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.
Nicely put! These examples come from my workplace, I work in healthcare IT..
Remember the paperless office? Didn't happen with the PC for the reasons you mentioned.
Sure, you may need a pc to type a document and spreadsheet..... But we can do admissions of patients directly in the waiting area using an iPad, charting... We used to use tablets anyway, but battery life got in the way! Now the iPad lasts as long as the shift, is lighter and instantly on... Not to mention the price difference
Most of our regular users input tidbits of data and look thing up. They don't type their life story at least they're not supposed to . I'm sure our advertising department will need full blon workstations, so will many others, but for clinical people the physical keyboard is just another thing they need to disinfect.
Whats so ironic is, isnt Apple's Mac OSX and its entire computer line up a "personal" computer ? Aka a "PC" too?
What past of "Post" aren't you comprehending. "Post-PC" doesn't mean the elimination of the PC it just means after in an order of time. Meaning the focus of the future of computing isn't going to be the traditional PC but all these other computing devices that we use for tasks once only done by 'PCs'. I know people who are and aren't computer savvy that have one 'PC' but have an iPad and modern smartphone. These are two Post-PC devices to one. If you include the Kindle which is growing in usability and likely yo grow into a proper tablet it'll be no question it's also a Post-PC device.
Look at the landscape of unit sales. How many PCs are sold worldwide compared to tablets and smartphones running modern mobile OSes. These markets are growing. These are what people are reaching to for quick access to data. It does not and has never meant the 'PC" will go away. It shouldn't be that hard to understand.
Whats so ironic is, isnt Apple's Mac OSX and its entire computer line up a "personal" computer ? Aka a "PC" too?
[...]
It's hilarious that Apple tries to differentiate itself away from the general category when it itself resides in one.
It is not hilarious, but in fact something that makes Apple so successful today. They are not afraid to sacrifice their current setup when they envisage a future. So, yes, the Mac is a 'truck' too and Apple knows it.
You can read that as inconsistent (and thus position yourself in the status quo) or you can go outside that box and see that Apple actually is smart enough not to remain locked in to the current situation, unwilling to see a future where their current lineup is not there anymore. Ballmer sees "Windows everywhere". If that is more than a branding statement (and it seems that it is), it strongly suggests marketing myopia. If Microsoft cannot see a future where the PC is irrelevant in many areas, they will be badly positioned to react to it if it indeed does happen.
In the meantime, Apple is working to cut the umbilical cord that connects non-PC devices to the PC. Like iPod, iPhone, iPad. AppleTV2 is already arguably the first non-PC computing device that is not dependent on the PC anymore. As these devices become disconnected from the PC, they are post-PC. You do not need a PC anymore to use them.
Now, if all these devices become less dependent on a PC, the PC is going to become less relevant for many people. But certainly not for all. There will remain an important role for trucks.
He might be correct... for another year or two... The whole "PC" paradigm is you need a big box on your desk because it has lots of power and lots of storage. Laptops have long been eroding that idea, but because they needed to run the same heavy-weight operating system, they never evolved past the PC. Where Apple went with iOS and the iPas/Phone/Touch is hardware beyond what had been stuffed into such a small package in terms of speed and storage, and created an OS that was light-weight and built for that same purpose.
Once a person is holding TB's of storage in their hands, as I'm sure we'll see in the next few years of iPads and such, when storage in 'the cloud' keeps our data everywhere at once, there won't be a need for a 'homebase' computer.... whether that is a PC/Windows device, or even an iMac as far as that goes. People may still choose that configuration because of its convenience, but no one will "need" a PC.
MS needs to do what Apple did... start with a new paradigm... throw out the old Windows code... provide compatibility with an emulation layer if necessary (like Rosetta did for PPC hardware), and move on. There was a time when supporting 10,000 graphics cards was needed... that was in 1995...
RE: timeframes. I think we're moving into the post-PC era very fast. Much faster than I expected. There's a number of factors involved:
1. There's a parallel trend to the cloud. More and more businesses are moving from proprietary apps to cloud-based "software as a service" apps. Making these mobile-compitable is relatively straightforward and something that happens outside the public eye. These kind of services can adapt very quickly to new devices. That makes it easier for businesses to support a variety of devices.
