The PC isn't going anywhere. Graphic designers, accountants, print designers, gamers all need PC's and the tablet will never be able to handle the computing power or the screen size we need.
The things we need from a PC are:
- performance
- connectivity
- storage
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
They can add a Mini-Displayport output for display connectivity. Peripherals I'm not sure but there's a chance they can switch to Intel chips and get a Thunderbolt port.
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
When it comes to software control, an iPad works just fine with a mouse (behaves a little bit like Lion don't you think?):
This all suggests that a setup like the following isn't so far-fetched:
It could even be an iPhone where the iPad is sitting.
If it uses x86 CPUs, it will run all of the current Mac apps without modification and Windows games would be simple to port. Not only simple to port but the marketshare is huge (10x larger than the Mac marketshare).
The iOS has lots of limitations (e.g no terminal, Finder, modality) but they are superficial and the OS can be made to behave differently when connected to a large display. If you screw up your phone by messing around with the OS, it's no big deal now with diskless recovery and small OS downloads.
Will lots of people be doing things with their computers in 8 years that would require more than a current Mac Pro? I'd say no. There will be the odd few who need 64-cores, 96GB of RAM and 20TB of storage but very, very few to the point that it may not be worth Apple (or Intel) catering to them.
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
It looks increasingly like the Post-PC era will be all Apple. Which of course posits massive growth for Apple. Watch for it.
I agree. Android is a train wreck. Apple will grow and maintain an 70% market share in Mobility (phone, tablet, laptop) and in 2 years the Mobility market will be far larger than today's Desktop market. And Apple's Desktop market share will grow steadily to +20%.
corporate desktops as we know them, will soon be a thing of the past. We are virtualizing all of our desktops. Sure we need a desktop license still but as people use the desktop less, shared desktops are more common than before. It won't be long before we run the virtual desktops and thin app on a Linux desktop or bare metal.
We still buy office but we just pay maintenance and get the upgrades. Not as big Of a cash cow for them and not much growth there. I personally run OpenOffice on my Mac and the few people I know that bought office, they did so in a deeply discounted rate.
A sizable segment of the population will need a Desktop. I do all of my photo processing on my iMac. However people don't have the need to upgrade their desktops every 18 months and are much less motivated to upgrade to the latest office suite.... Plus there is bootlegging
There is that big segment of the population of course that use their desktops for web browsing, some email and entertainment. For those, iPads are more than adequate, cheaper, portable, couchable and the list goes on.
I think they will release a decent upgrade, because they want to continue serving their existing customers.
"Serving existing customers" is not important to huge corporations if they want to survive, grow and thrive.
"Serving the bottom line" for the long haul is the only thing that matters. Apple's job is to make money, and not to make a small (and shrinking) portion of the user base happy. They will go anywhere and do anything to grow profits in the long run. Sometimes, that means cutting loose some niche markets that distract them from more profitable ventures.
To put it short and sweet - Frank Shaw is right on the money.
Tablets and Smartphone are brilliant and all that Jazz, but I can't exactly write a 10k research paper on an iPad. I can sure as hell try but it would pail in comparison to a fully fledged Desktop or Notebook Personal Computer.
I know HP have pulled the plug, but that does't mean death to all machines with a physical keyboard on a desk either (this includes notebooks).
I've always thought the idea of "Post-PC" was complete bollocks. If I may be so blunt. These mobile devices are complimentary devices to quickly consume data along with your banana muffin in Starbucks. It is completely illogical to say personal computers are out the door - if thats the case then why do I still own a Desktop Computer (iMac) when my "almighty" iPad is sitting downstairs on the coffee table? I'll give you a hint - "Coffee Table".
I don't think Jobs ever meant the PC was dead or anything close to the term with the "Post-PC era" description. He likened PCs to pickup trucks, which is very apt. Trucks still at the forefront of development, they have the highest profit margins amongst product lineups, there will never come a time where they will not be needed, and they are still the best-selling vehicles in the world.
