OK, so it started with memories from 2008 and now we are back in 1976! That’s great actually!
I feel that computers (especially the desktop) has come full circle. I started with Windows 95 so that’s when I feel the modern desktop was born. Others may disagree. There was a steady evolution to Windows 7. Gnome 2 no doubt had Windows as source of inspiration. At that time Gnome developers wanted to cater to common users…
iPhone introduced the touch-UI. Gnome 3 took inspiration from that. Windows 8 tried the same thing but the backlash was too hard so Windows 10 tried to balance touch and mouse/keyboard use in a better way.
So, here we are in 2017. The desktop feels like a mature product. There is always room for improvements, but it’s hard to imagine a desktop feature we haven’t seen before in some shape or form.
Likewise, the evolution of touch-based UIs seems to have slowed considerably. iOS and Android are mature products.
There was a skeuomorphic UI trend and then a flat UI trend. Icons have gone from monochrome to playful and colourful to monochrome again.
Has the evolution of personal computing reached an end? To some extent I think so. I would like someone to prove me wrong. What’s next for visual interfaces?
A better question would be: how would you like personal computing to evolve?
What I don’t want to see is that Gnome, KDE and Wayland turn desktop Linux into a (root-less) Facebook-machine. If you want a system that was engineered from the ground up with security in mind then there is Chrome OS (integrity check every boot, minimal OS, updates installed to a second partition, no local apps - the perfect sandbox!). Of course you need to trust Google to feel secure on this system. But to be honest you always have to trust someone when using software. 