2. Businesses can adopt mobile devices in bulk. We're seeing this happen already with some companies moving tens of thousands of workers to smartphones and tablets.
3. The PC market is collapsing for entirely different reasons. Margins are low. IBM bowed out a long time ago because services are more profitable. Now HP has gone. Generally the PC industry, being low margin, will move East. Those margins will look pretty good to Chinese companies looking to move up the supply chain. But importantly, the ability of the PC industry as a whole to respond to disruption is being severely diminished. The encroachment of tablets is not being met with any significant resistance. Even Microsoft doesn't appear to be putting up much of a fight.
4. I think there was a lot of pent-up consumer demand for a device like this anyway. The PC has long been overkill for the needs of most people. The form factors have always been awkward for casual use.
I'm very bullish on this post-PC trend. I've been watching the market for a long time and the iPhone/iPad really is a fulfilment of the vision of people like Alan Kay and Mark Weiser. I view the PC as a minor detour on the road to the tablet. There are people alive now, in my opinion, who will never use a mouse. They'll wonder how the hell we ever put up with not being able to hold and touch our screens. They won't believe that people were once tethered to their desks by their computers. They'll find the current situation as unbelievable as many people find the idea of tablets being used for productive and creative tasks. I also think the tablet is, in many ways, a permanent achievement and while there will be other complementary UI technologies (such as speech), the tablet form factor will be with us much longer than the PC (laptop/desktop) form factor ever was. (The tablet is basically the computerisation of print media and the two-dimensional surface used for writing, diagraming and depiction is basic to human civilisation.)
Personally I think tablets will eventually replace PCs completely. Here's some bullet points:
- Anything a tablet can't do now because it doesn't have the CPU/GPU power, just wait until the next version. Eventually it'll be able to do it. The performance gap between tablet and laptop performance will close too, just like it has between desktop and laptop. Very few people need to choose a workstation over a laptop today.
- Touch is a superior interface to the mouse/trackpad. Touch is direct, the mouse/trackpad is indirect.
- The whole physical keyboard thing is totally overblown. Most people don't type much. This has gotten a lot of press because the press happen to be a subset of the population who need to type a lot, fast. People got by with handwriting for centuries before keyboards became ubiquitous (and typing only really became ubiquitous with the PC and most people still can't do it very well). You can always add a bluetooth keyboard for when you're typing that novel anyway.
- They can make bigger tablets. Tablets could be paired with large external displays. Etc. There are a lot of ways to accommodate professionals.
- Most professionals I know maximise all their apps anyway. Not sure windows are really the incredible productivity feature people think they are.
- Programming isn't inherently tied to typing in code. In fact, that's a pretty bad way to do it.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
The idea that somehow PCs are going to go away is completely absurd. Can you imagine in offices all over the world people hunched over tablets prodding away with their chubby fingers at little screens covered in finger grease? Aside from the epic amounts of sore necks that would create, world productivity would drop by thousands of percent, and to what end?
Keyboards are the quickest way to input text, and anyone in an office needs to do that. A mouse or a wacom are vastly more precise than prodding at a screen with a finger. Having a separate, large screen which you never smear with finger grease at an ergonomic angle is obviously the only serious option, and having a box full of CPU and GPU power, and RAM is what any professional who works in CG or media production would need.
At home, sure, people can sit on their sofas and prod at their tablets to emails and play simple casual games, but that's where it ends. The moment someone needs to do actual work, they will fire up a PC.
20 years from now we may not even have offices. With cloud computing and IBMs new chip that interfaces directly with the brain, there's no reason to think that keyboards will remain faster than just thinking to a computer or that people will still huddle up in cubicles to do work when they can be more connected with someone across the globe than in their own living room. The iPad is the 2nd device (iPhone is the first) of a new era, where computers are built to work with us and not built for us to learn how to use them. The post-pc era means that we're moving away from these devices that use artificial tools for input which do not match how we as humans intuitively work and think. PCs will be around for quite awhile, but their functions will be continuing to diminish, and at some point in the future, the current embodiment of a box with a display a mouse and a keyboard will seem as outdated as a rotary phone.
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.
Absolutely.
When I had a work Blackberry, I found it unacceptable for anything but replying to an email with a few words. I didn't feel I could do real work on it. It was more of a tool to let me know what I had to take care of once I returned home or to the office.
