Gartner lowers PC sales forecast, says Apple's iPad 'redefining' computing

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 114
    nunyabineznunyabinez Posts: 106member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iVlad View Post


    Actually this might have been funny a year ago, but seeing what kind of apps came out for iPad, no it's not a big iPod touch. It's an iPad.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iVlad View Post


    Who needs flash, it will slowly die anyway. Blah!



    It appears your sarcasm detector is not functioning. Maybe you need more RAM.
  • Reply 62 of 114
    nunyabineznunyabinez Posts: 106member
    This discussion has been very interesting, but I'm still confused. What the hell does this have to do with Charlie Sheen?
  • Reply 63 of 114
    timgriff84timgriff84 Posts: 912member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    For how much longer?



    A long time. At the end of the day you still need a pc because the ipads storage is so small. Its great for films but if you want to keep a digital film collection you need 1tb not 64gb! And that would just make it to thick.



    As the report says though, they still predict 10% growth which is more than inflation. Apple so far hasn't done anything to hurt pcs they've just added additional revenue streams and increased the amount people will pay for these devices.
  • Reply 64 of 114
    multimediamultimedia Posts: 1,034member
    Duh!
  • Reply 65 of 114
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    Guys, guys, the answer's already been given (by SPJ himself, already):



    The iPad is a mobile POST-PC.



    As a few like to say around here, "there, I fixed it for you."



    Really. He is wanting everybody to get over PC thinking. Or at least us, and who cares about the competitors.



    But he gave them exact instructions on how to approch tablets. Forget about jamming up the interface with PC 'functionality' and make something that responds to the fingers.



    And what is this neurosis over occasionally hooking the Pad up to a mothership? Such fussiness. I think it's coming from people who haven't experienced the liberation of a big-screen, no keyboard, mobile -- what's the new word? Noetic instrument?



    Guess that won't fly -- somebody think of something besides computer! Or worse, personal computer, a term destined to sound like 'horseless carriage' someday, as suggested above by Johnny M.
  • Reply 66 of 114
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    The utterly pointless debate over whether the iPad is or is not a PC will begin here.



    I think that what is a PC is pretty well defined by tradition and usage -- like marriage (don't spam me).



    I also think an iPad is a computer -- but a different category.



    Finally, I think that the iPad will bring such things as: multitouch; intuitiveness; focused interaction; instant-on, etc. to the PC.



    In the process of doing this, both the PC and the iPad will change -- the PC more than the iPad.



    They will become parts of the whole that is our computing resource -- for work, play, education, health, social, entertainment.



    Within 3 years, a PC without an attendant iPad will be as rare as today's PC without a keyboard and mouse.



    For many users, the iPad will be sufficient to fulfill the role of computing resource.



    For others, the iPad will become an integral part of their use of any PC.





    iPad is used here to denote the generic multitouch tablet -- because:



    1) I'm an Apple guy



    2) The iPad can bring tablet capabilities/solutions to the generic PC -- better and sooner than the competition.



    .
  • Reply 67 of 114
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by acslater017 View Post


    I was super impressed by the new iPad GargeBand - I'll make a final judgement when I see it in person, but it looks great. It's a symbol of the many advantages the iPad has over PCs. Is the iOS GarageBand as purely powerful as the one in iLife? Probably not. But can a notebook turn into a virtual drumset or turntable with touch controls? Nope!



    Maybe I'm being shortsighted, but it would be REALLY cool to use the iPad as a user input device for professional level apps. For example, if my iPad and Mac Pro are on the same network, I can tell the Mac Pro what to do through my iPad. Cutting clips in Final Cut Pro, for example, would be so much more fun and easy with touch controls. Then all of the heavy rendering and moving around of gigabytes of files is done by the Mac Pro. This would also allow you to do these complex tasks on the road, without bringing your computer everywhere.



    What do you guys think





    I think you nailed it!



    .
  • Reply 68 of 114
    visualzonevisualzone Posts: 298member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Flaneur View Post


    Really. He is wanting everybody to get over PC thinking. Or at least us, and who cares about the competitors.



    But he gave them exact instructions on how to approch tablets. Forget about jamming up the interface with PC 'functionality' and make something that responds to the fingers.



