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Do you not do all your coding, photo editing, FPS fragging, word processing, and spreadsheets on an iPad yet? Don't you have one sitting in your basement acting

Do you not do all your coding, photo editing, FPS fragging, word processing, and spreadsheets on an iPad yet? Don't you have one sitting in your basement acting as a home media and web server? I'm not even going to get into how much more upgradable they are than PCs. How could you ever possibly need more than the few hundred megs of ram that an iPad has? Dell might as well announce liquidation right now. ($75 on craigslist gets you a computer 3x as powerful with 3x as much ram and 10x+ as much disk space as an iPad, which only costs $500)

recoiledsnake 16y ago
Well, I am sure someone is composing a message right now about how all those are either possible on the iPad (possible != best job for it) or are used only by geeks/developers who will go the way of the dinosaur(cue analogy of trucks vs. cars). ;) Maybe the message is taking so much time to be written because it's being composed on a iPad(yes I know h/w keyboards can be used).
- rbarooah 16y ago
  Yes - I was although I think a mountain bike is a better analogy. But seriously - people can't see the difference between an iPad and a $75 PC off Craigslist? Perhaps a pair of spectacles is in order.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
rbarooah 16y ago
My parents and my mother in law literally don't want to do any of the things you just listed, but all of them have found my iPad useful, could use it immediately, and want one. That $75 computer on Craigslist simply can't do things in the same way. It's like comparing a mountain bike with a 15 year old pickup truck. You can spend $1000 on either, and the truck will go further, faster and carrying a greater load. But the mountain bike will go places the truck can't go, and the experience will be totally different.
- PostOnce 16y ago
  If all you ever use your PC for is Hulu, then what you need is a TV, and televisions are not "post-PC", they're a different product entirely, nor will they ever replace PCs. :P
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    Silly strawman. Actually none of them watched video at all. They used maps, google earth, the browser, a Craigslist app, the photos app, and kindle. But I guess I've fallen for a troll.
    - PostOnce 16y ago
      Not a straw man, it was an example. I am not trolling. PCs can be used for all manner of things, some things that they are now used for are better suited to other devices. Some things are perfectly suited to PCs and other devices just fail to measure up. My point is, iPad ownership and PC ownership are not mutually exclusive. Having an iPad does not mean you are done with PCs.
      - rbarooah 16y ago
        Fair enough. I don't think that's what post-PC is intended to mean though. Really I think it's just a comment about where the growth is.
    - gyom 16y ago
      I don't know, to me it seems like a legitimate observation and not trolling. It's not really an anti-ipad argument, but it's just a reminder that the iPad isn't a replacement for everything below a certain threshold.
tomkarlo 16y ago
Looking at Dell's price for the last 10 years (http://yhoo.it/fCdFBo http://yhoo.it/fCdFBo), that doesn't seem to be a great business to be in. The upgrade cycle is slowing, margins are falling and the mainstream consumer just don't care much about the "latest and greatest" any more when it comes to computers. The reality is that for most users (non-gamers) the power of computers long ago exceeded what they need. Does is really matter if a computer is 3X or 10X faster than you need? This is a classic market transition where once performance hits some level, other product attributes become important to consumers because they no longer see any material benefit from marginal performance increases. If you're mostly using your computer to check email and facebook, you don't need a quad core. (This applies to even fairly tech-heavy folks - I used to replace my desktop like clockwork every two years for almost 15 years, but I'm typing on this on a 4+-year-old MacBook black that's still plenty fast for coding, image processing and web browsing. I expect I'll use it at least another year and I only paid $1500 for it to start with. I'll prob replace it with a 13" MacBook Air, which won't be much of a performance bump - it will be a form factor bump.) I remember the days when it was all about having the 386/33 or whatever the latest top-of-the-line Mhz was. Now I doubt if you asked most folks, they could even tell you how fast the processor is in their system. It just doesn't matter much any more, same as only car folks really care what BHP their engine delivers these days.
- recoiledsnake 16y ago
  So in 10 years, when everyone has speedy tablets (and PCs?), won't the same thing happen?
  - jarek 16y ago
    Not to worry, Apple will be selling post-tablet devices by then.
  - tomkarlo 16y ago
    No... if performance is already sufficient for most tablet users (and I'd argue it is - as an iPad owner I have my complaints but "it's too slow" it's really high on the list) then you won't see this happen. It will be some other product feature, like weight, or battery life, or cost, that will be the axis that you see competition focused on. Marketing folks would love to have consumer focus on a metrics like performance that constantly keeps growing and outdating old products. Other metrics, like price and customer experience, are often just as important to buyers. To give a parallel example, I don't think most HDTV owners are going to replace their set at this point for higher resolution. If you have 720 you probably don't care all that much about 1080 unless you're an AV geek. So that market is now competing on two other axes: cost (how cheap can you get it for a given size) and they're also pushing 3D.

