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So, would you also classify the iphone as a PC?
by danmaz74 13y ago
So, would you also classify the iphone as a PC?
- InclinedPlane 13y agoOf course. Why wouldn't you?
- danmaz74 13y agoBecause this way the term "PC" become meaningless... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
- InclinedPlane 13y agoIt is a computer that is personal. If you mean desktop, or workstation, or x86-based desktop, then use those terms.
- danmaz74 13y agoSo, if I come to you ask you I can use your PC, you will lend me your iphone?
- mikestew 13y agoMaybe not my phone, but I'd hand you my iPad. Oh, you wanted to pull some code of off github, compile it and FTP the binary to a remote server? My iPad has ssh, login into the remote server of your choice and knock yourself out. But you more likely just wanted to Google something, in which case the iPad is probably a better choice than the C64 anyway. "Wah, I want a real keyboard!" Here, use my BT keyboard. "Boo hoo, real screen, please." Connect to the Apple TV and use the 50" 1080p TV, I'm sure you'll find it more to your liking than the C64's video display options. The C64 gets its sales record trounced by the iPad every year that iPads are for sale. Your original statement is no longer true, no matter how hard to try to narrowly define "personal computer". Best to just update your world view and move on.
- danmaz74 13y agoLOL I think my worldview is fine thanks. Next time I'll need someone to explain to me how technology advanced from 1982 to 2010 I'll call though :)
- huxley 13y agoNot meaningless, the term has become broader.
- danmaz74 13y agoMy point is that a term that is too broad becomes meaningless. Would you call your 3g tablet a phone? And what if you don't have 3g, only wi-fi, but you can still call phones using skype? Then, even my desktop-PC-with-a-keyboard could be called a phone. Where do you put the line?
- huxley 13y agoNot comparable, I would say that a computer is a broader term than telephone. Nowadays, telephony is just another application not a device, so an iPhone is a computer that does telephony as one of its primary tasks and your desktop is a computer that does telephony via Skype. I don't worry about where the lines are drawn because the lines are mostly arbitrary and imaginary.
- danmaz74 13y agoAnd without lines the names lose their significance, that's all my point. They are arbitrary but not imaginary: they are a convention. A convention that is useful and necessary, if we want to communicate.