When the iPhone was released, the email and web were so far superior, it enabled me to be able to "leave the house" and still be able to respond effectively to clients. While slow, I could still view decent renditions of spreadsheets, Word documents, etc. It was a life-changer.
But it still doesn't replace a PC/Mac. When I need to do real work: write specs, respond with long emails, create spreadsheets, Visio diagrams, Photoshop work, etc., neither the phone, nor today's tablets work very well. Personally, I find that typing on the iPad, even when it's horizontal, hurts my hands.
I think we're seeing a split in the market. For those who primarily read ebooks, browse websites, listen to music, play videos, play games, tweet, send short emails, etc., the Pads are terrific and that's all they probably need. But for those who still do complex work on a computer and need to produce it efficiently, the traditional computer or laptop is still a far more effective tool and looks like it will remain that way far into the future. The only problem will be is that since the masses would probably be fine with a Pad, whether Apple and the PC manufacturers will continue aggressive development of the traditional computer for what will probably be a declining market.
From my perspective, I'm sorry to see HP leave the market and I'm sorry to see their Pad fail (except it seems to be quite successful at $99). I think competition is good for the market and good competition helps keep the lid on Apple's arrogance.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
From one UNIX geek to another: it's all UNIX in the end ol'timer! All of this is STILL UNIX!
But the fact that people don't even know it is its success!
Ever notice Ballmer'd response to a New Apple technology the MS does not posess?
iPod- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks. There are plenty of MP3 players. We aren't concerned
iPhone- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
iPad- Who's goin' to pay 500 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
Then later... We are not in a post PC world, we are in a PC plus world. We aren't concerned.
Seems like he he could do more market research. Seems like people are willing to pay X bucks for products what Apple sells.
Shouldn?t be concerned? Why doe MS list Apple and Google as there two biggest threats to the well being of MS. maybe BS, oh, i mean SB could read his own company's 10-K statement.
I don't think as it stands, it can replace a laptop or desktop entirely though as it has no connectivity to mass storage and is not currently a master device. iOS 5 will change the latter. It would need a filesystem manager for the former.
I don't believe that Apple wants to reveal the file system on iOS -- they want to reveal less of the file system. For example, ~/Library is hidden in OS X Lion.
If you can recall the first time you fired up OS X 10.1, the file system was about the only thing that worked.
And it was confusing -- especially coming from the Mac or Windows.
Where is everything? Where do I put my stuff? Whose got the Data?
I didn't much care for it (and I have a mainframe background).
Anyway, I adjusted my work habits, developed my own naming schemes and folder/file structure -- but I still need Spotlight to search the metadata to find where the file that I was working on a couple of months ago -- I think it was May -- and I named it "Video Wall" or "VideoWall" or some such.
The key here is metadata -- and the fact that, behind-the-scene, the Mac is examining my files, categorizing them and providing "meaningful" access to them -- as opposed to a drill-down of the file system.
Why should I have to know where the OS, or I put something -- as long as I can find it.
An oversimplification, to be sure.
Then there are things called "Smart Folders" where you can ask the OS to categorize things based on Names, Tags, Dates, Keywords, Content.
Apple may be taking the first tentative baby steps away from a rigid file system to one that is more natural.
iOS's lack of a file system is frustrating to us because there is nothing to replace it.
But, maybe a replacement is in the wings.
Before I get into that, Think about the last time you showed your gf, Mom or any non-techie how to use a Mac -- and how to trip-toe through the file system. Kinda' like teaching someone to drive.
After several hours of frustration, it goes something like this -- you tell them (your voice raising):
1) You will find the programs in the "Applications" folder -- no, I don't know why they didn't call it "Programs"
2) Put your stuff in the "Documents" folder or the "Desktop" folder -- and look for it there.
3) Don't touch any of the other folders.
4) I'll come back in a couple of weeks, when you are more familiar with the system and help you organize all the piles of stuff you have lying around.
...Awww... You touched the "Pictures" folder
Remember, put yourself in their position -- when you first learned a computer, GUI, mouse, click and point [sic] and now a file system.
OK?
What Apple appears to be doing is repurposing the file system by:
1) identifying files by when they were created -- regardless of what they are, every file has a creation date -- and that means something.
