If an iPad is a PC then wouldn't an iPhone and iPod Touch be a PC also? We are mostly talking about functionality not size, so an iPhone is even a better PC than an iPad because it has more features.
My opinion is the iPad is a very underpowered, specialized personal computer with limited capabilities but at the same time, it is the very best tablet computer ever.
The industry does not call the iPad a PC -- that in-of-itself was the catalyst for this thread. Should they? I believe that's up to Apple.
But Apple doesn't call the iPad (or any iOS device) a "PC" or use either words to define anything about it either. In fact they go out of their way to NOT compare it to a conventional computer and focus entirely on what it DOES.
To be fair, every non IBM-PC Clone ancestor has attempted to define itself in how it's NOT a PC. It was always PCs versus Macs, PCs versus Amiga, PCs versus the world. So it's not necessarily with spite that I say the iPad isn't a PC. It's not worse, nor better, only different; and whether it's categorically the same or not, laptop sales are sliding as a consequence of its success.
But if I stick to my definition of PC, then it DOES just about everything a PC DOES. Or it will when 4.2 is released. I simply don't feel comfortable calling it a PC -- "PC" has so much baggage attached to it and is getting too easily tossed around. Both Apple and the industry as a whole seem to agree with me, so whether or not the iPad qualifies as a PC is rather moot.
Devoid then of any specific category, I still feel that the iPad could benefit from being entirely independent of any other local computer by making iOS updates and the out-of-box-experience part of iOS itself and not part of iTunes and the AppStore. That dependency seems rather artificial and self-serving on Apple's part.
Self update the OS and printing without another computer on the network? Everything else is just nice-to-have, but any DEPENDENCY on another computer makes it less than a full computer, by definition.
So a thin client is not a full computer, right?
How about computers that use Netboot? All the iMacs in a lab and boot off the network are not "full computers"?
The term "personal computer" can mean different things, depending on what the word "is" means.
iOS devices are outselling OS-X devices better than 4:1. Apple NEEDS to make iOS entirely independent of a host computer; it's not a matter of any lexicographical qualification, it's a matter of where the industry is turning. And share value always drops after Apple makes announcements -- not sure why, maybe Apple should stop making announcements.
Right. A thin client makes use of technologies like KVM over IP, VNC, Citrix, or RDP, and are in no way a full computer. The "real" PC, in all of these cases, is usually in the server room, or running as a virtual instance within a server. But then there's grey again -- there are "thin" clients with local Linux or Windows CE installs that provide a lot of offload from the server, all the way up to a full Windows 7 install that's using Citrix or SoftGrid for just a couple seldom used apps. It's really not a case of black-or-white, is it?
Quote:
How about computers that use Netboot? All the iMacs in a lab and boot off the network are not "full computers"?
These, and similar technologies, are not "moving the computer", they're just moving the harddrive for better security and maintainability. In these cases I would say they're clearly "full PCs".
Quote:
The term "personal computer" can mean different things, depending on what the word "is" means.
iOS devices are outselling OS-X devices better than 4:1. Apple NEEDS to make iOS entirely independent of a host computer; it's not a matter of any lexicographical qualification, it's a matter of where the industry is turning. And share value always drops after Apple makes announcements -- not sure why, maybe Apple should stop making announcements.
What an interesting observation!
I suspect that there is little "real" necessity to connect an iPad to a computer to "set it up"!
Likely, it was easier for Apple to use a proven mechanism already in place -- the iTunes/iPhone connection.
It gave Apple one less thing (downside risk) to deal with in the introduction of a high-volume new product (Remember the MobileMe fiasco, when they tried to do too many things at the same time).
Certainly, they can ship an iPad with everything already installed -- then it can wake up and look for WiFi.
-- If WiFi - assist user with setup and they're good to go.
-- No Wifi - tell the user how to get apps and updates (go some place with WiFi or a computer).