The are one of the best selling vehicles, not no. 1 though. That title goes to the Toyota Carolla.
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
They can add a Mini-Displayport output for display connectivity. Peripherals I'm not sure but there's a chance they can switch to Intel chips and get a Thunderbolt port.
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
When it comes to software control, an iPad works just fine with a mouse (behaves a little bit like Lion don't you think?):
This all suggests that a setup like the following isn't so far-fetched:
It could even be an iPhone where the iPad is sitting.
If it uses x86 CPUs, it will run all of the current Mac apps without modification and Windows games would be simple to port. Not only simple to port but the marketshare is huge (10x larger than the Mac marketshare).
The iOS has lots of limitations (e.g no terminal, Finder, modality) but they are superficial and the OS can be made to behave differently when connected to a large display. If you screw up your phone by messing around with the OS, it's no big deal now with diskless recovery and small OS downloads.
Will lots of people be doing things with their computers in 8 years that would require more than a current Mac Pro? I'd say no. There will be the odd few who need 64-cores, 96GB of RAM and 20TB of storage but very, very few to the point that it may not be worth Apple (or Intel) catering to them.
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
"Frank Shaw, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications, asserted in a post on the Official Microsoft Blog that the PC isn't going anywhere."
Did this guy used to work for Kodak's film division by any chance?
"Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise," Ballmer said in January."
Great quote. This will be up there with Michael Dell's 'give the share holders their money back' quote soon.
Two major problems here.
First, for Ballmer to say that Windows operates without compromise is an indication that he needs a smack with the reality stick. EVERYTHING involves compromises. He truly is out of touch with the real world.
More importantly, everyone's missing the biggest issue here. Whether we're in a post-PC era or a PC-plus era is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Apple has the entire industry dancing to their tune.
Microsoft can't focus on doing what they do well. They can't create their own marketing buzz. Rather, they're focusing on trying to convince people that Apple is wrong. Instead of arguing about whether it's post-PC or PC-plus (and there's really no difference), why aren't they creating their own markets and building on their own brand image?
HP? Just blew $100 M (not to mention the $1.2 B from buying Palm and all the other money they spent. Why? Because they let Apple dictate the terms of their success or failure. Instead of running their own business the way they want to, they're following in Apple's footsteps.
Even Intel. Why didn't they come out with this ultralight platform earlier? And why does it look exactly like an MBA? And why didn't they develop something new? Rather, they're following in Apple's footsteps. Or, talk about tablets. Why hasn't Intel created a tablet platform - or, at least, the products that other companies could use to create a tablet platform.
Quote:
Originally Posted by a_greer
The Apple fanboys here and at sites like this one all seem to miss the fact that the iPad is just a toy when talking about teh post PC era...sure, it kicks the PCs ass when playing angery birds and watching reruns of House on hulu - but practical PRODUCTIVE usage is limited. With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
Wow. Could you be any more clueless if you tried? Let's see how many errors we can find:
1. Everything is tied to the Cloud? Nonsense. You can still use an iPad the way you did with earlier versions. Transfer data from your PC or Mac to the iPad. You don't even have to use the cloud if you don't want to.
2. iPad is a toy? Practical use is limited? Amazing how people are still using that one when all the evidence points the other way. The iPad is an incredibly powerful tool - as long as you focus on what it can do rather than SPECmarks. For example, it is being used:
- Doctor's offices
- X-ray evaluations
- Airline cockpits for navigation and other uses
- Business presentations
- Engineering
- Serious art and photography
- Business presentations
- Data collection
- Point of sale systems
- Educational
- Home automation
Thousands more if you stop spewing the same lies and actually open your eyes.
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
Great example of why Jobs wanted to change the paradigm with his 'post-PC era' comments.
You are trying to define an iPad and computer by specs, rather than what they can do. Who cares whether your system has a Geekbench score of 5,000 or 20,000 if it's able to do what you want in a form factor and price that meet your needs?
