Engadget's editorial on the "post-PC" world

[smithrh]

As someone who's been with Apple (as a user, not as an employee) since the very start (Apple II), you want to know something?

I'm enjoying the hell out of this!

After literally decades of being derided, scorned and put down for my choice of platform, I have now the pleasure of seeing the blowards and smacktards being marginalized right before my eyes.

There was another post where someone said Apple isn't a hardware company or a software company, but a solutions company for the individual, this is spot-on.

I hope there's much more to come, but I'm really happy with where Apple is and where it's going. Of course there are some slip ups here and there - indeed, there are some things that Apple does that drive me a bit up the wall - but overall the picture is bright.

 

[Piggie]

Many families with 2 kids (as one example) will soon change from owning 4 laptops + 1 deskop to owning 1 desktop + 4 iPads.

That represents an EXTREME reduction in personal computer sales.

If you don't see that as "post-PC" then I don't know how else to convince you. "Post" doesn't mean they'll be extinct. It just means that Windows machines and Macs will soon be more like dishwashers. Everyone will have one, but you don't care all that much about it and you'd be crazy to ever own two at once.

I can't think of a better term than 'Post-PC.'

Many Families?

Rich ones perhaps. We're looking at over $2000 just for the iPads.
Daddy much have a nice job.

 

[Mattstkc]

Agree mostly, but I think we have a long, long way to go before the past 20 years of tech become obsolete.

All I know is my house within the next 5 years will be made up of 1 computer, a 27 in iMac that I'll airplay videos to the Apple TV and use JumpDesktop from my iPad when I need it. The perfect set up and all apple. Desktops won't go away entirely, but the "PC" as we know it is dead.

 

[Small White Car]

Many Families?

Rich ones perhaps. We're looking at over $2000 just for the iPads.
Daddy much have a nice job.

We're talking about the future here. If the cheapest iPad doesn't cost $299 in 3 years I'll be very surprised.

At that point 4 of them will cost the same as 1 Macbook Pro does today so, no, I don't think several in a household is a crazy idea.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Rich ones perhaps. We're looking at over $2000 just for the iPads.
Daddy much have a nice job.

That's a lot but for families with both parents working in their mid career stages, not really an impossibly high amount of money considering how much people usually spend on tech stuff. For many (I'm not saying all or even most) the iPad can replace things like a Nintendo DS and a laptop. That's where Nintendo and Sony get scared.

 

[Piggie]

We're talking about the future here. If the cheapest iPad doesn't cost $299 in 3 years I'll be very surprised.

At that point 4 of them will cost the same as 1 Macbook Pro does today so, no, I don't think several in a household is a crazy idea.

I'm struggling to be sure about this in reality.

I have personally seen some UK Teenagers on their laptops, and from what I've seen and iPad just would not be any good for them.

Why you ask?

Well, from seeing, as I say a few, and these were different children, around teenage years from different families, they were sitting using their laptop's

They were chatting to their friends on things like MSN, at the same time browsing Ebay, on the things they were chatting about, also browsing the web in general, and at times checking out downloads from, let just say iffy free places.

This was only really possible due to REAL multitasking and the ability to have many things on the screen at once. Being teenagers their brain is running at high speed whilst they were keeping track of multiple things at once.

If I'd have taken the Laptop away and given them an iPad, then, whilst they would have loved it as a "show off to your mates gadget" they no longer would of been able to use it in the same fast way with multiple things being done at one as they were doing with their laptop's

As I say, this was a few teenagers I witnessed working this way, so I've no reason to think they were particularly unusual.

The iPad seems to lend itself to a more relaxed manner of use, generally focussing more on one full screen task at a time. Whilst it's superb at what it does, I'd still say it has some severe and very basic limitations before it replaces Laptops for many people.

 

[Small White Car]

I'm struggling to be sure about this in reality.

I have personally seen some UK Teenagers on their laptops, and from what I've seen and iPad just would not be any good for them.

I think that the iPad will be there very soon. People are going to surprised at how fast it changes.

Does anyone really think about the first iPhone not having an app store? That's a distant memory and I doubt most iPhone owners are even aware of that fact.

Likewise, the whole "I can't do everything at once!" fear will be something people laugh about 3 years from now, if they even remember it.

 

[vrDrew]

They were chatting to their friends on things like MSN, at the same time browsing Ebay, on the things they were chatting about, also browsing the web in general, and at times checking out downloads from, let just say iffy free places.

This was only really possible due to REAL multitasking.....

