"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
"PC plus" is better but still not right. It makes it sound like a PC is the center of one's computing world with other devices hanging off it.
I like the name "Post PC-centric". The PC is still very much a part of the computing world, but it's no longer at the center of it.
Moving forward the hub of ones digital life will shift from the PC to the cloud, with a web of different devices connected to it and each other.
If we accept the "truck versus cars" analogy, then Apple maybe shooting themselves in the foot. With iPads becoming the tools of consumers and light weight users, then desktop computers become th domain of professionals. Yet on the professional front, Apple is pushing away customers. Look what happened with the fiasco that is Final Cut Pro. Editors, post houses, and film schools are now heading back to avid (ugh) or Adobe. And if you're using those two options, then why not just buy a cheaper window based machine. I know people in the audio business are looking at logic audio and wondering... Are we going to be screwed next. As for Aperture, what a buggy mess and will it's next iteration be IPhoto Pro?
So a slow shift back to PC's may be brewing. Apple builds trucks, but not the cheapest and with out the dedicated software, not the best.
My 2 cents.
Upshot: the pro software business is logically something Apple could spin off into a separate business. It doesn't need to be apple's core competency as long as the software is given an opportunity to prosper elsewhere.
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. But they don't, haven't in a long time, and likely never will capture people's attention like cars do, and the same is true of PCs.
Mom and Pop don't drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are cumbersome and uncomfortable and provide them no advantage.
Mom and Pop have a pc because no alternative was available, or they don't have a pc at all.
The iPad will be [this generation] Mom and Pop's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
The kids don't aspire to drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are too limiting and pickup trucks are for old folks (over 20).
Most kids have access to pcs at home or school, some even have their own pc -- but pcs aren't cool, pcs don't provide what they want. Pcs don't inspire their minds.
The iPad will be [this generation] kid's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
"PC plus" is better but still not right. It makes it sound like a PC is the center of one's computing world with other devices hanging off it.
I like the name "Post PC-centric". The PC is still very much a part of the computing world, but it's no longer at the center of it.
Moving forward the hub of ones digital life will shift from the PC to the cloud, with a web of different devices connected to it and each other.
And that's missing the entire point. Apple doesn't really care WHAT you call it. They just want to set the standards - and they are. While Microsoft, et al are arguing about what words should be used to describe it, Apple has created an entirely new market.
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.
you obviously don't have an iPad because then you would know there are quite a few apps that are VERY productive, I work for a Manufacturing company and everyone there has one because we can view and edit our product all from the iPad. It is only a matter of time before the PC will be totally obsolete.
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?
Not that it's my place to tell you how to run your life, but it's probably not the best idea to start attacking someone and calling them narrow-minded and a bigot just because you don't agree with them... and especially not when they have "Global Moderator" written after their username!
In any case he isn't even disagreeing with you.
The point he makes is that the iPad isn't capable of performing all the same tasks as the PC because it doesn't contain fast enough hardware.
However software demands are not increasing as fast as hardware improvements (Windows 8 will have lower system requirements than Windows Vista for example) so eventually in the not-to-distant future there will be some kind of convergence.
And that's missing the entire point. Apple doesn't really care WHAT you call it. They just want to set the standards - and they are. While Microsoft, et al are arguing about what words should be used to describe it, Apple has created an entirely new market.
You know Jobs in the one that started all this "post-pc" stuff right?
Right now the iPad differs from a PC/Mac in three main ways:
1. hardware performance
2. Complexity / "openness"
3. Physical UI (screen size and mouse/keyboard vs touch)
The first two differences will fade over time, leaving just the third. At that point the main difference between an iPad and a Mac will be how you physically interact with it. I think from apple's point of view this is the most important difference by far. That is, to apple, a device is defined by how it is used. To Microsoft, a device is defined in terms of whether they are technically able to cram Windows onto it, and any theories of how that is best for customers are contrived post hoc to fit that perspective. So to apple, the ipad is not now and never will be a Mac (even though from a technical point of view one might argue that it is, or will be, or could be). But to microsoft, a tablet is a pc because it has the technical capability to run windows. If they could boot windows 8 on a phone, then a phone would also be a PC.
I think there is little question at this point that apple is right and Microsoft is wrong. Windows 8 tablets will never catch up to the iPad in terms of sales. Eventually, Microsoft will be forced to make the same retreat from the consumer space that HP just made and that IBM made years ago. Microsoft will still make a lot of money for a long time, servicing the corporate IT drones. unless of course apple decides to finally go after the "serious" business market. Then all bets are off.