    And what is this neurosis over occasionally hooking the Pad up to a mothership? Such fussiness. I think it's coming from people who haven't experienced the liberation of a big-screen, no keyboard, mobile -- what's the new word? Noetic instrument?



    Guess that won't fly -- somebody think of something besides computer! Or worse, personal computer, a term destined to sound like 'horseless carriage' someday, as suggested above by Johnny M.



    Let's not be picky. Okay I am. Here's what he really said...



    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...jobs_says.html



  • Reply 69 of 114
    fastredfastred Posts: 23member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by melgross View Post


    Honestly, most people don't care. And guess what, it doesn't matter. People who want what you do will continue to use a traditional computer for most of what they do, and most others will not.



    There's been a big mistake in understanding what most people want and need. They don't want or need something that's very open. They do like cell phones, closed or not. Android doesn't sell because it's thought to be open, but merely because there are so many manufacturers with so many phone models. Otherwise, so what?



    Exactly. Only computer nerds care about "open". Everyone else whats stuff that works... and the IT industry has, by and large, failed to deliver on that.
  • Reply 70 of 114
    mactelmactel Posts: 1,275member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hentaiboy View Post


    People will still buy PCs. Why? Because you still need one to update/backup your iPad



    What if all your personal info and data were stored in the cloud? Then you wouldn't need a PC right?
  • Reply 71 of 114
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    Netflix servers is where I store my digital film collection.



    Looking at the rise in their streaming service its the same for millions of other people.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by timgriff84 View Post


    Its great for films but if you want to keep a digital film collection you need 1tb not 64gb! And that would just make it to thick.



  • Reply 72 of 114
    tenobelltenobell Posts: 7,014member
    There are two ways to look at this.



    In the basic definition of a computer, tablets and smart phones are computers. But they do not offer all of what we deem to come with personal computers.



    At the same time tablets and smart phones are clearly the next evolution in personal computing devices. Over the next couple of years its expected that a significant number of people are going to access the internet primarily through a smart phone or tablet.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bytorx1 View Post


    NO IT'S NOT! it's a mobile device but NOT a PC/Computer etc.

    do not mis categorize the iPAd and what it does and how it does it.



  • Reply 73 of 114
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    Guys, guys, the answer's already been given (by SPJ himself, already):



    The iPad is a mobile POST-PC.



    As a few like to say around here, "there, I fixed it for you."



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Flaneur View Post


    Really. He is wanting everybody to get over PC thinking. Or at least us, and who cares about the competitors.



    But he gave them exact instructions on how to approch tablets. Forget about jamming up the interface with PC 'functionality' and make something that responds to the fingers.



    And what is this neurosis over occasionally hooking the Pad up to a mothership? Such fussiness. I think it's coming from people who haven't experienced the liberation of a big-screen, no keyboard, mobile -- what's the new word? Noetic instrument?



    Guess that won't fly -- somebody think of something besides computer! Or worse, personal computer, a term destined to sound like 'horseless carriage' someday, as suggested above by Johnny M.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by VisualZone View Post


    Let's not be picky. Okay I am. Here's what he really said...



    http://www.appleinsider.com/articles...jobs_says.html



    The new generic term for our proliferating, morphing device forms, even as their functions often converge, might turn out to be an elision like "' puter."



    As for what that might include, I'll suggest that the main (but not only) axes of variance determining "personalness" and "computerhood" are 1. form, 2. function and 3. state of the art at the time, i.e., related to the era the device was designed and made.
    PS: Could you/would you also call a PC made mostly from a malleable metal alloy, 90% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead a "compewter"?
    Sorry.... I continue.....



    I'll leave open the question about whether since all "computers" are "computational devices," whether it's equally true that "all computing devices are computers." Granted, it's a definitional thing. But I'd be interested in people's opinions.



    Going forward, tho', clearly 1946's ENIAC and today's MB Airs are both "computers" - tho no one would call the former "personal" - and there's a lot more differentiation between them than there is between an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard and a MacBook Air - which both perform "digital computations" using hardware and software which has crossing, branching and shared hardware and software roots. iOS is a build branching from OS X after all, and there are a growing number of programs which manipulate the same types of data to the same ends like Pages, Garage Band, etc. And other iDevices perform useful and linked computing tasks as well.