Well what a triumph of technology! The ability for a bunch of spotty oiks to sit around grabbing BitTorrents in a chippie, while exchanging Lolz with their mates on MSN.

Obviously the progress of art and science in portable digital devices MUST be built around meeting the needs of this key demographic.

 

[Sodner]

Its funny that until I acutally looked it up just recently, I had litteraly NO IDEA what size/speed/model of CPU was in the iMac I bought this year. Mean while I am a Windows System Administrator by day (and have been for 20 years) and spend all my time working on the fastest most power Intel based computers money can buy.

It was refreshing to walk into the Apple store and just decide, do I want the 21" or the 27". Becuase other than that, I knew "it just worked".

 

[Piggie]

Well what a triumph of technology! The ability for a bunch of spotty oiks to sit around grabbing BitTorrents in a chippie, while exchanging Lolz with their mates on MSN.

Obviously the progress of art and science in portable digital devices MUST be built around meeting the needs of this key demographic.

LOL, well, no, I'm not holding this up as a pinnacle to aim for, just a description of what I guess many teenagers do.

Also, at a more fundamental level a issue with the functionality of any device, which basically runs one app full screen at a time.

It is limiting, there is no question about it.
You may not care about this limitation, or your use may not be such that it matters, but if you are used to, or want to move quickly between windows, working on / using various programs, apps, at the same time, a machine such as the iPad can be very frustrating.

Myself I don't use my iPad for general use as it's slow to do things on.
On my desktop, which I'm using now, with the mouse, I can copy and past between web pages, edit in a photo, copy a link across, etc, etc in the blink of an eye. Using the iPad, works, but it's a slow and clunky process in comparison.

Again, let me say, for a small, battery powered device, the iPad is great at what is does, it's just that I'd tend to use it when I've not go anything better around, than choose to use it.

For checking TV listings, or finding someones address type of work it's quick and excellent of course.

 

[Carouser]

Well what a triumph of technology! The ability for a bunch of spotty oiks to sit around grabbing BitTorrents in a chippie, while exchanging Lolz with their mates on MSN.

Obviously the progress of art and science in portable digital devices MUST be built around meeting the needs of this key demographic.

Not to mention it's a completely fabricated example, designed to highlight the things an iPad can't do and then presumes those would be important to people. Adolescents are perfectly comfortable using (and buying) mobile devices to connect socially, and this includes iOS devices. They are not a big laptop demographic.

A handful of people amounts to a 'guess' and an anecdote, and doesn't have any relation to the current research on teens and technology.

 

[Piggie]

Not to mention it's a completely fabricated example. Adolescents are perfectly comfortable using (and buying) mobile devices to connect socially, and this includes iOS devices. They are not a big laptop demographic.

Indeed, of course they use iOS and other mobile devices when they are out and about, or perhaps to send a message.

In the same way many of us would. You use what you have to hand.
To keep closing and rerunning apps as you flip between a messenger program, and ebay app, a music program and a web site is a more difficult and clunky process than just flipping between different open windows on say a macbook.

 

[fertilized-egg]

Not to mention it's a completely fabricated example

Not to mention wrong. I chat all the time with my family members and friends who use their iPhone/iPod Touch to surf the web and chat with me on MSN at the same time. One of them even downloads stuff from torrent on her iPod Touch through VPN to the main computer and watches the stuff over AirVideo.

To keep closing and rerunning apps as you flip between a messenger program, and ebay app, a music program and a web site

Why would you keep closing and rerunning music and messenger apps?

 

[Night Spring]

flipping between different open windows on say a macbook.

Wasn't that what the multi-finger gestures previewed in iOS 4.3 beta did? Flip through different open windows? So Apple is working on bringing this to iOS.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

It is a fallacy since with all of the Apple products listed a PC is required in order to sync.
Anybody else see the irony in claiming to be in a post-PC world yet needing one.

You're generalizing far too much. I only attach my iPhone to my Mac when I need a software update, otherwise I use it exclusively on its own. I have no desire to sync media with my device because I'm more "old school" and have no desire to keep libraries of media on my Mac (music, videos, movies, etc.). I'm just not hip like the other people on here!

If I were to get an iPad 2, it would be as a stand-alone "couch potato" device.

 

[Stirolak123]

Agree, everyone has smartphones now. All touch-based. Computers are going to die, in personal terms. Business technology won't change much.

Apps are the new CD-ROMS.

Not everyone yet:
http://www.tablets.com/uncategorized/potential-growth-for-tablets-is-huge-according-to-one-report/