The iPad is not a PC - and was never intended to be. It's an entirely different device with different strengths and weaknesses. Sure, it does some of the same things that a PC does, but my car does some of the same things as a Boeing 747-800. That doesn't mean they're equivalent.
After a year and a half, it's it time for you to start looking at the iPad for what it IS rather than what your narrow-minded bigotry thinks it should be?
The Apple fanboys here and at sites like this one all seem to miss the fact that the iPad is just a toy when talking about teh post PC era...sure, it kicks the PCs ass when playing angery birds and watching reruns of House on hulu - but practical PRODUCTIVE usage is limited. With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
But its not just icloud, when your little ipad can produce usefull data visualizations with large sets as fast as I can on my PC with Excel and PowerPivot, give me a call...
The iPad is a PC replacment only for those who only consume and occasionally email. For teh rest of us, it is an accessory.
saying that the ipad replaces a PC is like saying that the neck tie replaces the button up shirt...it does not replace it -- it complements it.
A couple of problems with your argument:
- biggest one being that you *assume* that everyones's work habits are identical to yours
- plenty of occupations rely on on-the-go real time transactions
- much of the workflow today has been adjusted for the desktop. For example physicians and other clinical people would have to either use a desktop at the end of the day of dictation of notes and transfer some handwritten documentation. Lawyers would have to wait for their break to fire up their cell card on their laptop to access their corporate reference libraries and other material... And so on. This no longer has to be this way
Sure desktops and their successors will be around for a while, but to say tha iPads are entertainment toys, reminds me of a Chinese proverb "Frog in the well" where the frog thought the sky was as big as he could see through the well.
This is why Steve Jobs is a visionary who transformed Apple to have market cap bigger than the euros zone banks, and others are simply making fools of themselves trying to imitate him.
With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
Em, no one cares about "corporate IT".
(Except maybe IBM and Oracle, but not regarding PC and mobile appliance sales...)
The largest company in the world by market cap (Apple), makes 90% of its money through consumer, not corporate sales.
Corporate IT or the "enterprise" are cheapo PCs and bloated software for people forced to work in cubicles. Who the *&)& cares about that market segment?
The iPad is many, many times more powerful than a Mac 512.
An iPad 2 is on par with machines like a PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz, going by Geekbench.
Haha that made me laugh actually, sorry I wasn't more clear. The Mac 512 was a very early Mac but not the first. Hence my analogy ... in other words regarding iPad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
You don't see anyone in Science Fiction walking around with a laptop. They use a handheld or shirt-mounted device or access an unseen computer with their voice. When serious work needs to be done, they sit in a dedicated terminal.
There is room for both PCs and handhelds, even in the "future".
Let's be real here, folks. No matter how much Apple Kool-Aid you drink, PCs, in any form (remember that Macs are PCs too), aren't going anywhere for a long while. People who do real work, in any field (film production, music composition, web site and application development, graphics work, the list goes on) require the basic idea of a desktop (laptop, desktop, all in one) in order to get things done. Without a mouse and keyboard and multi-window user interface, people who use computers to get things done won't ever consider a tablet over a work machine. Sure, for Mom and Pop who just browse the internet and email with others, a tablet may fit the bill. But you can't discount hundreds of millions of machines being used for work other than the basics of computing; sure, maybe in twenty years things will be different, but the traditional PC won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
You might want to observe the iPads that are popping up where real work is done. It's amazing how quickly they are displacing PC's. For example our hospital has PC's on carts that are wheeled from room to room. Some doctors discovered iPads. Increasingly the PC carts are sitting in the corner collecting dust. Then there is the restaurant that replaced menus and their whole PC based order system with iPads. They still have a server (the truck) but the order entry stations (PC's) are gone. Makes one wonder about the long term career prospects for waiters and waitresses -- guess someone still has to bring the food to the table...