You know Jobs in the one that started all this "post-pc" stuff right?
.
.
.
(PS: He works for Apple)
You do know that he knows that and it doesn't change anything he said. "You" can call the post-pc era anything that you want... it doesn't change the fact that Apple has also given it a name, a name they can build around... a name, post-pc, they see as the future... a future they plan to define.
Funny coming from a company whose ultimate movers and shakers and yay or nayers is a bunch of past mid-life crisis, close to retirement, "Is your father's PC" crowd who are tryng to pass off what in their eyes is hip, cool, and 'Where it's at!'! When that fails follow the competition with their also rans slightly modified as to try and not appear to be too blatant!
With the products put out and the past statements made and the stock price of the company, I wouldn't wear that badge of being a "MS Exec" too proudly!
Mom and Pop don't drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are cumbersome and uncomfortable and provide them no advantage.
Mom and Pop have a pc because no alternative was available, or they don't have a pc at all.
The iPad will be [this generation] Mom and Pop's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
The kids don't aspire to drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are too limiting and pickup trucks are for old folks (over 20).
Most kids have access to pcs at home or school, some even have their own pc -- but pcs aren't cool, pcs don't provide what they want. Pcs don't inspire their minds.
The iPad will be [this generation] kid's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
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?
Benchmark scores directly relate to real-world performance whether it's storage throughput, amount of RAM, clock-speed, CPU architecture and so on. You might say that Apple tries to hide this from people but when they say the iPad 2 has 9x faster graphics than the iPad 1, what do you think that's based on?
Also consider at the iPad launch when people were saying the iPad was not meant to be productive, it was meant to be a consumer accessory. We now have iOS 5 at a stage where it can make the iPad a master device - uh, exactly what people were asking for to take on netbooks. You have productive apps like iMovie and the iWork apps too.
The iPad 2 could probably suffice as a desktop-replacement in terms of processing power for a lot of people given the SSD but it certainly needs more RAM. 256MB is not enough in a master device. I'd say 1GB minimum but I expect the iPad 3 to have 512MB. I think the Core 2 Duo chips would be the minimum level of desktop-class performance and the iPad 3 can reach this level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
You can't be for real.
Aren't you the one waiting for a plasma Apple television?
It's not really that far-fetched. There was a time when laptops weren't powerful enough to take over from desktops but over the past 5 years, they have reached this level. Over the next 5 years, tablets will be powerful enough to take over from laptops - at least at the entry-level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firefly7475
"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
I agree the phrase doesn't make much sense but it could refer to the fact that we have become so entrenched in a certain way of working with computers that we associate the current desktop with how a PC should work. The transition to a touch UI is a dramatic enough shift that it's probably ok to separate the two but it's all semantics. The term PC is used for a variety of different things.
What's important is just that mobile, touch-based devices are the way forward for computing and this is new.
Not that it's my place to tell you how to run your life, but it's probably not the best idea to start attacking someone and calling them narrow-minded and a bigot just because you don't agree with them... and especially not when they have "Global Moderator" written after their username!
In any case he isn't even disagreeing with you.
The point he makes is that the iPad isn't capable of performing all the same tasks as the PC because it doesn't contain fast enough hardware.
However software demands are not increasing as fast as hardware improvements (Windows 8 will have lower system requirements than Windows Vista for example) so eventually in the not-to-distant future there will be some kind of convergence.
I didn't call him a narrow-minded bigot because he doesn't agree with me. Rather, I called him that because he thinks that every computer should meet his view of what a computer should be. He thinks that a computer must have the power of a modern desktop computer - so the iPad must not be useful. He thinks that every computer should have enough graphics power to play Crysis (or whatever the latest macho game is), so the iPad must be useless.
Someone who can only see something through their own viewpoint is a bigot.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ireland
You can't be for real.
I have a setup that looks like that -- except instead of the display I have a new 27" iMac.
The Pegasus RAID is an amazing piece of kit -- easily could have been designed and built by Apple.
The key to all this may be Thunderbolt.
As I understand it, Thunderbolt is fast enough that you could offload all the heavy-llifting hardware CPU/GPU/RAM to one or more headless devices -- something like the new Minis.
And, I don't know if you need to use an Intel CPU in the iPad to get Thunderbolt -- I think you could add a Thunderbolt chip to the A6 or whatever,
If that is not possible, with an adapter or dongle, Thunderbolt can interface USB (whatever versions) are in the current or next iPad and iPhone.
