What PC innovation? PC's are the same trash can size devices they were two decades ago. They just get a little faster every couple of years.
Innovation will be driven by mobile (both phones and tablets). It requires a lot more innovation to build these smaller devices that operate all day on a battery.
That's only true because mobile started from scratch a few years ago. You just see innovation because this market (for "smartphones and tablets") barely existed 6 years ago. Obviously this will tone down very fast as performances stop increasing significantly. You see that the latest ARM chips are only marginally more powerful than the previous ones in terms of operations/Watts.
So, they will, also, get only "a little faster every couple of years." Do not kid yourself.
> PC's are the same trash can size devices they were two decades ago
Do you actually visit your local PC stores regularly?
Because while it was not unusual to see full sized towers on display, these days it's rare to even see a standard ATX case. The typical form-factor even for the desktops have slimmed down massively, and a large number of the devices are now "all in one" models with the PC and monitor in one.
That's actually why I agree with you about mobile - the performance _most_ people needs is low enough that the form factor has been steadily going towards mobile, and yet sales are still anaemic while mobile device sales have sky-rocketed. With the rise of Android "TV sticks", coupled with increasing support for mirroring/streaming display from your mobile devices, and/or HDMI/MHL ports and bluetooth keyboards, the desktop is going to be redundant for most people within a few years.
The irony is the desktop trend towards small devices, bluetooth keyboards and "all in one" models are accelerating the demise of the desktop more than it is propping it up, by making people used to wireless keyboards and not having a big box PC.
We are getting 4K displays this year. Granted, phones, then tablets, then laptops got high res displays first; but dammit, I really want my 31" 4K monitor. If the PC space starts to innovate again, or at least catch up to mobile, people might start loving PCs again and gasp...buy new ones.
And that's all they need to be. It's software that needs innovation, but that requires critical thinking people and people to have power over processes and business. So before we can even let people do that, we first have to tell them how to think and keep secrets and fight each other, work against each other, build walls and checks for themselves, and deliver their value to stock holders while not doing the same types of land-grabs via software and regulation that Microsoft & co. is empowered to do.
I hope this trend do not lead to slowness in PC innovation.