The iPad is being used in ways that surprise and astonish, and its just getting started as a platform.
I am happy to hear people who don't "get it". It means there is run left in Apple stock. Never thought we'd be neck in neck with ExxonMobil so quickly.
Makes one wonder about the long term career prospects for waiters and waitresses -- guess someone still has to bring the food to the table...
The iPad is being used in ways that surprise and astonish, and its just getting started as a platform.
I am happy to hear people who don't "get it". It means there is run left in Apple stock. Never thought we'd be neck in neck with ExxonMobil so quickly.
Well the people bringing the food to the table, at least around here, are food runners and not the same people as the waiters.
Yes there are plenty of people who don't get it! They still talk about apple Kool-aid when it's clear that Apple has broken through their fan base and is now as mainstream as it gets. Even the rivals will admit as much.
I just wish I would have bought more shares way back then.
it's clear that Apple has broken through their fan base and is now as mainstream as it gets. Even the rivals will admit as much.
Yep. It ain't your fathers hippy dippy company anymore making desktop machines for artists. They have gone mainstream, are a huge mega-corporation, and they are targeting mainstream consumers.
The geeks are living in the past. The artists and the power users will need to move on. Apple will increasingly make simple-to-use devices that target mom and pop.
Comments
The PC isn't going anywhere. Graphic designers, accountants, print designers, gamers all need PC's and the tablet will never be able to handle the computing power or the screen size we need.
The things we need from a PC are:
- performance
- connectivity
- storage
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
They can add a Mini-Displayport output for display connectivity. Peripherals I'm not sure but there's a chance they can switch to Intel chips and get a Thunderbolt port.
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
When it comes to software control, an iPad works just fine with a mouse (behaves a little bit like Lion don't you think?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wklrVOFMKA
This all suggests that a setup like the following isn't so far-fetched:
It could even be an iPhone where the iPad is sitting.
If it uses x86 CPUs, it will run all of the current Mac apps without modification and Windows games would be simple to port. Not only simple to port but the marketshare is huge (10x larger than the Mac marketshare).
The iOS has lots of limitations (e.g no terminal, Finder, modality) but they are superficial and the OS can be made to behave differently when connected to a large display. If you screw up your phone by messing around with the OS, it's no big deal now with diskless recovery and small OS downloads.
Will lots of people be doing things with their computers in 8 years that would require more than a current Mac Pro? I'd say no. There will be the odd few who need 64-cores, 96GB of RAM and 20TB of storage but very, very few to the point that it may not be worth Apple (or Intel) catering to them.
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
It looks increasingly like the Post-PC era will be all Apple. Which of course posits massive growth for Apple. Watch for it.
I agree. Android is a train wreck. Apple will grow and maintain an 70% market share in Mobility (phone, tablet, laptop) and in 2 years the Mobility market will be far larger than today's Desktop market. And Apple's Desktop market share will grow steadily to +20%.
IMHO, AAPL at $1000/share in 2013.
corporate desktops as we know them, will soon be a thing of the past. We are virtualizing all of our desktops. Sure we need a desktop license still but as people use the desktop less, shared desktops are more common than before. It won't be long before we run the virtual desktops and thin app on a Linux desktop or bare metal.
We still buy office but we just pay maintenance and get the upgrades. Not as big Of a cash cow for them and not much growth there. I personally run OpenOffice on my Mac and the few people I know that bought office, they did so in a deeply discounted rate.
A sizable segment of the population will need a Desktop. I do all of my photo processing on my iMac. However people don't have the need to upgrade their desktops every 18 months and are much less motivated to upgrade to the latest office suite.... Plus there is bootlegging
There is that big segment of the population of course that use their desktops for web browsing, some email and entertainment. For those, iPads are more than adequate, cheaper, portable, couchable and the list goes on.
I think they will release a decent upgrade, because they want to continue serving their existing customers.