    Size alone doesn't determine if something is either "personal" or "mobile." Compaq got its name from a 1982 "portable computer" that weighed like 17 pounds (tho' the name is also a portmanteau derived from "Compatibility" and "Quality"). This "luggable," tho' was a hot item for the time, delivering the ability to move one's computing around, if with some effort. Even as more recently gamers were (are?) known to drag their Voodoo towers around to gaming parties. That's the relevance of the "state of the art" dimension.



    The "Personal" dimension in the term PC is about usability by "normal humans" for their own defined purposes. But a dumb terminal hooked to a clever '80's-'90's network could also perform such functions, provided with the proper served programs. Is it a computer? Even in Sun's old "the network is the computer" sense? And a Google Chrome computer (my friend is a beta tester) fudges along similar directions.



    Or take the new Motorola Atrix and its very PC-looking dock in terms of the "state of the art" dimension. What "device class" does that combo fall into? Separately or as a whole?



    And intended or even user-added functions alone don't determine if something is a "computer" (again leaving that undefined for now), but function and binary operations might well define a "digital computing device (or DCD for my purposes)." (Adding "digital" excludes, for example, watches made with gears, even tho their internal ops result in a display of the time, and it's true that the roots of modern computing lie in gear-driven mechanisms). Nor I think does added programmability. Much of this depends on the conventions in vogue:



    A modern scientific calculator, or really, a calculator from Dollar Tree does lots of digital calculations and might be somewhat programmable or upgradeable either physically or via a firmware update. It has input methods, an interface and offers visual and/or printed output. But, while it's a DCD, few people would call it a computer.



    Whereas, because of how they're advertised, the read out on my car's dash that lets me know my current MPG and MPH or average MGP/MPH since I last reset them, miles to empty, etc. is called a computer by most people. Even tho' it's "just" a calculator with various sensors attached and with simple user input. And it doesn't look like "a computer" - being a dash display, two buttons on my steering wheel and a chip on a board somewhere in the car (a car which is advertised as having multiple "computers onboard.")



    Is the controller console for a Predator drone - run by a single user - a computer? An XBox3 working with or without a PC?



    Back to function, whether or not an iPhone or iPad is a C-word, it does do all the "computing" many people feel a need for, and its diminutive (to our age) size is mostly variance along the current state of the state of the art dimension. If a future "superminiaturized" version (with many as yet uninvented functions) can be implanted in our bodies, what will we call that?



    I'll stop here, but I think a number of you could have some interesting responses....



    PS: "Noetic instruments": I like that!
  • Reply 74 of 114
    dick applebaumdick applebaum Posts: 12,527member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    The new generic term for our proliferating, morphing device forms, even as their functions often converge, might turn out to be an elision like "' puter."



    Ha!



    When we owned the stores named: Computer Plus....



    ...the inside joke was to call 'em puter pus





    Come to think of it...



    puterpad



    has a nice rhythm and sound that rolls off the tongue... I'll run it by the grandkids...



    Edit: of course that naturally leads to:



    puterlap, putertop; puterphone, puterpod, puterTV... and the verb: to pute...



    -- posted from my puterpad



    .
  • Reply 75 of 114
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    The term "personal computer" has never acquired a fixed definition. The only potentially useful distinction is the CPU being local and dedicated to the display device (as opposed to a dumb terminal time sharing arrangement), but even this is not the actual definition of a PC, since that arrangement was just as often called a microcomputer, back in the day when it had to be distinguished from mainframes and minicomputers. The only reason this term came into common usage to describe anything is because IBM named their microcomputer product the IBM-PC, and we know what happened then. Because of cloning, and for no other apparent reason than the resulting ubiquity the IBM-PC architecture, the term PC began to be merged with the concept of a microcomputer and to substitute for it, in the minds of many if not most. That doesn't make it correct. I'm sure many will remember when it commonly argued that the Mac is "not a PC" because it isn't IBM compatible. So arguing about what "is" or "isn't" a PC is futile, just as it always has been.
  • Reply 76 of 114
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Dr Millmoss View Post