2) organizing files into "smart collections" -- where the files are categorized by metadata (names, keywords, content) -- regardless of where the files are actually stored or which Apps are used to create and manipulate them.
3) providing efficient, intuitive means of locating and accessing the files -- without needing to know or care how the OS's file system handles them
I think this is already happening Mac OS X -- and will soon be ported to iOS,
HP got out of the PC business because their margins were approaching ZERO.
In reality, PCs will not be disappearing as production with one is clearly immense in the right hands, but the majority of consumers don't utilize the full capacity of these systems. Yes, having both will become standard, but the highest profit margins reside in the Embedded space.
Apple makes higher profit margin solutions in both spaces and sales aren't slowing down in their niche of the PC space.
Generic BTO boxes are cutting HP out of the profits area for PCs. Their perceived added value relative to a generic build to order or build your own PC from Newegg has been declining for a long time. Printers were compensating for their declining margins.
Apple has an end-to-end solution for the Digital Entertainment value Consumers use the most. HP tried years after Apple perfected it and were unsuccessful.
With more professionals in the various engineering, sciences and more using Macs for their consumer portion of their lifestyle it just makes sense for those OEMs to start porting their heavy applications over to the Mac. The bleed over from just Windows for Science/Engineering and just Macs for Arts/Entertainment isn't going from the Mac to the PC like it once was, but just the reverse.
Apple is the growth platform for the youth and that means entering University freshmen are spending their money away from Windows where both margins and popularity are exploding. Companies like Autodesk aren't going to pass the opportunity to expand their entire line up on those growth markets.
When HP announced they are getting out of the HP Workstation/PC business this no doubt sent a shock wave out to the likes of ANSYS, PTC [Creo the new Pro/Engineer, etc], Mentor Graphics and more who all have intricate relationships in their end-to-end design and printing solutions with HP.
Expect major Engineering solutions to start porting to the Mac in 2012.
20 years from now we may not even have offices. With cloud computing and IBMs new chip that interfaces directly with the brain, there's no reason to think that keyboards will remain faster than just thinking to a computer or that people will still huddle up in cubicles to do work when they can be more connected with someone across the globe than in their own living room. The iPad is the 2nd device (iPhone is the first) of a new era, where computers are built to work with us and not built for us to learn how to use them. The post-pc era means that we're moving away from these devices that use artificial tools for input which do not match how we as humans intuitively work and think. PCs will be around for quite awhile, but their functions will be continuing to diminish, and at some point in the future, the current embodiment of a box with a display a mouse and a keyboard will seem as outdated as a rotary phone.
The move to the home office/telecommuting will be greatly accelerated by socio-economic conditions... faltering economies, crumbling infrastructure, expensive gas, safety concerns, robotic mechanization of manufacturing plants, computers designing and building new computers, green concerns. As we moved from the farm, so shall we move from the cubicle.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
By contrast, the kb is an inferior means of doing other things:
-- drawing or editing a picture
-- zooming and panning
-- controlling visual objects such as sliders, knobs, dials
-- architectural diagrams, blueprints
-- computing while standing (as I'm doing this) in line
For the above, the kb is incidental, at best -- a virtual kb for text is sufficient.
Ever notice Ballmer'd response to a New Apple technology the MS does not posess?
iPod- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks. There are plenty of MP3 players. We aren't concerned
iPhone- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
iPad- Who's goin' to pay 500 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
Then later... We are not in a post PC world, we are in a PC plus world. We aren't concerned.
Seems like he he could do more market research. Seems like people are willing to pay X bucks for products what Apple sells.
Shouldn?t be concerned? Why doe MS list Apple and Google as there two biggest threats to the well being of MS. maybe BS, oh, i mean SB could read his own company's 10-K statement.
The story goes that Ballmer was fitted with a clear-glass navel -- so he can see where he is going with his head up his ass
PCs, whether using Windows, MacOS X or some other OS, are going to stick around as your heavy duty content creation machines. Tablets, smartphones are going to be mainly fir light weight content creation and content consuming. That doesn't mean there won't be any cross-over, but when approaching these devices their strengths and usage scenarios need to be understood.
Saying Windows is dead is short sighted. At the same time saying that an OS designed fir a desktop is great for a tablet is also short sighted.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has said that it views tablets as PCs. The company is betting that, over time, PCs, tablets and smartphoens will come together into a "unified ecosystem."
"Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise," Ballmer said in January.
Comments
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.
Nicely put! These examples come from my workplace, I work in healthcare IT..
Remember the paperless office? Didn't happen with the PC for the reasons you mentioned.
Sure, you may need a pc to type a document and spreadsheet..... But we can do admissions of patients directly in the waiting area using an iPad, charting... We used to use tablets anyway, but battery life got in the way! Now the iPad lasts as long as the shift, is lighter and instantly on... Not to mention the price difference
Most of our regular users input tidbits of data and look thing up. They don't type their life story at least they're not supposed to
Whats so ironic is, isnt Apple's Mac OSX and its entire computer line up a "personal" computer ? Aka a "PC" too?
What past of "Post" aren't you comprehending. "Post-PC" doesn't mean the elimination of the PC it just means after in an order of time. Meaning the focus of the future of computing isn't going to be the traditional PC but all these other computing devices that we use for tasks once only done by 'PCs'. I know people who are and aren't computer savvy that have one 'PC' but have an iPad and modern smartphone. These are two Post-PC devices to one. If you include the Kindle which is growing in usability and likely yo grow into a proper tablet it'll be no question it's also a Post-PC device.
Look at the landscape of unit sales. How many PCs are sold worldwide compared to tablets and smartphones running modern mobile OSes. These markets are growing. These are what people are reaching to for quick access to data. It does not and has never meant the 'PC" will go away. It shouldn't be that hard to understand.
Whats so ironic is, isnt Apple's Mac OSX and its entire computer line up a "personal" computer ? Aka a "PC" too?
[...]
It's hilarious that Apple tries to differentiate itself away from the general category when it itself resides in one.
It is not hilarious, but in fact something that makes Apple so successful today. They are not afraid to sacrifice their current setup when they envisage a future. So, yes, the Mac is a 'truck' too and Apple knows it.
You can read that as inconsistent (and thus position yourself in the status quo) or you can go outside that box and see that Apple actually is smart enough not to remain locked in to the current situation, unwilling to see a future where their current lineup is not there anymore. Ballmer sees "Windows everywhere". If that is more than a branding statement (and it seems that it is), it strongly suggests marketing myopia. If Microsoft cannot see a future where the PC is irrelevant in many areas, they will be badly positioned to react to it if it indeed does happen.
In the meantime, Apple is working to cut the umbilical cord that connects non-PC devices to the PC. Like iPod, iPhone, iPad. AppleTV2 is already arguably the first non-PC computing device that is not dependent on the PC anymore. As these devices become disconnected from the PC, they are post-PC. You do not need a PC anymore to use them.
Now, if all these devices become less dependent on a PC, the PC is going to become less relevant for many people. But certainly not for all. There will remain an important role for trucks.
Once a person is holding TB's of storage in their hands, as I'm sure we'll see in the next few years of iPads and such, when storage in 'the cloud' keeps our data everywhere at once, there won't be a need for a 'homebase' computer.... whether that is a PC/Windows device, or even an iMac as far as that goes. People may still choose that configuration because of its convenience, but no one will "need" a PC.
MS needs to do what Apple did... start with a new paradigm... throw out the old Windows code... provide compatibility with an emulation layer if necessary (like Rosetta did for PPC hardware), and move on. There was a time when supporting 10,000 graphics cards was needed... that was in 1995...
1. There's a parallel trend to the cloud. More and more businesses are moving from proprietary apps to cloud-based "software as a service" apps. Making these mobile-compitable is relatively straightforward and something that happens outside the public eye. These kind of services can adapt very quickly to new devices. That makes it easier for businesses to support a variety of devices.
2. Businesses can adopt mobile devices in bulk. We're seeing this happen already with some companies moving tens of thousands of workers to smartphones and tablets.
3. The PC market is collapsing for entirely different reasons. Margins are low. IBM bowed out a long time ago because services are more profitable. Now HP has gone. Generally the PC industry, being low margin, will move East. Those margins will look pretty good to Chinese companies looking to move up the supply chain. But importantly, the ability of the PC industry as a whole to respond to disruption is being severely diminished. The encroachment of tablets is not being met with any significant resistance. Even Microsoft doesn't appear to be putting up much of a fight.