Once the iPad user has access to the cloud he can update the OS and apps as necessary as well as backup.
I suspect that a lot of this will be done through MobileMe and the new Data Center.
In fact, the rumored new MBAs might be just the ticket for a manageable test case of OTA setup, install, update and (later backup). This would involve hundreds of concurrent users rather than hundreds of thousands.
The point isn't so much if the iPad should or shouldn't be classified as a PC (it shouldn't because it's not a PC. It's really that simple) it's that these measures of traditional PC sales are becoming less and less relevant as we move toward more mobile computing and other devices reach the market that perform functions of a traditional PC.
No they don't. You favored the easier route available to you, but you could have just as well installed OS-X from DVD. You didn't need any other computer to set up your computer. And calling the Time Capsule a PC is more of a stretch than the iPad.
You don't read well or follow laid out logic do you. I needed the PC to crete the backup that was stored in the time machine drive (I also never said Time Capsule). And moving from one computer to another is a major undertaking without Time Machine support. Gee it took a whole 63 minutes to be up and running with a new machine, previous new machine reconfigurations took days to get everything right. Any process that takes days is broken to the point that a tool that fixes it is no longer a mere convenient choice, but necessary for the task.
I could do the same thing with an iPad. I could jailbreak it and configure everything manually without needing a PC, so your argument fails there as long as you keep accepting stupid amounts of work to do simple tasks.
Face it. Trying to use application software as a way to define what is or isn't a PC is a good way to get the argument wrong. EVERYTHING is possible in software if you are willing to spend enough $$ and wait long enough.
An iPad has more computing power than a 2000 era Dell Pentium M Centrino Latitude laptop, and that was considered a PC. [Intel compares their Atom line to that era of Centrino board CPU packages, and an iPad wildly outperforms anything packing an Atom] And had no wireless, and had no network card unless you ordered it special from Dell. It had a read only CD drive unless you paid for an $300 upgrade to get a burnable CD player. It could barely run Windows with XL and Word open at the same time, forget PP too, and had a whole 20GB 4200rpm hard drive. It came with a second cold swappable battery, good for about 90 minutes each, and each battery weighed more than two iPads. I guess we really want to return to those good ol' days...
Gawd is it slow, 256MB RAM standard, same as an iPad, but the memory latency and caching was so poor that it could really only ever get stuff from RAM. Maybe that's why it was nearly impossible to get the CPU to run at full throughput. Do you think it takes a PC to have memory bus bottlenecks so bad you can get 50% performance on a good day?
Or is that no longer a PC? Are you just going to conveniently try to move the goalposts again with your other PC apologists in the thread and be left with trying to convince everyone that application software is the problem? Even when that's the one thing in the machine that can change without a soldering iron?
Comments
And Windows appears to have been the downfall of all the tablet computers (including the recent cancelled projects) that came before.
This place is seriously lacking in quality trolling
I believe the term you are looking for is "proper" trolling
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AAPL down $19.14
So much for a $20 Billion quarter.
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My opinion is the iPad is a very underpowered, specialized personal computer with limited capabilities but at the same time, it is the very best tablet computer ever.
But Apple doesn't call the iPad (or any iOS device) a "PC" or use either words to define anything about it either. In fact they go out of their way to NOT compare it to a conventional computer and focus entirely on what it DOES.
To be fair, every non IBM-PC Clone ancestor has attempted to define itself in how it's NOT a PC. It was always PCs versus Macs, PCs versus Amiga, PCs versus the world. So it's not necessarily with spite that I say the iPad isn't a PC. It's not worse, nor better, only different; and whether it's categorically the same or not, laptop sales are sliding as a consequence of its success.
But if I stick to my definition of PC, then it DOES just about everything a PC DOES. Or it will when 4.2 is released. I simply don't feel comfortable calling it a PC -- "PC" has so much baggage attached to it and is getting too easily tossed around. Both Apple and the industry as a whole seem to agree with me, so whether or not the iPad qualifies as a PC is rather moot.