"Serving existing customers" is not important to huge corporations if they want to survive, grow and thrive.
"Serving the bottom line" for the long haul is the only thing that matters. Apple's job is to make money, and not to make a small (and shrinking) portion of the user base happy. They will go anywhere and do anything to grow profits in the long run. Sometimes, that means cutting loose some niche markets that distract them from more profitable ventures.
Tablets and Smartphone are brilliant and all that Jazz, but I can't exactly write a 10k research paper on an iPad. I can sure as hell try but it would pail in comparison to a fully fledged Desktop or Notebook Personal Computer.
I know HP have pulled the plug, but that does't mean death to all machines with a physical keyboard on a desk either (this includes notebooks).
I've always thought the idea of "Post-PC" was complete bollocks. If I may be so blunt. These mobile devices are complimentary devices to quickly consume data along with your banana muffin in Starbucks. It is completely illogical to say personal computers are out the door - if thats the case then why do I still own a Desktop Computer (iMac) when my "almighty" iPad is sitting downstairs on the coffee table? I'll give you a hint - "Coffee Table".
I don't think Jobs ever meant the PC was dead or anything close to the term with the "Post-PC era" description. He likened PCs to pickup trucks, which is very apt. Trucks still at the forefront of development, they have the highest profit margins amongst product lineups, there will never come a time where they will not be needed, and they are still the best-selling vehicles in the world.
The are one of the best selling vehicles, not no. 1 though. That title goes to the Toyota Carolla.
The are one of the best selling vehicles, not no. 1 though. That title goes to the Toyota Carolla.
It actually presents a flaw in the "PC == Trucks" logic steve threw out there. Without trucks, where is the bread in my supermarket aisle?
The things we need from a PC are:
- performance
- connectivity
- storage
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
They can add a Mini-Displayport output for display connectivity. Peripherals I'm not sure but there's a chance they can switch to Intel chips and get a Thunderbolt port.
For storage, we should be hitting 128GB this year in mobile devices and this is only a cost limitation.
When it comes to software control, an iPad works just fine with a mouse (behaves a little bit like Lion don't you think?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wklrVOFMKA
This all suggests that a setup like the following isn't so far-fetched:
It could even be an iPhone where the iPad is sitting.
If it uses x86 CPUs, it will run all of the current Mac apps without modification and Windows games would be simple to port. Not only simple to port but the marketshare is huge (10x larger than the Mac marketshare).
The iOS has lots of limitations (e.g no terminal, Finder, modality) but they are superficial and the OS can be made to behave differently when connected to a large display. If you screw up your phone by messing around with the OS, it's no big deal now with diskless recovery and small OS downloads.
Will lots of people be doing things with their computers in 8 years that would require more than a current Mac Pro? I'd say no. There will be the odd few who need 64-cores, 96GB of RAM and 20TB of storage but very, very few to the point that it may not be worth Apple (or Intel) catering to them.
It's a worrying prospect trusting Apple to define our future computing, given some of their choices regarding Pro Apps but I think in the end they'll do the right thing.
You can't be for real.
It actually presents a flaw in the "PC == Trucks" logic steve threw out there. Without trucks, where is the bread in my supermarket aisle?
That flaw as you see it was actually Steve's point. The average consumer doesn't need to drive a bread truck.
"Frank Shaw, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications, asserted in a post on the Official Microsoft Blog that the PC isn't going anywhere."
Did this guy used to work for Kodak's film division by any chance?
"Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise," Ballmer said in January."
Great quote. This will be up there with Michael Dell's 'give the share holders their money back' quote soon.
Two major problems here.
First, for Ballmer to say that Windows operates without compromise is an indication that he needs a smack with the reality stick. EVERYTHING involves compromises. He truly is out of touch with the real world.
More importantly, everyone's missing the biggest issue here. Whether we're in a post-PC era or a PC-plus era is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Apple has the entire industry dancing to their tune.
