A possible future according to Gartner.  As windows becomes niche and marginalized, will Sonar still only work on Windows?  As desktop becomes relegated to specialty applications like graphics, etc will the cost of desktops increase?  Which would in turn push home recordists like me towards tablets to make music?  We are beyond an inflexion point.  Micrsoft has already lost the war.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/04/microsoft-smartphones-tablets

Well I don't see that that happening...

If anything it will drive the price of PC's and Laptops down...not up..

Tablets are nothing more then Laptops that have been flattened out, for 
the most part.

iOS and Android, while viable for the portable market, aren't going
to send the iMacs or PC's out of the picture in the near future..

Microsoft has already "moved" into the portable world with Win 8....
granted, late to the game, but still IN the game...

And, according to the "experts" X-Box was pretty well out of the game 
when the PS3 came along...but guess what?  It's still a BIG market share..
and still a heavy contender...contrary to what the "pundits" said...
So I certainly wouldn't look for the PC or Mac to be relegated to the "past" very soon...
the reason the market share for "Tablets" is so high? 

Most people have already bought PC's or Macs...so, because the iPads and
Nexxus's are the new "thing"...that's what they're buying...

BUT, stranger things have happened...

I think the future is hybrid. A tablet on its own may not be the best tool for music production as is, but throw in some kind of dock w/ connectivity to a keyboard and mouse, a bigger screen... I mean, the reason why we cling to towers is power, connectivity and expandability. Given the equal amount of power, and admitting that we can hook up that power to other pieces of equipment and expand it, it is obvious that the traditional computer will become a thing of the past.

Rain


I think the future is hybrid. A tablet on its own may not be the best tool for music production as is, but throw in some kind of dock w/ connectivity to a keyboard and mouse, a bigger screen... I mean, the reason why we cling to towers is power, connectivity and expandability. Given the equal amount of power, and admitting that we can hook up that power to other pieces of equipment and expand it, it is obvious that the traditional computer will become a thing of the past.

THIS I agree with...


If tablets can get the power of the PC/Mac Processor, Large SSD drives incorporated and run mainstream applications and connect
to a "Dock" for keyboard and mouse and greater I/O...then I can see the Paradigm shift...as it would be a device for home

or on the go...and that would certainly shift the game..


But the price would also have to be competitive...and that just simply is not the case....YET...

You know, I moved from a PC tower to a laptop because I had no other option with the tour. And my plan was to move back to a tower once we'd settled down again. But, you know what? I'm not so sure. For the stuff I do, the MacBook Pro/Logic combo delivers pretty much all what I need. Hooked to a bigger screen and w/ the addition of a mouse, and I'm pretty happy w/ it. If I planned on working U-He's Diva and D16 LuSH-101, things might be different. But I'm using native plugs 90% of the time, not to spare the CPU but because they're my favorite tools, anyway. I could probably do w/ a bit more horsepower - not that I miss it, but I'd probably take advantage of it. But a newer MacBook Pro would give me that - even if it's not the most powerful CPU. There will always be a more powerful machine anyway... As such, I'm really not sure I'll opt for a tower when I upgrade - in fact, more and more, I'm thinking iMac, Mac mini server or a new MacBook Pro.

I concur...

I have the best of both worlds...I can pick up and go when I want....no muss no fuss...

Here on my desk I'm connected to everything I need...

Eventually I'd like to have an i7...but that's not happening anytime soon...
and I'm fine with what I have...it get's the job done...

 Lost the war, no I think they gave up years ago. Sure seems like they have been keeping their eggs in the X-box basket since the first generation. I do believe there is a campaign to kill off the standard PC and it is being waged by m/s, Macintosh and Intel. I was reading that Intel plans to kill off the socketed processors in the next couple of generations. To the consumer that will probably mean no more custom built PC's. Not sure what AMD is going to do.
 Bad news for most of us I think. Great deal for them, with the small time specialized builders out of the picture or greatly reduced. A return to everything being totally proprietary and "no user serviceable parts inside" is soon to come I think and they want to get total control back of software and hardware distrubution and use...   

 
I really think the next logical step in the evolution of the DAW is going to be more like an X-box but pro audio based with many features and uses for live and home recording use. 
 Instead of touch screen, motion/gesture controlled like on the Wii? Basic voice recognition “Sonar record",  "Sonar launch amplatube" ? 
 Take it on the road and you have all the effects comps and EQs you ever wanted? I believe all that and even more things I can't fathom are already possible today    
 
I don't think portable devices are quite developed enough to do the number crunching many DAW users need simply because of heat. Every lap top I ever worked on underperformed its PC equal in a CPU or graphics benchmark simply because of throttling because of high temps. JMO 

  As far as Macs, since they are essentially the same nomenclature as a PC. I would be perfectly willing to buy a version of their OS they just don't sell it without their overpriced hardware. They're also not interested in the desktop war They have their eggs in the ithingy basket,  also JMO

 

Speaking of motion, here's a little something I stumbled upon recently. No idea how this could be made into something actually useful for DAW, but, who knows... http://logicblog.info/log...ol-equals-awesome.html

Rain


Speaking of motion, here's a little something I stumbled upon recently. No idea how this could be made into something actually useful for DAW, but, who knows... http://logicblog.info/logic-pro-blog/2013/01/06/leap-motion-controller-plus-bettertouchtool-equals-awesome.html

 Cool, and very cheap.
 
  If I were willing to work in WDM, I think I could use my Microsoft game voice to control just about anything that there is a keybord shortcut to in Sonar. I'm going to have to try that.

While the comparison between portable and traditional system will always be interesting, I dare ask when will it ever be enough? I mean, an iPad outperforms the machines I was using to create music for documentaries years ago. By far... My current MacBook Pro (actually an old 2010) does pretty much all I need it to do, and I rarely ever push the buffers higher than 64. My projects are usually anywhere between 40 to 60 tracks, w/ lots of Virtual Instruments... Now, I know that there are more powerful machines out there, but, honestly, I can't think of a time where I actually thought - dammit, why isn't my computer faster and more powerful? If I were scoring to movie or such, I'd buy another, more powerful one. But it's not even a concern whether I could or should buy the latest greatest baddest most powerful machine.