Devoid then of any specific category, I still feel that the iPad could benefit from being entirely independent of any other local computer by making iOS updates and the out-of-box-experience part of iOS itself and not part of iTunes and the AppStore. That dependency seems rather artificial and self-serving on Apple's part.
Agreed.
A PC doesn't require a second PC to activate it. Stupid move, Apple..
In relation to this article, what was a stupid move for Apple to make?
Self update the OS and printing without another computer on the network? Everything else is just nice-to-have, but any DEPENDENCY on another computer makes it less than a full computer, by definition.
So a thin client is not a full computer, right?
How about computers that use Netboot? All the iMacs in a lab and boot off the network are not "full computers"?
The term "personal computer" can mean different things, depending on what the word "is" means.
iOS is why they are now selling 2 million/month.
2 questions..
iPad compared to all computing devices worldwide?
iOS compared to all other mobile OS's added together?
1 answer
statistically irrelevant.
BRIEF-Apple posts Q4 results
Oct 18 (Reuters) - Apple <AAPL.O>:
* Reports fourth quarter results
* Auto Alert - Q4 earnings per share $4.64
* Auto Alert - Q4 earnings per share view $4.08 -- Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S
* Auto Alert - Q4 revenue $20.34 billion versus I/B/E/S view $18.9 billion
* Auto Alert - Sees Q1 2011 earnings per share about $4.80
* Auto Alert - Sees Q1 2011 revenue about $23 bln
* Says sold 3.89 mln Macs during the quarter
* Says sold 14.1 mln iphones in the quarter
* Qtrly gross margin was 36.9 percent
* Says sold 9.05 mln ipods during the quarter
* Says also sold 4.19 mln ipads during the quarter
* Q1 earnings per share view $5.07, revenue view $22.40 billion -- Thomson
Reuters I/B/E/S
iOS devices are outselling OS-X devices better than 4:1. Apple NEEDS to make iOS entirely independent of a host computer; it's not a matter of any lexicographical qualification, it's a matter of where the industry is turning. And share value always drops after Apple makes announcements -- not sure why, maybe Apple should stop making announcements.
This place is seriously lacking in quality trolling
I thought MS bought out Apple a few years ago?
Define "proper" featured OS.
Is it more polite? More chaste? More circumspect? Ivy-league Educated? Come from the right family?
Have beautiful tawny skin, wavy black hair and stunning blue eyes...
.
something you can do production on effectively, nothing major... just an integrated mail and calendar, Office software, file manager etc...
hardware's nice but like most things from iCon, software is awful.
So a thin client is not a full computer, right?
Right. A thin client makes use of technologies like KVM over IP, VNC, Citrix, or RDP, and are in no way a full computer. The "real" PC, in all of these cases, is usually in the server room, or running as a virtual instance within a server. But then there's grey again -- there are "thin" clients with local Linux or Windows CE installs that provide a lot of offload from the server, all the way up to a full Windows 7 install that's using Citrix or SoftGrid for just a couple seldom used apps. It's really not a case of black-or-white, is it?
How about computers that use Netboot? All the iMacs in a lab and boot off the network are not "full computers"?
These, and similar technologies, are not "moving the computer", they're just moving the harddrive for better security and maintainability. In these cases I would say they're clearly "full PCs".
The term "personal computer" can mean different things, depending on what the word "is" means.
Actually "is" has a clearer and more succinct definition than PC: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/is#English.
Irrelevant. It's NOT a PC it does no more than 10% of what a PC could do.
Unless, of course, you could install Linux on the thing.
It does a hell of a lot more than my old Apple II GS does. Are you saying that the Apple II GS is not a
"personal computer"?
I thought MS bought out Apple a few years ago?