Microsoft can't focus on doing what they do well. They can't create their own marketing buzz. Rather, they're focusing on trying to convince people that Apple is wrong. Instead of arguing about whether it's post-PC or PC-plus (and there's really no difference), why aren't they creating their own markets and building on their own brand image?
HP? Just blew $100 M (not to mention the $1.2 B from buying Palm and all the other money they spent. Why? Because they let Apple dictate the terms of their success or failure. Instead of running their own business the way they want to, they're following in Apple's footsteps.
Even Intel. Why didn't they come out with this ultralight platform earlier? And why does it look exactly like an MBA? And why didn't they develop something new? Rather, they're following in Apple's footsteps. Or, talk about tablets. Why hasn't Intel created a tablet platform - or, at least, the products that other companies could use to create a tablet platform.
The Apple fanboys here and at sites like this one all seem to miss the fact that the iPad is just a toy when talking about teh post PC era...sure, it kicks the PCs ass when playing angery birds and watching reruns of House on hulu - but practical PRODUCTIVE usage is limited. With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
Wow. Could you be any more clueless if you tried? Let's see how many errors we can find:
1. Everything is tied to the Cloud? Nonsense. You can still use an iPad the way you did with earlier versions. Transfer data from your PC or Mac to the iPad. You don't even have to use the cloud if you don't want to.
2. iPad is a toy? Practical use is limited? Amazing how people are still using that one when all the evidence points the other way. The iPad is an incredibly powerful tool - as long as you focus on what it can do rather than SPECmarks. For example, it is being used:
- Doctor's offices
- X-ray evaluations
- Airline cockpits for navigation and other uses
- Business presentations
- Engineering
- Serious art and photography
- Business presentations
- Data collection
- Point of sale systems
- Educational
- Home automation
Thousands more if you stop spewing the same lies and actually open your eyes.
The things we need from a PC are:
- performance
- connectivity
- storage
Right now, the iPad 2 is 1/7 the performance of an entry i5 MBA CPU-wise and 1/7 the performance of an NVidia 320M graphics-wise.
I'd expect the iPad 3 to be 1/5 the CPU performance and 1/3 the GPU performance. As time goes on, the gap will close until the iPad matches the current entry MBA and will do so in under 5 years. Performance marches on for desktops/laptops but the resources required for the tasks they perform don't always increase.
Great example of why Jobs wanted to change the paradigm with his 'post-PC era' comments.
You are trying to define an iPad and computer by specs, rather than what they can do. Who cares whether your system has a Geekbench score of 5,000 or 20,000 if it's able to do what you want in a form factor and price that meet your needs?
The iPad is not a PC - and was never intended to be. It's an entirely different device with different strengths and weaknesses. Sure, it does some of the same things that a PC does, but my car does some of the same things as a Boeing 747-800. That doesn't mean they're equivalent.
After a year and a half, it's it time for you to start looking at the iPad for what it IS rather than what your narrow-minded bigotry thinks it should be?
The Apple fanboys here and at sites like this one all seem to miss the fact that the iPad is just a toy when talking about teh post PC era...sure, it kicks the PCs ass when playing angery birds and watching reruns of House on hulu - but practical PRODUCTIVE usage is limited. With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
But its not just icloud, when your little ipad can produce usefull data visualizations with large sets as fast as I can on my PC with Excel and PowerPivot, give me a call...
The iPad is a PC replacment only for those who only consume and occasionally email. For teh rest of us, it is an accessory.
saying that the ipad replaces a PC is like saying that the neck tie replaces the button up shirt...it does not replace it -- it complements it.
A couple of problems with your argument:
- biggest one being that you *assume* that everyones's work habits are identical to yours
- plenty of occupations rely on on-the-go real time transactions
- much of the workflow today has been adjusted for the desktop. For example physicians and other clinical people would have to either use a desktop at the end of the day of dictation of notes and transfer some handwritten documentation. Lawyers would have to wait for their break to fire up their cell card on their laptop to access their corporate reference libraries and other material... And so on. This no longer has to be this way
Sure desktops and their successors will be around for a while, but to say tha iPads are entertainment toys, reminds me of a Chinese proverb "Frog in the well" where the frog thought the sky was as big as he could see through the well.
