iPad Drives Apple to Third Place Among Global Portable Computer Manufacturers

[eye]

When are the numbskulls who write second-rate online articles about the iPad or other products going to stop using the word "cannibalize" to describe Apple taking market share from other companies? They type it because they've heard other braniacs use it wrong but if they thought about it for one second, they'd realize that makes no sense.

"Cannibalize" is used when a company's product negatively impacts sales of another of its own products. Just like when people eat other people. Duh.

 

[firewood]

1. Apple is NOT the third-largest provider of mobile "computers"

If you mean computers that are mobile, then NO. There a reportedly many billions (not millions) of tiny 8-bit 8051-like computers controlling things like each power window motor in your (mobile) car, & etc.

If you mean "mobile computers", as in things that people often carry with them to consciously run their most commonly used computer applications (web browser, spreadsheet, etc.), then for a huge portion of the population, yes.

They don't even see or know about the small stuff.

 

[newagemac]

Agreed. When I can develop iPad apps *ON THE IPAD* maybe then I will consider it a computer. The iPad is as much a computer as the iPod Touch is.

Actually you can. There's nothing stopping you from creating HTML5 apps, coding with PHP, and creating web apps that use other standards based open source code on your iPad. Now if you want to use proprietary stuff you might have to use the proprietary systems and software required but that has nothing to do with whether its a computer or not.

In other words, a windows PC isn't no longer a computer just because you can't develop iPad apps on it.

 

[UTclassof89]

Actually you can. There's nothing stopping you from creating HTML5 apps, coding with PHP...

I suppose by the same logic I could use my Texas Instruments calculator to write a long string of zeros and ones, representing the binary code of a complex app.

Sure, any calculator "computes", but it's not what people mean when they say "computer".

 

[newagemac]

You missed my point. Apple RESTRICTS the KINDS of apps I can put on my device.

The hardware and software MAY physically constitute a computer, but as long as it is locked down by Apple's policies, restricting what I can do with it, then I don't personally consider it on the same par as say a netbook, which has no such (artificial, I should add) restrictions. And since I consider a netbook to be a computer for these reasons, I don't consider the iPad to be one for the same reasons.

Once Apple comes out with XCode for it, or even lets me install a Python interpereter for it, then I'll change my mind.

My employer RESTRICTS the KINDS of apps I can put on my device at work. I guess its no longer a computer then. The hardware and software MAY physically constitute a computer, but as long as it is locked down by my employer's policies, restricting what I can do with it, then I don't personally consider it on the same par as say my netbook at home, which has no such (artificial, I should add) restrictions.

Heck, since they won't even let me install my preferred browser on that powerful system on my desk at work, it simply CAN'T be a computer!

By the way, my friend in the military says the toys they're given to use at work are even more locked down beyond comprehension with a walled garden Steve Jobs couldn't even dream of. Maybe they'll get some "computers" there one day.


/sarcasm

 

[firewood]

Compared to specs like that it could be argued that most netbooks and many laptops are not mobile computers. They are computers... but hardly mobile.

That's the trend.
Before the end of WWII, "computer" was a common job title for a woman with a math degree who didn't want to teach school.
The first mobile electronic computers fit in a battleship, then eventually the trunk of a (large) car.
Then they were suitcase sized (what? you call that rack in your trunk mobile?)
Then they were thick clamshells (what? you call that Osborne I suitcase mobile?)
Then they were thin and light (what? you call a Mac Portable mobile?)
Now they're magazine sized (what? you call 1 kilo mobile?)
Or pocket-sized (why would you want a personal computer you couldn't put in your shirt pocket?)

I won't try to predict the trend, but the great-grandkids will certainly find even the next gen iPad to be a huge slow overweight dinosaur museum piece of a computer (in a display case next to a chunk of the Univac).

 

[ranReloaded]

How is iOS not a "full OS"? It is OS X, just a different flavor basically but all the underpinnings of the code that makes it OS X is there. And even smartphones are faster, more powerful, and can do more than many consumer computers from just 10 years ago. If I still own a computer from 10 years ago with a slower processor and less RAM than the iPad is that computer no longer considered a computer? I think it still is a computer. So yes I would call the iPad a portable computer.

For some people it is very easy: if it has yellow folders, a mouse pointer and some USB ports, then it's a "real computer"; otherwise it's a "toy".

Personally I can only conceive doing serious work on an iMac or Mac Pro. But I do 90% of my web browsing/e-mail on my iPhone. They're all "computers" by the definition...

 

[ranReloaded]

Heck, since they won't even let me install my preferred browser on that powerful system on my desk at work, it simply CAN'T be a computer!

By the way, my friend in the military says the toys they're given to use at work are even more locked down beyond comprehension with a walled garden Steve Jobs couldn't even dream of. Maybe they'll get some "computers" there one day.

/sarcasm

I guess all those corporate WinXP boxes locked to IE6 ain't real computers either, huh?

 

[ranReloaded]

When are the numbskulls who write second-rate online articles about the iPad or other products going to stop using the word "cannibalize" to describe Apple taking market share from other companies? They type it because they've heard other braniacs use it wrong but if they thought about it for one second, they'd realize that makes no sense.

"Cannibalize" is used when a company's product negatively impacts sales of another of its own products. Just like when people eat other people. Duh.

Steve warned about becoming a "nation of bloggers", but I think there's a worse case scenario: becoming a nation of forum posters and leet-speakers.

 

[firewood]

For some people it is very easy: if it has yellow folders, a mouse pointer and some USB ports, then it's a "real computer"; otherwise it's a "toy".

For some older people, if it fills a room and has lots of blinking lights and spinning tape drives, while being attended to by operators in white coats, then it's a "real computer"; otherwise it's just some sort of toy.

Before that, "computer" was a job title.