4. I think there was a lot of pent-up consumer demand for a device like this anyway. The PC has long been overkill for the needs of most people. The form factors have always been awkward for casual use.
I'm very bullish on this post-PC trend. I've been watching the market for a long time and the iPhone/iPad really is a fulfilment of the vision of people like Alan Kay and Mark Weiser. I view the PC as a minor detour on the road to the tablet. There are people alive now, in my opinion, who will never use a mouse. They'll wonder how the hell we ever put up with not being able to hold and touch our screens. They won't believe that people were once tethered to their desks by their computers. They'll find the current situation as unbelievable as many people find the idea of tablets being used for productive and creative tasks. I also think the tablet is, in many ways, a permanent achievement and while there will be other complementary UI technologies (such as speech), the tablet form factor will be with us much longer than the PC (laptop/desktop) form factor ever was. (The tablet is basically the computerisation of print media and the two-dimensional surface used for writing, diagraming and depiction is basic to human civilisation.)
Personally I think tablets will eventually replace PCs completely. Here's some bullet points:
- Anything a tablet can't do now because it doesn't have the CPU/GPU power, just wait until the next version. Eventually it'll be able to do it. The performance gap between tablet and laptop performance will close too, just like it has between desktop and laptop. Very few people need to choose a workstation over a laptop today.
- Touch is a superior interface to the mouse/trackpad. Touch is direct, the mouse/trackpad is indirect.
- The whole physical keyboard thing is totally overblown. Most people don't type much. This has gotten a lot of press because the press happen to be a subset of the population who need to type a lot, fast. People got by with handwriting for centuries before keyboards became ubiquitous (and typing only really became ubiquitous with the PC and most people still can't do it very well). You can always add a bluetooth keyboard for when you're typing that novel anyway.
- They can make bigger tablets. Tablets could be paired with large external displays. Etc. There are a lot of ways to accommodate professionals.
- Most professionals I know maximise all their apps anyway. Not sure windows are really the incredible productivity feature people think they are.
- Programming isn't inherently tied to typing in code. In fact, that's a pretty bad way to do it.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
The idea that somehow PCs are going to go away is completely absurd. Can you imagine in offices all over the world people hunched over tablets prodding away with their chubby fingers at little screens covered in finger grease? Aside from the epic amounts of sore necks that would create, world productivity would drop by thousands of percent, and to what end?
Keyboards are the quickest way to input text, and anyone in an office needs to do that. A mouse or a wacom are vastly more precise than prodding at a screen with a finger. Having a separate, large screen which you never smear with finger grease at an ergonomic angle is obviously the only serious option, and having a box full of CPU and GPU power, and RAM is what any professional who works in CG or media production would need.
At home, sure, people can sit on their sofas and prod at their tablets to emails and play simple casual games, but that's where it ends. The moment someone needs to do actual work, they will fire up a PC.
20 years from now we may not even have offices. With cloud computing and IBMs new chip that interfaces directly with the brain, there's no reason to think that keyboards will remain faster than just thinking to a computer or that people will still huddle up in cubicles to do work when they can be more connected with someone across the globe than in their own living room. The iPad is the 2nd device (iPhone is the first) of a new era, where computers are built to work with us and not built for us to learn how to use them. The post-pc era means that we're moving away from these devices that use artificial tools for input which do not match how we as humans intuitively work and think. PCs will be around for quite awhile, but their functions will be continuing to diminish, and at some point in the future, the current embodiment of a box with a display a mouse and a keyboard will seem as outdated as a rotary phone.
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.
Absolutely.
When I had a work Blackberry, I found it unacceptable for anything but replying to an email with a few words. I didn't feel I could do real work on it. It was more of a tool to let me know what I had to take care of once I returned home or to the office.
When the iPhone was released, the email and web were so far superior, it enabled me to be able to "leave the house" and still be able to respond effectively to clients. While slow, I could still view decent renditions of spreadsheets, Word documents, etc. It was a life-changer.
But it still doesn't replace a PC/Mac. When I need to do real work: write specs, respond with long emails, create spreadsheets, Visio diagrams, Photoshop work, etc., neither the phone, nor today's tablets work very well. Personally, I find that typing on the iPad, even when it's horizontal, hurts my hands.
