Applications and their designs on ever changing Models Desktop computers, laptops, smart phones, and tablets have a lot in common. They all contain a CPU, memory, display functionality and use an operating system which runs programs (apps) to perform different functions. There are even programs designed to run on each of these types of media. One of the significant differences between smart phones, tablets, and computers is their input device. Most traditional computers use a keyboard and a mouse, whereas smart phones and tablets use a touch interface. Another big difference is software compatibility. Although there are many software applications that work on all platforms desktop and laptop computers usually run Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS operating systems. These systems are not compatible with tablets and smart phones so your favorite computer programs or games may not be available on a tablet or smart phone. Also, hardware devices like printers, digital cameras, MP3 players, and external hard drives are not compatible with smart phones and tablets, which means without a computer these devices cannot work. Some tablets and smart phones accept peripherals, allowing the use of a mouse and keyboard. The web as we know it may have been born, conceived and improved on computers, but as it turns out, those keyboarded beasts no longer have much of a claim to it. According to a a recent report by analyst Mary Meeker, mobile devices running iOS and Android now account for 45 percent of browsing, compared to just 35 percent for Windows machines. Windows hasn’t dipped so low since about 1985. What’s more, Android and iOS have essentially achieved their share in just five years, and by all reckonings are still in the early stages of their growth.

What’s the message? Mobile is huge, it’s going to get tremendously larger, and will soon become the primary way most people experience the Internet. How did this shift happen, and what does it mean now that more people are accessing the Web through tablets and smartphones than laptops and desktops? Smart phones and tablets are obviously the hottest technology products right now, but figures about how significant they have become are daunting. Meeker forecasts the worldwide number of smart phone and tablet users should overtake the worldwide number of PC users next year. That means around the world, more people’s experience of “computing” and Internet technology will come from mobile devices than via traditional desktop or notebook PCs. If forecasts bear out, this shift will not only continue, but accelerate. Based on data from Morgan Stanley and a few assumptions about device lifetime, Meeker estimates roughly 2.9 billion people around the world will be using smart phones and tablets by 2016 (Norman). It is worth noting that those global figures gloss over a lot of regional variation — and those differences can be significant. For instance, in the United States about 78 percent of the population has access to the Internet, putting the U.S. way out in front of most other nations. However, while only about 11 percent of India’s population has access to the Internet, mobile Internet traffic has already eclipsed Internet traffic generated by traditional computers in India. And where in the United States roughly half mobile users are on smart phones, in India that figure is just four percent. In other words, emerging economies like India, China, Brazil, and Indonesia are leading shift towards a mobile-centric Internet. Is it really a big deal if most people’s experience of the Internet and the Web shifts to mobile devices? After all, isn’t much of the promise of the the Internet rooted in being able to access it from anywhere – from any device? Well, yes. However, mobile technologies and applications will quickly trump what until now have been mainstream Internet experiences. Mobile versions of innovative technologies – like Siri – are already becoming premiere products and experiences, rather than also-rans and follow-alongs (Norman). As mobile devices take over, the use of today’s desktop browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari will decline. To be sure, mobile browsers are already very capable and will increasingly adopt HTML5 and leading-edge Web technologies. But, fundamentally, mobile devices will nearly always have less screen real estate than traditional desktops, and mobile users will not have the fine control of a mouse and keyboard. That means for sites to be successful on a mobile-centric Internet, they’re going to need to function more like mobile apps and less like collections of links. Smaller screens, touch interfaces, and app-like designs also mean that the traditional understanding of the Web as an impossibly vast collection of interlinked sites and documents will start to break down. Web browsers were designed to enable users to jump quickly around the world from site to site and page to page; however, the mobile Internet experience wants to be more of a seamless application experience, not hopping around the Internet willy-nilly. URLs are not going to die: People will still send links to their friends and Web search will remain most users primary means of finding information online. But Internet-based sites and services will increasingly function as silos of content and functionality reluctant to link out to other sites or drive traffic (and potential advertising revenue) elsewhere. These have long been factors in many sites’ designs (including Digital Trends), but mobile devices amplify these considerations by making traditional Web navigation awkward and difficult (Gersh). But the trend seems clear: For the vast majority of consumers worldwide, the primary computing and online experience will be on mobile devices. That means nearly every service, business, and (really) person who wants to use the Internet will be thinking mobile first and PC second, if they think about PCs at all.

Works Cited
Norman, D (2005). Human-centered design considered dangerous. Retrieved from: http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/humancentered_desig.html

Norman, D (2005). Activity-centered design. Why I like my Harmony remote control. Retrieved from: http://www.jnd.org/dnmss/activitycentere.html

Gersh, J.R. (2005). Understanding human interaction with complex systems.