The great-grandkids will laugh at this "mouse" and "USB" stuff like we laugh at cars that came with hand cranked starters and tire patch kits.

 

[LagunaSol]

You missed my point. Apple RESTRICTS the KINDS of apps I can put on my device.

The hardware and software MAY physically constitute a computer, but as long as it is locked down by Apple's policies, restricting what I can do with it, then I don't personally consider it on the same par as say a netbook, which has no such (artificial, I should add) restrictions.

Ah, so:

iPad: not a computer
Jailbroken iPad: a computer

Got it. Thanks!

 

[CaoCao]

For some older people, if it fills a room and has lots of blinking lights and spinning tape drives, while being attended to by operators in white coats, then it's a "real computer"; otherwise it's just some sort of toy.

Before that, "computer" was a job title.

The great-grandkids will laugh at this "mouse" and "USB" stuff like we laugh at cars that came with hand cranked starters and tire patch kits.

I find crank starters perfect for the time, tire patch kits are still quite useful

 

[WineTaster]

I suspect one of the problems here is that the original post clearly states the data is from retail stores only - this is not the only place where computers (of whatever definition) are purchased therefore the charts tell only a part of the story.

Corporations don't purchase their equipment from retail stores and I suspect that the volumes purchased via these channels will be significant and change the picture greatly - most likely showing Dell, HP, Toshiba to have larger shares than we see in this chart. Mind you there will be no disputing the relative growth that Apple is seeing in the corporate market - and deservedly so too.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I own an iPad and I really like it, but calling it an actual computer is kind of a stretch. At least for now it is a bigger, more powerful iPod Touch. iOS4 might take it a step closer to being an actual computer, but for now it is too limited in both hardware and software to be considered one in my opinion.

 

[firewood]

I own an iPad and I really like it, but calling it an actual computer is kind of a stretch. At least for now it is a bigger, more powerful iPod Touch.

Interesting, because I always thought my iPod Touch with iPhone OS 2.x was a great small computer, a more powerful computer then my PalmPilots, with much better network connectivity. They both had excellent developer SDKs. And a Palm V was in many ways a more powerful computer then the original Mac 128k, which was a faster computer than the original IBM PC.

 

[BigJimmyC]

I own an iPad and I really like it, but calling it an actual computer is kind of a stretch. At least for now it is a bigger, more powerful iPod Touch. iOS4 might take it a step closer to being an actual computer, but for now it is too limited in both hardware and software to be considered one in my opinion.

+1.

If we consider the ipod a tv because you can watch movies on it, then i'm sure apple sold more tvs last quarter than sony did.

 

[MikeSmoke]

I do not really care what category the iPad falls under if any. Right now I am pedalling away on a recumbent stationary bike with iPad in hand, doing most everything I would be doing at my laptops or desktops. And there is an app for $9.99 which replaces a $1000 hardware control surface for us music pros which pays for the iPad out of the gate!

 

[jimsong]

That definition encompasses the PSP and DS as well.

By that definition even a basic 4-function calculator is a computer. At that point, any such comparisons between "computers" are utterly useless.

 

[flottenheimer]

"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true".
- Homer Simpson

 

[jimsong]

No they don't. They restrict the products that they will carry in their App store (just like any other major retailer).

That's just semantics. It's effectively the same thing. The app store is supposed to be the only legitimate (by Apple's definition) place to get apps. If Apple restricts what can go in the app store, then it logically follows that they are restricting what can legitimately (by Apple's definition) go on the iPad.

 

[a.gomez]

and if I count 2.4 million PS3 sales as desktops computers - SONY doubled their PC sales for the quarter

 

[jimsong]

My employer RESTRICTS the KINDS of apps I can put on my device at work. I guess its no longer a computer then. The hardware and software MAY physically constitute a computer, but as long as it is locked down by my employer's policies, restricting what I can do with it, then I don't personally consider it on the same par as say my netbook at home, which has no such (artificial, I should add) restrictions.

Heck, since they won't even let me install my preferred browser on that powerful system on my desk at work, it simply CAN'T be a computer!

By the way, my friend in the military says the toys they're given to use at work are even more locked down beyond comprehension with a walled garden Steve Jobs couldn't even dream of. Maybe they'll get some "computers" there one day.


/sarcasm

"I don't personally consider it on the same par as say a netbook." != "I guess its no longer a computer then"

 

[Westside guy]

Problem is the lines are all blurred anymore. My iPod Touch certainly has more computing power than my first desktop computer did (and has 30x the "disk" space of that computer, and 750x the storage my first work computer had). My friend's netbook doesn't have a hard drive - he had to buy a 16GB CF card to be its "disk" (and heck, my first laptop only had a 10GB disk anyway).

Most of the definitions being tossed around on this thread are rather silly. You're basically trying to define "computer" so it suits your argument, as if the word wasn't well defined already. Using a goofy definition that amounts to "the OS isn't computer-y enough"... what's next - if it doesn't run AIX, it's not a computer? All of these items are computers.

If you want to argue the lines of comparison should be drawn differently, fine - do so. But it's just dumb to base your argument on a statement like "the iPad isn't a computer" - even the Newton and the Palm Pilot were computers. Get some sense of historical perspective.

 

[fburzi]

I think that when Apple makes a new model listening to its users, like me, that wants usb ports and hopefully flash support among other things, then the iPad will reach the sky for sure.

 

[firewood]

The app store is supposed to be the only legitimate (by Apple's definition) place to get apps.

You are mistaken. The App store is only 1 of 3 officially Apple supported ways to get apps on your iPhone. The 3 ways are: Clipped web apps (which was the only way before the OS 2.0 SDK), $99 Apple iPhone developer certificate (during the iPhone 2.0 beta phase and still current), and then the curated App store (if you pay for paid apps).