In his last weekly column, Walt Mossberg ponders the disappearing computer

“This is my last weekly column for The Verge and Recode — the last weekly column I plan to write anywhere,” Walt Mossberg writes for The Verge. ” I’ve been doing these almost every week since 1991, starting at The Wall Street Journal, and during that time, I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know the makers of the tech revolution, and to ruminate — and sometimes to fulminate — about their creations.”

“Now, as I prepare to retire at the end of that very long and world-changing stretch, it seems appropriate to ponder the sweep of consumer technology in that period, and what we can expect next,” Mossberg writes. “Let me start by revising the oft-quoted first line of my first Personal Technology column in the Journal on October 17th, 1991: ‘Personal computers are just too hard to use, and it’s not your fault.'”

“But, over time, the products have gotten more reliable and easier to use, and the users more sophisticated. You can now hand an iPad to a six-year-old, and, with just a bit of help, she will very likely learn how to operate it quickly. That’s amazing, given that the iPad is far more powerful than any complex PC I was testing in the 1990s,” Mossberg writes. “The multi-touch smartphone, launched 10 years ago with Apple’s first iPhone, has conquered the world, and it’s not done getting better. It has, in fact, become the new personal computer… Soon, after a brief slowdown, the roller coaster will be accelerating faster than ever, only this time it’ll be about actual experiences [ambient computing], with much less emphasis on the way those experiences get made.”

Much more in the full article – highly recommended – here.

MacDailyNews Take: Walt’s last weekly column. Wow!

Have a long, happy, and healthy retirement, Walt!

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Walt Mossberg is retiring in June – April 7, 2017