HP regains crown from Apple as world's top PC maker - Page 2

 

Like I have said many times; I don't like laptops. I have had a stack of them only because I needed one for travel. I have never really liked the design at all it seems cumbersome to me. Also as I have said before; since buying my iPad2 I haven't even turned my laptop on, that was about six months ago... The iPad really serves all my needs for mobile computing when I am traveling and is actually very enjoyable to use. Many people I know are saying the same things and much of the things I read are the same story. Also as the iPad gets more powerful and capable this trend will grow. Other tablets may be all right but they fall way short of the capabilities and beauty of the iPad, I'm sure they will improve as they learn from Apple :-D. My wife completely done away with her computer and laptop, sold them both since getting an iPad2. That is all she uses now and I know of several others who are doing the same thing; the iPad IS their computer. She and I both bought an Apple Bluetooth Keyboards for them and use it when we need to do a lot of typing. Actually I liked the Apple keyboard so much better than anything else I have used it is all I use now. I am typing this on it right now with the Dell PC. This article really makes a lot of sense to me.

IMO There is no way a laptop is ever going to replace a serious desktop computer for real computer work. That is why they build workstations like the Mac Pro and the iMac is real close in many ways. With everything in the world going to computer control the need for more and more engineers with grow as will the demands of their work with will require more and more powerful workstations. I do regret the authors choice of words in the title "kill" is a little strong right now "Greatly Reduce" would be better, Heck it's already doing that by leaps and bounds. If you look into the future though the generation that is coming up now is adapting to a tablet for computing needs much more than we did. For instance, when I try to type on my iPad keyboard it is extremely hard to be very fast although I have seen some younger people type on them with amazing proficiency because that is what they are used to. I bought an Apple bluetooth keyboard for mine to type on (using it now) because I just didnt want to take the time to learn it, I am used to a keyboard. There again if you take one of these kids that has grown up using a on screen keyboard and try to give them a keyboard or attach one to their tablet they would say "get that clunky thing outa here!":eek: it's in my way and a waist of space!". as we see technology greatly increase and tablets getting much more powerful and versatile and even "Bigger" yes much bigger like a 17" diagonal with a mouse type pad, I could easily see them doing everything a laptop can do in a handier package without a clunky keyboard. It is hard for us to see that right now just like at one time it would have been hard for me to imagine everyone carrying around a phone in their pocket. Just my thoughts. :)

After rereading my post i realize that what i meant to say is "if we do argue in the thread let us not break down into a war of yelling at each other"

 

Sorry.  all my fault

 

Now, what i am going by is what the majority of people i have talked to about it...(I am in high school and live in a VERY rich community, average income per housegold is about 90k, for families about 116k)

 

These people ALSO include the teachers that work in the learning skills (for people with IEP's) as peer tutor.

 

about 90%+ of the people i have talked to say that the iPad is not a computer, most of them citied either the first two reasons i listed (Because that is how most people view computers, at least were i live) and i TRIED to not be favor either side, but i probably favored not an iPad slightly...

 

so, i guess i will re-phase my statement: the iPad is technically a computer, so is a calculator...

 

However, most people (that i have talked to) seem to see a computer as being a laptop or a desktop, i believe that is currently (and will continue to be) the definition that the majority of PEOPLE view it as... 

 

in other words the "common definition" VS the "technical definition"

 

I would also like to let you know that i have a condition that makes it hard for me to clearly express my ideas or get names (like now, i forgot what it was called =.=) it has to do with executive functioning, so PLEASE tell me if you don't understand what i said or if i seem to be not addressing any points you make. 

 

And again, sorry for what seemed like bait or a suggesting you were "screaming" i hope you forgive me :)

 

 

 

 

 

So, for me, i use a laptop, i love it, mainly because it has a great trackpad and trackpoint (Lenovo, but just after they bought IBM's biz, so its really IBM).   The problme

 

and a tablet may be good for all your mobile computing needs, but if you had to use it as your only computer, could you?  I don't know personally, maybe i could, but i hate the Apple keyboards with a passion (no up down keys, and no delete key (kinda a sad reason)) i do admit their are others however.

 

Now, if you want to use an iPad or other tablet as a "laptop" i feel like its just a better idea to get the ASUS transformer (for crazy battery life plus it can use flash incase you really need it) 

 

My biggest issue is that i have tried to use an iPad for hours on end, and it just does not feel confortable (for me) because of the touchscreen, i would LOVE others imput on this.

 

I also agree that an iPad will eventually come to be considered a computer, but it currently does not fit what i believe to be the definition of computer in current common language.

 

Also, the iMac is not a workstation in general workstation terms (lack's professional GPU's) and the Mac Pro is falling into a state of disarray, Xeon e5 is out, and if they are going to be updated now is the time (they also lack the professional graphics cards)  of course, many people don't need those, but i *believe* thats what most people consider a workstation to be :)

 

also, laptops (At a higher price ofc) can do work just as well as many desktops :)... i agree that serious progessionals will use desktops still though.