In the pictured setup, I see some use for the iPad as an auxiliary display -- but the major use would be a horizontal, flexible multitouch control surface (custom sliders, buttons, knobs, fretboards, keyboards) and as a graphics tablet with or without a stylus.
A similar configuration using a maxed-out Mini, maxed-out iPad WiFi, 27" TB Display, Magic Mouse, KB, 2 TB Cables, Pegasus 12 TB RAID would cost $5,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.
With the Pegasus 4 TB RAID it would be $4,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.
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.
i agree somewhat. most people could get by with a desktop running ios and don't need full blown os x. i think the 'truck' analogy is on the mark. less than 20 years. except for a minority i see full blown OS X and Windows 7 type desktops mostly gone in 5 years.
i think if apple made a keyboard/battery/dock for the ipad in the vein of the Asus transformer and allowed a mouse to work with ipad they would sell them as fast as they could make them and Air sales would drop a bit.
- 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.
You give some good examples. I don't think people realise how much the workplace has had to adjust to the PC. When people say "can you imagine people being hunched over an iPad in the office?" I think they must be very naive because that was the reality for centuries before the PC. People had pads of paper, they had clipboards, they had files. Often they still use all those things because in many cases the PC can't integrate into their workflow well. Instead the PC is dragged out at the end of the day to input everything into a database. The "digital office" never came to pass because the PC is a fairly clunky device. There's actually an extensive literature of workplace studies about how difficult it is to fit personal computers into the workflows of most professional settings.
The problem, the bias, is that many commentators are developers and IT people whose only experience is of workflows that were built around the PC. If your daily routine is using a particular piece of software on a desktop PC with a mouse and keyboard it's surely difficult to imagine doing things any other way. For doctors and lawyers and engineers and other professionals whose professions vastly predate the PC, the PC has never been a great fit for what they do. The iPad is a much more natural device. You hold it like a pad of paper, you interact directly, it's light and mobile. It is already finding a place in the workflow of thousands of professionals and will continue to do so.
Comments
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
"PC plus" is better but still not right. It makes it sound like a PC is the center of one's computing world with other devices hanging off it.
I like the name "Post PC-centric". The PC is still very much a part of the computing world, but it's no longer at the center of it.
Moving forward the hub of ones digital life will shift from the PC to the cloud, with a web of different devices connected to it and each other.
d
If we accept the "truck versus cars" analogy, then Apple maybe shooting themselves in the foot. With iPads becoming the tools of consumers and light weight users, then desktop computers become th domain of professionals. Yet on the professional front, Apple is pushing away customers. Look what happened with the fiasco that is Final Cut Pro. Editors, post houses, and film schools are now heading back to avid (ugh) or Adobe. And if you're using those two options, then why not just buy a cheaper window based machine. I know people in the audio business are looking at logic audio and wondering... Are we going to be screwed next. As for Aperture, what a buggy mess and will it's next iteration be IPhoto Pro?
So a slow shift back to PC's may be brewing. Apple builds trucks, but not the cheapest and with out the dedicated software, not the best.
My 2 cents.
Upshot: the pro software business is logically something Apple could spin off into a separate business. It doesn't need to be apple's core competency as long as the software is given an opportunity to prosper elsewhere.
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. But they don't, haven't in a long time, and likely never will capture people's attention like cars do, and the same is true of PCs.
Mom and Pop don't drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are cumbersome and uncomfortable and provide them no advantage.
Mom and Pop have a pc because no alternative was available, or they don't have a pc at all.
The iPad will be [this generation] Mom and Pop's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
The kids don't aspire to drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are too limiting and pickup trucks are for old folks (over 20).
Most kids have access to pcs at home or school, some even have their own pc -- but pcs aren't cool, pcs don't provide what they want. Pcs don't inspire their minds.
The iPad will be [this generation] kid's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
"PC plus" is better but still not right. It makes it sound like a PC is the center of one's computing world with other devices hanging off it.
I like the name "Post PC-centric". The PC is still very much a part of the computing world, but it's no longer at the center of it.
Moving forward the hub of ones digital life will shift from the PC to the cloud, with a web of different devices connected to it and each other.
And that's missing the entire point. Apple doesn't really care WHAT you call it. They just want to set the standards - and they are. While Microsoft, et al are arguing about what words should be used to describe it, Apple has created an entirely new market.