recoiledsnake 16y ago

Well, I am sure someone is composing a message right now about how all those are either possible on the iPad (possible != best job for it) or are used only by geeks/developers who will go the way of the dinosaur(cue analogy of trucks vs. cars). ;) Maybe the message is taking so much time to be written because it's being composed on a iPad(yes I know h/w keyboards can be used).

rbarooah 16y ago
Yes - I was although I think a mountain bike is a better analogy. But seriously - people can't see the difference between an iPad and a $75 PC off Craigslist? Perhaps a pair of spectacles is in order.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

rbarooah 16y ago

My parents and my mother in law literally don't want to do any of the things you just listed, but all of them have found my iPad useful, could use it immediately, and want one. That $75 computer on Craigslist simply can't do things in the same way. It's like comparing a mountain bike with a 15 year old pickup truck. You can spend $1000 on either, and the truck will go further, faster and carrying a greater load. But the mountain bike will go places the truck can't go, and the experience will be totally different.

PostOnce 16y ago
If all you ever use your PC for is Hulu, then what you need is a TV, and televisions are not "post-PC", they're a different product entirely, nor will they ever replace PCs. :P
- rbarooah 16y ago
  Silly strawman. Actually none of them watched video at all. They used maps, google earth, the browser, a Craigslist app, the photos app, and kindle. But I guess I've fallen for a troll.
  - PostOnce 16y ago
    Not a straw man, it was an example. I am not trolling. PCs can be used for all manner of things, some things that they are now used for are better suited to other devices. Some things are perfectly suited to PCs and other devices just fail to measure up. My point is, iPad ownership and PC ownership are not mutually exclusive. Having an iPad does not mean you are done with PCs.
    - rbarooah 16y ago
      Fair enough. I don't think that's what post-PC is intended to mean though. Really I think it's just a comment about where the growth is.
  - gyom 16y ago
    I don't know, to me it seems like a legitimate observation and not trolling. It's not really an anti-ipad argument, but it's just a reminder that the iPad isn't a replacement for everything below a certain threshold.

tomkarlo 16y ago

Looking at Dell's price for the last 10 years (http://yhoo.it/fCdFBo http://yhoo.it/fCdFBo), that doesn't seem to be a great business to be in. The upgrade cycle is slowing, margins are falling and the mainstream consumer just don't care much about the "latest and greatest" any more when it comes to computers. The reality is that for most users (non-gamers) the power of computers long ago exceeded what they need. Does is really matter if a computer is 3X or 10X faster than you need? This is a classic market transition where once performance hits some level, other product attributes become important to consumers because they no longer see any material benefit from marginal performance increases. If you're mostly using your computer to check email and facebook, you don't need a quad core. (This applies to even fairly tech-heavy folks - I used to replace my desktop like clockwork every two years for almost 15 years, but I'm typing on this on a 4+-year-old MacBook black that's still plenty fast for coding, image processing and web browsing. I expect I'll use it at least another year and I only paid $1500 for it to start with. I'll prob replace it with a 13" MacBook Air, which won't be much of a performance bump - it will be a form factor bump.) I remember the days when it was all about having the 386/33 or whatever the latest top-of-the-line Mhz was. Now I doubt if you asked most folks, they could even tell you how fast the processor is in their system. It just doesn't matter much any more, same as only car folks really care what BHP their engine delivers these days.

recoiledsnake 16y ago
So in 10 years, when everyone has speedy tablets (and PCs?), won't the same thing happen?
- jarek 16y ago
  Not to worry, Apple will be selling post-tablet devices by then.
- tomkarlo 16y ago
  No... if performance is already sufficient for most tablet users (and I'd argue it is - as an iPad owner I have my complaints but "it's too slow" it's really high on the list) then you won't see this happen. It will be some other product feature, like weight, or battery life, or cost, that will be the axis that you see competition focused on. Marketing folks would love to have consumer focus on a metrics like performance that constantly keeps growing and outdating old products. Other metrics, like price and customer experience, are often just as important to buyers. To give a parallel example, I don't think most HDTV owners are going to replace their set at this point for higher resolution. If you have 720 you probably don't care all that much about 1080 unless you're an AV geek. So that market is now competing on two other axes: cost (how cheap can you get it for a given size) and they're also pushing 3D.