    The term "personal computer" has never acquired a fixed definition. The only potentially useful distinction is the CPU being local and dedicated to the display device (as opposed to a dumb terminal time sharing arrangement), but even this is not the actual definition of a PC, since that arrangement was just as often called a microcomputer, back in the day when it had to be distinguished from mainframes and minicomputers. The only reason this term came into common usage to describe anything is because IBM named their microcomputer product the IBM-PC, and we know what happened then. Because of cloning, and for no other apparent reason than the resulting ubiquity the IBM-PC architecture, the term PC began to be merged with the concept of a microcomputer and to substitute for it, in the minds of many if not most. That doesn't make it correct. I'm sure many will remember when it commonly argued that the Mac is "not a PC" because it isn't IBM compatible. So arguing about what "is" or "isn't" a PC is futile, just as it always has been.



    I'd forgotten that (I think?) IBM didn't say right off the bat that "PC" stood for "personal computer" (nor at first say what else it might stand for) even though the term Personal Computer had been in use for years before it came out. Good call. Of course Armonk did start calling it the IBM Personal Computer in short order.
    "DVD" is another term that was kind of vague on its acronym - tho' I believe the coinage came from Digital Versatile Disc rather than Digital Video Disc.
    One way the argument's not futile though, is for investors, analysts and "suits," who want to define leaders in "device categories," identify trends, market shares, ranks between companies, predict earnings, etc. So the classification game will continue ad infinitum whether it's a useful distinction in the real world of users or not. And if, for example, the feds ever started a "cash for computers" program to get people to turn in older computers for whatever reasons (power usage, poisonous components, e.g.), they'd have to define device classes.



    My overall take, though, brings to mind something my Anatomy professor said way back when I was in school and someone complained about not being able to figure out where one tissue or something "ended" and became called something else.
    Quote:

    "Just because no one can tell you where the side of your face ends, and where the front of your face begins, doesn't mean that you don't have a side of your face and a front of your face, nor that they aren't different. "



  • Reply 77 of 114
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    Guys, guys, the answer's already been given (by SPJ himself, already):



    The iPad is a mobile POST-PC.



    As a few like to say around here, "there, I fixed it for you."



    Exactly. This is an indicator that Apple is totally focused on post-PC products, so far that means iPods, iPhones and iPads, but it won't stop there.
  • Reply 78 of 114
    stevehsteveh Posts: 480member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sflocal View Post


    But...but....but... it doesn't have HDMI ports, USB ports, Thunderbolt ports, a Homer-Mobile switch, no keyboard, no retina.... it'll never sell I tell you!!!



    </hallucination>



    You have to use an adapter for the HDMI output.



    HEAT UP THE TAR!!!! WHO'S GOT THE FEATHERS?!!



    Ahem.
  • Reply 79 of 114
    dr millmossdr millmoss Posts: 5,403member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    I'd forgotten that (I think?) IBM didn't say right off the bat that "PC" stood for "personal computer" (nor at first say what else it might stand for) even though the term Personal Computer had been in use for years before it came out. Good call. Of course Armonk did start calling it the IBM Personal Computer in short order.



    The term personal computer was in use, but so was microcomputer, to describe the same thing. If IBM's marketing department had decided to call their product the IBM-MC, we'd probably be arguing now about what is what is not an MC. It's all so arbitrary, but people do like to argue.
  • Reply 80 of 114
    mac_dogmac_dog Posts: 1,066member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by a_greer View Post


    First off, for what it is, the ipad and ipad 2 are very cool, that said, is anyone else alarmed about how fast people seem to be saying that this is the new computing? these "tablet and smartphones will kill PC" talk frighten me, there is no openness on these devices: can you run browser addins like noscript or adblock on android or IOS? can you change the default web browser? the default email client?



    The lock peice also bugs me. if I buyu hardware, I dont want to be told what network it can or cannot connect to arbitrarily, I dont want my vendor or acrrier blocking updates and such...imagine if Comcast could say "we dont want you to have feature x of OSX or Windows 7" and they could force you to not have that piece, that would never stand, yet we take it in phones and tablets? why?



    get a dell and install linux on it. better yet, build your own. there will probably always be pc parts. those of us whose majority of time is spent using computers to make a living actually like the apple ecosystem?it allows us to do our work rather than tinker with add-ons, hacks, and (dare i say) playing games.
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