surface, and electrical demands.

I have to imagine what Nooks, Kindles, and iPads are like in my restricted hospital environment. My own sense is that they would be unwieldy devices. Scrolling is inconvenient compared to turning a printed page. I don't need or want endless applications with which to fiddle. I'm hardly a technophobe: I have two cell phones, an iPodTouch and a laptop by my bed. I use all of them, though not all at the same time.

However, I'm most comfortable reading Raymond Chandler in book form, and that's what I have now. The words retain their power, and his well-written stories retain their marvel and their magic. And I'm seeing them the way Chandler intended: on a printed page. (Yes, that's Chandler in the photo.)