Shipments vs. sales? Returns? Ah, never mind
I still hate the idea of "post PC". None of these portable devices replaces a laptop or a desktop computer. Its simply Post PC because Apple said so, and people like to do what they are told.
Actually, the data has spoken.
In iPad doesn't replace my MacBook--my work "truck"--but it DOES replace many people's Macs/PCs. In two ways:
1. Some people--enough to matter in the market--BUY an iPad instead of a PC. Doesn't necessarily mean they throw out the old PC, or that they never buy one again. It means they skip buying their next PC, let the old one make do in the corner for a lot longer, and buy the iPad instead.
2. People USE an iPad instead of a PC.
Off the top of my head, I can think of six people I know who replaced a PC or Mac with an iPad for daily use. They now rarely if ever touch their desktop/laptop. Does this mean they are doing less with computing than they used to? No, in fact all six of them are doing far MORE with the iPad than they ever did with a PC. Ease of use. We tech-heads forget HOW much it matters to so many people.
Example: a person I know who used a computer hours a day for communication, but was terrified of it and stuck with just the things she knew. She didn't know how to find or move files, perform updates, or even format text on a simple document! She didn't care enough to learn, and so the whole thing annoyed her. She got Windows malware about once a year.
Then someone gave her an iPad (not me!) and she didn't want it. Why use something new and even
more unknown to do the same things she sort of had a handle on with the PC? So she decided to sell it.
Some months later, I was talking to her on the phone and realized she was doing her taxes herself, online--something she never would have attempted in the past. Turns out she wasn't on the PC--she was on the iPad doing it. She has more apps on that thing than she used in her entire pre-iPad life. She now does digital art and photo manipulation and sells her work as a side-income. She barely knew digital art existed on PC. Her iPad as become her TV. She bought a keyboard for it and now she doesn't miss even the typing on the PC. (She also got a cheap Android phone and hates it--too much troubleshooting. A switch to iPhone is planned.)
The other people I know could tell similar stories. No, none of them were hard-core tech-heads like me, comfortable tinkering and troubleshooting. They're not the people that frequent tech forums. But they are the majority!
(I even know one person who uses an iPod Touch to replace a PC. It sees a lot of use every day, for gaming, email, web, social media, video--and pocket convenience plus ease of use are so appreciated that the old PC almost never gets used.)
Just because the PC % share vs phones and ipads is shrinking, it doesn't mean PC's are dying out. It could equally mean that people are buying 8 phones in the time it takes them to replace a PC. Or less people are buying PC's because they're buying components and building them themselves.
I find the statistics here to be useless. All it really indicates is that phone and pad sales are growing. Just because PC sales are not growing as fast does not indicate any great amount fewer are being sold.
You're right that stats have to be looked at carefully and critically. We don't even KNOW shipments (much less sales)--people are only estimating.
But if even if iPads are slowing PC growth (rather than actually shrinking the PC market already) that's still a shift. And even if iPads are only PART of that slowing growth, that's still a shift. Unless you think they are not a significant part of it--but they clearly are.
As for usable lifetime, I don't know anyone with an iPad (even an iPad 1) who has had it stop working. I've known a LOT of Windows PCs that died or were scrapped in less time than the iPad has been out. And people building their own PCs or home-repairing them are a tiny niche, which only seems bigger when you're on a tech forum. The trend toward small, light, convenient PCs (Air and clones) isn't going to boost that practice either.
I do think people are keeping PCs longer... but in many cases, they're doing it because they don't NEED it enough to bother replacing it! Not because it's working well for them. The iPad came in and filled the need enough of the time (doesn't have to be 100%) that the old, limping PC can make do as is.
That too is only a fraction of people--but it's a big enough (and fast growing) fraction that it's a real trend, affecting how people BUY and USE PCs.
You could say PC's aren't dead yet, or that they'll never fully die. But the trend is in motion and is not going to reverse. Use whatever term you like instead of Post-PC, but things are not going back to the way they were. PCs will be rare for personal use, and then nearly unheard of. In 3 years? 10? I don't know. But it's inevitable. PCs (including Macs) will be the "trucks" just as Jobs predicted. They'll be used for certain kinds of work and certain hard-core hobbyists, and therefore, like trucks, they'll hardly be unheard of. But for personal use, they will be. But even those "trucks" will be Post-PC eventually: they'll become a lot more like the iPad. Some of those PCs by Lenovo and others, where you use them flat on a desk sometimes, are awkward and ahead of their time, but some version of that is where Apple and everyone will eventually be headed, even for the "trucks." Years? Probably--Apple won't rush in like some and do it badly. But in time. Macs will be more iPad-like than they are now, while still having the pro power iPads lack. PCs too.
Almost every kind of PC you see people with today will look as outdated as the non-flat displays in an older movie. Yes, even laptops: they're the first candidate to replace with an iPad for what most people do.