That's more like it!
iOS devices are outselling OS-X devices better than 4:1. Apple NEEDS to make iOS entirely independent of a host computer; it's not a matter of any lexicographical qualification, it's a matter of where the industry is turning. And share value always drops after Apple makes announcements -- not sure why, maybe Apple should stop making announcements.
What an interesting observation!
I suspect that there is little "real" necessity to connect an iPad to a computer to "set it up"!
Likely, it was easier for Apple to use a proven mechanism already in place -- the iTunes/iPhone connection.
It gave Apple one less thing (downside risk) to deal with in the introduction of a high-volume new product (Remember the MobileMe fiasco, when they tried to do too many things at the same time).
Certainly, they can ship an iPad with everything already installed -- then it can wake up and look for WiFi.
-- If WiFi - assist user with setup and they're good to go.
-- No Wifi - tell the user how to get apps and updates (go some place with WiFi or a computer).
Once the iPad user has access to the cloud he can update the OS and apps as necessary as well as backup.
I suspect that a lot of this will be done through MobileMe and the new Data Center.
In fact, the rumored new MBAs might be just the ticket for a manageable test case of OTA setup, install, update and (later backup). This would involve hundreds of concurrent users rather than hundreds of thousands.
We'll see!
.
2 questions..
iPad compared to all computing devices worldwide?
iOS compared to all other mobile OS's added together?
1 answer
statistically irrelevant.
New iOS device profit compared to new non-iOS device profit worldwide?
Quite relevant,
What have you done for me today?
.
something you can do production on effectively, nothing major... just an integrated mail and calendar, Office software, file manager etc...
hardware's nice but like most things from iCon, software is awful.
I can do all that to the extent I need to, and much, much more on my "improper pc" iPad running an "improper OS" iOS.
.
Steve Jobs, unlike Ballmer, is going to enjoy a very nice christmas bonus
yes, he will get an extra dollar this year.
No they don't. You favored the easier route available to you, but you could have just as well installed OS-X from DVD. You didn't need any other computer to set up your computer. And calling the Time Capsule a PC is more of a stretch than the iPad.
You don't read well or follow laid out logic do you. I needed the PC to crete the backup that was stored in the time machine drive (I also never said Time Capsule). And moving from one computer to another is a major undertaking without Time Machine support. Gee it took a whole 63 minutes to be up and running with a new machine, previous new machine reconfigurations took days to get everything right. Any process that takes days is broken to the point that a tool that fixes it is no longer a mere convenient choice, but necessary for the task.
I could do the same thing with an iPad. I could jailbreak it and configure everything manually without needing a PC, so your argument fails there as long as you keep accepting stupid amounts of work to do simple tasks.
Face it. Trying to use application software as a way to define what is or isn't a PC is a good way to get the argument wrong. EVERYTHING is possible in software if you are willing to spend enough $$ and wait long enough.
An iPad has more computing power than a 2000 era Dell Pentium M Centrino Latitude laptop, and that was considered a PC. [Intel compares their Atom line to that era of Centrino board CPU packages, and an iPad wildly outperforms anything packing an Atom] And had no wireless, and had no network card unless you ordered it special from Dell. It had a read only CD drive unless you paid for an $300 upgrade to get a burnable CD player. It could barely run Windows with XL and Word open at the same time, forget PP too, and had a whole 20GB 4200rpm hard drive. It came with a second cold swappable battery, good for about 90 minutes each, and each battery weighed more than two iPads. I guess we really want to return to those good ol' days...
Gawd is it slow, 256MB RAM standard, same as an iPad, but the memory latency and caching was so poor that it could really only ever get stuff from RAM. Maybe that's why it was nearly impossible to get the CPU to run at full throughput. Do you think it takes a PC to have memory bus bottlenecks so bad you can get 50% performance on a good day?
Or is that no longer a PC? Are you just going to conveniently try to move the goalposts again with your other PC apologists in the thread and be left with trying to convince everyone that application software is the problem? Even when that's the one thing in the machine that can change without a soldering iron?