Late response; i dont think the deciding factor is whether or not you can do real work on the device or not. I can do real work on a calculator, or even an abacus.
You have to admit, doing work on an iPad is a far more similar experience to a PC than a calculator or an abacus.
A calculator and an abacus are only good at doing one thing. The iPad, much like a PC, can do a vast number of things, provided it has the processing power and applications capable of doing it.
Think of it like this. Say Adobe were to release a full featured version of Photoshop CS6 for the iPad tomorrow. Besides different input methods, would it somehow be any different than running it on a PC?
The PC stands for something. The tablet, or rather - the post-pc tablet - stands for something else; in particular, the not-PC. These are not even my words. These are, in a sense, the words of Jobs himself (e.g., Jobs at ATD'07).
I never take anything Job said at face value. He's a salesman first and foremost, trying to sell everyone on the idea that the tablet is TEH FUTUR Apple has given us, and somehow completely different what we had before. The Post-PC phrase was nothing more than an earworm to get people talking and evangelizing this new thing Apple was selling.
But at the end of the day, the iPad isn't post-PC because it's still very much a PC. A streamlined, not quite as powerful PC, but still a PC nonetheless. Eventually capable of doing the same things we do on laptops and desktops in a new, fancy easy to use form factor.
...eventually being the key word here. We're not quite there yet, but it's getting closer.
As exhibit B, look at Surface vs. Surface Pro. Same form, different products. On a non-PC, PC-scale, the Surface is undoubtedly left of the Pro. Not because you cannot work on both. Not because they both are not personal computers (they are very much personal, and very much computers). But because the PC-as-concept is (currently) something else than just a personal computer.
I consider the Surface the cheaper, less powerful consumer tablet to the Pro's high end professional tablet. In look an execution, both of them are roughly the same. The Pro is just capable of doing more due to having access to higher end apps, and the power of the hardware behind it.
Exhibit C is the already presented. If the iPad is a personal computer, why is that not true for the iPhone? The iPod? Et cetera. Clearly, we do draw a line. And the line is clearly not what is manifest within the term PC (a device being a) personal b) a computer)
While it wasn't my original point, I will hold that the iPad is not a PC (rather, it is a not-PC, which in part explains its success). Or perhaps, PC is not iPad, after all concepts change over time. Indeed, with time, things might very well change. After all, concepts are not out there to be discovered, but constructed through our interaction with the world.
I think we're disagreeing on an issue of semantics more than anything. From what you're saying, I believe you think of the PC/not-PC as a difference in form factor specifically, where as I'm think of it in terms of capabilities. Like to you, an iPad isn't quite a PC because it's not a laptop. To me, it's a PC because it can do spreadsheets and photo editing comfortably.
In other words, an iPhone or iPod isn't a PC to me, where as iPad is more of one due to it's size making it better able to do PC-like tasks. For instance, I sure as hell wouldn't want to type out a document on my iPhone. Yeah, it has the ability, but it'd kinda suck doing it, and take about forever and a day. The iPad? Considerably easier. Even though they both sport roughly the same hardware, the iPad is more a getting-work-done machine than the iPhone simply due to the larger size.
Sure, tablets aren't as "PC" as traditional computers, but there isn't a huge gulf separating the two. Over time, that gulf will get smaller and smaller, until the iPad and Android tablets are just as capable as your average laptop, and the only difference being form factor and input method.
I guess really, if we are in the Post-PC era, that doesn't mean we've left traditional PCs behind, so much as blurred the line as to what a PC actually is. Capability should be all that matters.