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.
you obviously don't have an iPad because then you would know there are quite a few apps that are VERY productive, I work for a Manufacturing company and everyone there has one because we can view and edit our product all from the iPad. It is only a matter of time before the PC will be totally obsolete.
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?
Not that it's my place to tell you how to run your life, but it's probably not the best idea to start attacking someone and calling them narrow-minded and a bigot just because you don't agree with them... and especially not when they have "Global Moderator" written after their username!
In any case he isn't even disagreeing with you.
The point he makes is that the iPad isn't capable of performing all the same tasks as the PC because it doesn't contain fast enough hardware.
However software demands are not increasing as fast as hardware improvements (Windows 8 will have lower system requirements than Windows Vista for example) so eventually in the not-to-distant future there will be some kind of convergence.
And that's missing the entire point. Apple doesn't really care WHAT you call it. They just want to set the standards - and they are. While Microsoft, et al are arguing about what words should be used to describe it, Apple has created an entirely new market.
You know Jobs in the one that started all this "post-pc" stuff right?
.
.
.
(PS: He works for Apple)
1. hardware performance
2. Complexity / "openness"
3. Physical UI (screen size and mouse/keyboard vs touch)
The first two differences will fade over time, leaving just the third. At that point the main difference between an iPad and a Mac will be how you physically interact with it. I think from apple's point of view this is the most important difference by far. That is, to apple, a device is defined by how it is used. To Microsoft, a device is defined in terms of whether they are technically able to cram Windows onto it, and any theories of how that is best for customers are contrived post hoc to fit that perspective. So to apple, the ipad is not now and never will be a Mac (even though from a technical point of view one might argue that it is, or will be, or could be). But to microsoft, a tablet is a pc because it has the technical capability to run windows. If they could boot windows 8 on a phone, then a phone would also be a PC.
I think there is little question at this point that apple is right and Microsoft is wrong. Windows 8 tablets will never catch up to the iPad in terms of sales. Eventually, Microsoft will be forced to make the same retreat from the consumer space that HP just made and that IBM made years ago. Microsoft will still make a lot of money for a long time, servicing the corporate IT drones. unless of course apple decides to finally go after the "serious" business market. Then all bets are off.
You can't be for real.
That picture isn't as farfetched as you think.
You know Jobs in the one that started all this "post-pc" stuff right?
.
.
.
(PS: He works for Apple)
You do know that he knows that and it doesn't change anything he said. "You" can call the post-pc era anything that you want... it doesn't change the fact that Apple has also given it a name, a name they can build around... a name, post-pc, they see as the future... a future they plan to define.
That picture isn't as farfetched as you think.
He's not thinking... give him a break.
With the products put out and the past statements made and the stock price of the company, I wouldn't wear that badge of being a "MS Exec" too proudly!
/
/
/
Mom and Pop don't drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are cumbersome and uncomfortable and provide them no advantage.
Mom and Pop have a pc because no alternative was available, or they don't have a pc at all.
The iPad will be [this generation] Mom and Pop's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
The kids don't aspire to drive a pickup truck -- pickup trucks are too limiting and pickup trucks are for old folks (over 20).
Most kids have access to pcs at home or school, some even have their own pc -- but pcs aren't cool, pcs don't provide what they want. Pcs don't inspire their minds.
The iPad will be [this generation] kid's next or first... ...looking for an acronym, here... how about "M" -- M for Me?
"M" won't scan metrically. MeC?
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?
Benchmark scores directly relate to real-world performance whether it's storage throughput, amount of RAM, clock-speed, CPU architecture and so on. You might say that Apple tries to hide this from people but when they say the iPad 2 has 9x faster graphics than the iPad 1, what do you think that's based on?
Also consider at the iPad launch when people were saying the iPad was not meant to be productive, it was meant to be a consumer accessory. We now have iOS 5 at a stage where it can make the iPad a master device - uh, exactly what people were asking for to take on netbooks. You have productive apps like iMovie and the iWork apps too.
The iPad 2 could probably suffice as a desktop-replacement in terms of processing power for a lot of people given the SSD but it certainly needs more RAM. 256MB is not enough in a master device. I'd say 1GB minimum but I expect the iPad 3 to have 512MB. I think the Core 2 Duo chips would be the minimum level of desktop-class performance and the iPad 3 can reach this level.
You can't be for real.
Aren't you the one waiting for a plasma Apple television?
It's not really that far-fetched. There was a time when laptops weren't powerful enough to take over from desktops but over the past 5 years, they have reached this level. Over the next 5 years, tablets will be powerful enough to take over from laptops - at least at the entry-level.