This is why Steve Jobs is a visionary who transformed Apple to have market cap bigger than the euros zone banks, and others are simply making fools of themselves trying to imitate him.
I think digitalclips was using a figurative comparison.
Lol, thank you, I was.
With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center...there is no way that I have found for corporate IT to disable that, not in exchange or SCCM 2012 and not in mass via any tool from Apple.
Em, no one cares about "corporate IT".
(Except maybe IBM and Oracle, but not regarding PC and mobile appliance sales...)
The largest company in the world by market cap (Apple), makes 90% of its money through consumer, not corporate sales.
Corporate IT or the "enterprise" are cheapo PCs and bloated software for people forced to work in cubicles. Who the *&)& cares about that market segment?
The iPad is many, many times more powerful than a Mac 512.
An iPad 2 is on par with machines like a PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz, going by Geekbench.
Haha that made me laugh actually, sorry I wasn't more clear. The Mac 512 was a very early Mac but not the first. Hence my analogy ... in other words regarding iPad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
With ios 5 everything is tied to iCloud which means that everything lives in Apple's data center?
Nope. No, it isn't. Nope.
There is room for both PCs and handhelds, even in the "future".
Let's be real here, folks. No matter how much Apple Kool-Aid you drink, PCs, in any form (remember that Macs are PCs too), aren't going anywhere for a long while. People who do real work, in any field (film production, music composition, web site and application development, graphics work, the list goes on) require the basic idea of a desktop (laptop, desktop, all in one) in order to get things done. Without a mouse and keyboard and multi-window user interface, people who use computers to get things done won't ever consider a tablet over a work machine. Sure, for Mom and Pop who just browse the internet and email with others, a tablet may fit the bill. But you can't discount hundreds of millions of machines being used for work other than the basics of computing; sure, maybe in twenty years things will be different, but the traditional PC won't be going anywhere anytime soon.
You might want to observe the iPads that are popping up where real work is done. It's amazing how quickly they are displacing PC's. For example our hospital has PC's on carts that are wheeled from room to room. Some doctors discovered iPads. Increasingly the PC carts are sitting in the corner collecting dust. Then there is the restaurant that replaced menus and their whole PC based order system with iPads. They still have a server (the truck) but the order entry stations (PC's) are gone. Makes one wonder about the long term career prospects for waiters and waitresses -- guess someone still has to bring the food to the table...
The iPad is being used in ways that surprise and astonish, and its just getting started as a platform.
I am happy to hear people who don't "get it". It means there is run left in Apple stock. Never thought we'd be neck in neck with ExxonMobil so quickly.
Makes one wonder about the long term career prospects for waiters and waitresses -- guess someone still has to bring the food to the table...
The iPad is being used in ways that surprise and astonish, and its just getting started as a platform.
I am happy to hear people who don't "get it". It means there is run left in Apple stock. Never thought we'd be neck in neck with ExxonMobil so quickly.
Well the people bringing the food to the table, at least around here, are food runners and not the same people as the waiters.
Yes there are plenty of people who don't get it! They still talk about apple Kool-aid when it's clear that Apple has broken through their fan base and is now as mainstream as it gets. Even the rivals will admit as much.
I just wish I would have bought more shares way back then.
it's clear that Apple has broken through their fan base and is now as mainstream as it gets. Even the rivals will admit as much.
Yep. It ain't your fathers hippy dippy company anymore making desktop machines for artists. They have gone mainstream, are a huge mega-corporation, and they are targeting mainstream consumers.
The geeks are living in the past. The artists and the power users will need to move on. Apple will increasingly make simple-to-use devices that target mom and pop.