Edited by nicolbolas - 5/3/12 at 10:43pm

 

Hmmm... My Apple wireless keyboard has up an down keys and a delete key....??? wouldn't have it if it didnt...

 

Windows users come from a twisted, mixed-up world where Delete is called "backspace" and forward Delete is called "Delete".

 

 

Sorry, i meant page up and page down keys.... XD... but it lacks a backspace, delete and insert key to finish the list of things that makes typing a lot easier (for me at least, many will find them not useful)

Anything that runs programs that are called 'apps' and has rinky dink specs like 1 gb of ram and 16 gb of space and runs on a smartphone cpu is not a computer.
 

If a PC is being defined based on the internal components and an iPad shares the same components as an iPhone then logically, an iPhone should also be classed as a PC. The differentiating factor between these is only the screen size. It has to come down to use cases.

Many people will replace netbooks and laptops for iPads. They generally won't replace them with phones. Watching movies, editing/sorting photos (iPhoto), writing documents (Pages), editing movies (iMovie), editing songs (Garageband), playing games, sketching, managing emails, browsing the web and so on are all tasks typically done on a 'PC'. If there is no core task that can be done on a PC that cannot be done reasonably efficiently on an iPad, it should be classed as a PC. Note the phrase 'reasonably efficiently'. Although these task can be done on an iPhone, most are not pleasant to do on an iPhone.

With flash memory and the optimised OS, an iPad is faster than any G4 computer and those are classed as PCs so performance alone is not enough to separate them.

The cut-off point has to be an 800 x 600 7" screen as that's about as low as a usable PC goes.

Now that iOS has become an independent platform with over-the-air updates, some people are using them as their only computer. You can connect to terabytes of network storage to manage and backup files, you can wirelessly connect to printers and you can create photo albums or film and edit movies and publish them online.

It does have a sand-boxed OS and filesystem that restricts your freedom, unlike a 'PC' platform but I don't think that's enough to separate them. When someone can use an iPad as their only device and can efficiently do the core computing tasks, it's a PC. This has only been possible since last October so the iPad has only really been a PC for 7 months if we assume the rule that a PC must have the ability to be used as a master and not a slave device.

I've tried many times to use my iPad as my main computer but in the end the lack of a filemanager, not being able to connect a normal monitor and have the desktop cloned to it, no full USB slot for an external HD or CDrom, I decided to hold off until iOS 8. Hopefully after the iPad has completely taken over all of Apple desktop sales Apple will be forced to make the iPad into a full fledged computer adding a OS more like OSX. Until then I am very happy with my MacBook Air 11" and my Asus Slider as my main portable computers.

It should be possible to hook up a standard monitor to an ipad using the connectors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhPLz_WF2c

The USB connectivity and file management is a tricky one. I think Apple want a hassle-free computing experience and issues like the following wouldn't fit in with that:

http://www.transformerforums.com/forum/transformer-prime-help/15962-file-manager-freezes-when-external-usb-sd-storage-plugged.html

A filebrowser would be useful - there is a 3rd party one for iOS called Filebrowser and it works great. You can copy photos between NAS drives and your Photo Library and copy AVI/MKV movies from NAS drives into 3rd party movie apps.

The sandboxing makes some sense for security reasons but there's no reason that apps can't use a shared filesystem space for certain files by choice and this shared space can be managed the same way as the Photo app. In fact, that's where something like 'All My Files' makes sense. It's the equivalent of 'All My Photos' and 'All My Music'. It could show PDF, webarchive, Word previews and more in an icon view and allow you to open the files in any app.

Oh cool I didn't know they made a VGA adapter, will defiantly order one today. As far as the filemanager is concerned, yea I tried all of the apps availlable and the only option that I found to work the best was a normal terminal. It's funny everyone keeps telling me that iOS doesn't use a normal hiearchy so a normal filemanager wouldn't work but when you see the tree under Unix it's like every other nix OS out there. I installed Midnight Commander and it seems to do what I want but for ease of use I would prefer if there was decent gui program out there.

I'm sure when iPads start to replace more desktops and laptops Apple will get the hint and add one. Especially usefull in a corparate enviroment, how do companys mount their filesystems and remote servers with the iPad? There is a program called FX Filemanager for Android which I would love to see for iOS, you can mount all of your cloud storage and servers in one program as normal folders. I would also like to see, Java, Python and Ruby support. Our company has many custom programs that use those technologies.

The Filebrowser app mounts remote servers that way on the iPad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbbwF0AWFh8

You can create folders, copy/delete files and so on. On a local computer, you could setup a file share on it and mount it on your iPad. The restriction is where the files go but it has an "open with" command that copies those files from the network storage into that application's file space.

It would be nice to be able to take files out of apps and upload them to network storage manually e.g copy a .pages file onto a local computer's share but a shared storage space on the iPad would allow this.

Java, Python and Ruby support while useful in some cases wouldn't really offer much to the majority of users but would introduce security risks. The Flashback trojan is evidence of that. That code can be run on a remote server if needed and just accessed from an iOS device.