"Post-PC" isn't the greatest name. Truthfully, it's a terrible name!
Unless you're intent on confusing people then saying "Post-PC" to describe a computing world that PC's are still very much a part of doesn't make sense.
I agree the phrase doesn't make much sense but it could refer to the fact that we have become so entrenched in a certain way of working with computers that we associate the current desktop with how a PC should work. The transition to a touch UI is a dramatic enough shift that it's probably ok to separate the two but it's all semantics. The term PC is used for a variety of different things.
What's important is just that mobile, touch-based devices are the way forward for computing and this is new.
Not that it's my place to tell you how to run your life, but it's probably not the best idea to start attacking someone and calling them narrow-minded and a bigot just because you don't agree with them... and especially not when they have "Global Moderator" written after their username!
In any case he isn't even disagreeing with you.
The point he makes is that the iPad isn't capable of performing all the same tasks as the PC because it doesn't contain fast enough hardware.
However software demands are not increasing as fast as hardware improvements (Windows 8 will have lower system requirements than Windows Vista for example) so eventually in the not-to-distant future there will be some kind of convergence.
I didn't call him a narrow-minded bigot because he doesn't agree with me. Rather, I called him that because he thinks that every computer should meet his view of what a computer should be. He thinks that a computer must have the power of a modern desktop computer - so the iPad must not be useful. He thinks that every computer should have enough graphics power to play Crysis (or whatever the latest macho game is), so the iPad must be useless.
Someone who can only see something through their own viewpoint is a bigot.
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.
I have a setup that looks like that -- except instead of the display I have a new 27" iMac.
The Pegasus RAID is an amazing piece of kit -- easily could have been designed and built by Apple.
The key to all this may be Thunderbolt.
As I understand it, Thunderbolt is fast enough that you could offload all the heavy-llifting hardware CPU/GPU/RAM to one or more headless devices -- something like the new Minis.
And, I don't know if you need to use an Intel CPU in the iPad to get Thunderbolt -- I think you could add a Thunderbolt chip to the A6 or whatever,
If that is not possible, with an adapter or dongle, Thunderbolt can interface USB (whatever versions) are in the current or next iPad and iPhone.
In the pictured setup, I see some use for the iPad as an auxiliary display -- but the major use would be a horizontal, flexible multitouch control surface (custom sliders, buttons, knobs, fretboards, keyboards) and as a graphics tablet with or without a stylus.
A similar configuration using a maxed-out Mini, maxed-out iPad WiFi, 27" TB Display, Magic Mouse, KB, 2 TB Cables, Pegasus 12 TB RAID would cost $5,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.
With the Pegasus 4 TB RAID it would be $4,012.00 at the Apple Store before Taxes.
My maxed-out iMac 27", Pegasus 12, Magic Mouse, KB, 2 TB Cables,cost $6,000.
And FCP X and Motion 5 just sing on that hardware setup -- noticeable, but minor, speed enhancement to FCP 7 and Motion 4,
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.
i agree somewhat. most people could get by with a desktop running ios and don't need full blown os x. i think the 'truck' analogy is on the mark. less than 20 years. except for a minority i see full blown OS X and Windows 7 type desktops mostly gone in 5 years.
i think if apple made a keyboard/battery/dock for the ipad in the vein of the Asus transformer and allowed a mouse to work with ipad they would sell them as fast as they could make them and Air sales would drop a bit.
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.
You give some good examples. I don't think people realise how much the workplace has had to adjust to the PC. When people say "can you imagine people being hunched over an iPad in the office?" I think they must be very naive because that was the reality for centuries before the PC. People had pads of paper, they had clipboards, they had files. Often they still use all those things because in many cases the PC can't integrate into their workflow well. Instead the PC is dragged out at the end of the day to input everything into a database. The "digital office" never came to pass because the PC is a fairly clunky device. There's actually an extensive literature of workplace studies about how difficult it is to fit personal computers into the workflows of most professional settings.
The problem, the bias, is that many commentators are developers and IT people whose only experience is of workflows that were built around the PC. If your daily routine is using a particular piece of software on a desktop PC with a mouse and keyboard it's surely difficult to imagine doing things any other way. For doctors and lawyers and engineers and other professionals whose professions vastly predate the PC, the PC has never been a great fit for what they do. The iPad is a much more natural device. You hold it like a pad of paper, you interact directly, it's light and mobile. It is already finding a place in the workflow of thousands of professionals and will continue to do so.