I think we're seeing a split in the market. For those who primarily read ebooks, browse websites, listen to music, play videos, play games, tweet, send short emails, etc., the Pads are terrific and that's all they probably need. But for those who still do complex work on a computer and need to produce it efficiently, the traditional computer or laptop is still a far more effective tool and looks like it will remain that way far into the future. The only problem will be is that since the masses would probably be fine with a Pad, whether Apple and the PC manufacturers will continue aggressive development of the traditional computer for what will probably be a declining market.
From my perspective, I'm sorry to see HP leave the market and I'm sorry to see their Pad fail (except it seems to be quite successful at $99). I think competition is good for the market and good competition helps keep the lid on Apple's arrogance.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
From one UNIX geek to another: it's all UNIX in the end ol'timer! All of this is STILL UNIX!
But the fact that people don't even know it is its success!
Cheers!
iPod- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks. There are plenty of MP3 players. We aren't concerned
iPhone- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
iPad- Who's goin' to pay 500 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
Then later... We are not in a post PC world, we are in a PC plus world. We aren't concerned.
Seems like he he could do more market research. Seems like people are willing to pay X bucks for products what Apple sells.
Shouldn?t be concerned? Why doe MS list Apple and Google as there two biggest threats to the well being of MS. maybe BS, oh, i mean SB could read his own company's 10-K statement.
I don't think as it stands, it can replace a laptop or desktop entirely though as it has no connectivity to mass storage and is not currently a master device. iOS 5 will change the latter. It would need a filesystem manager for the former.
I don't believe that Apple wants to reveal the file system on iOS -- they want to reveal less of the file system. For example, ~/Library is hidden in OS X Lion.
If you can recall the first time you fired up OS X 10.1, the file system was about the only thing that worked.
And it was confusing -- especially coming from the Mac or Windows.
Where is everything? Where do I put my stuff? Whose got the Data?
I didn't much care for it (and I have a mainframe background).
Anyway, I adjusted my work habits, developed my own naming schemes and folder/file structure -- but I still need Spotlight to search the metadata to find where the file that I was working on a couple of months ago -- I think it was May -- and I named it "Video Wall" or "VideoWall" or some such.
The key here is metadata -- and the fact that, behind-the-scene, the Mac is examining my files, categorizing them and providing "meaningful" access to them -- as opposed to a drill-down of the file system.
Why should I have to know where the OS, or I put something -- as long as I can find it.
An oversimplification, to be sure.
Then there are things called "Smart Folders" where you can ask the OS to categorize things based on Names, Tags, Dates, Keywords, Content.
Apple may be taking the first tentative baby steps away from a rigid file system to one that is more natural.
iOS's lack of a file system is frustrating to us because there is nothing to replace it.
But, maybe a replacement is in the wings.
Before I get into that, Think about the last time you showed your gf, Mom or any non-techie how to use a Mac -- and how to trip-toe through the file system. Kinda' like teaching someone to drive.
After several hours of frustration, it goes something like this -- you tell them (your voice raising):
1) You will find the programs in the "Applications" folder -- no, I don't know why they didn't call it "Programs"
2) Put your stuff in the "Documents" folder or the "Desktop" folder -- and look for it there.
3) Don't touch any of the other folders.
4) I'll come back in a couple of weeks, when you are more familiar with the system and help you organize all the piles of stuff you have lying around.
...Awww... You touched the "Pictures" folder
Remember, put yourself in their position -- when you first learned a computer, GUI, mouse, click and point [sic] and now a file system.
OK?
What Apple appears to be doing is repurposing the file system by:
1) identifying files by when they were created -- regardless of what they are, every file has a creation date -- and that means something.
2) organizing files into "smart collections" -- where the files are categorized by metadata (names, keywords, content) -- regardless of where the files are actually stored or which Apps are used to create and manipulate them.
3) providing efficient, intuitive means of locating and accessing the files -- without needing to know or care how the OS's file system handles them
I think this is already happening Mac OS X -- and will soon be ported to iOS,
In reality, PCs will not be disappearing as production with one is clearly immense in the right hands, but the majority of consumers don't utilize the full capacity of these systems. Yes, having both will become standard, but the highest profit margins reside in the Embedded space.
Apple makes higher profit margin solutions in both spaces and sales aren't slowing down in their niche of the PC space.
Generic BTO boxes are cutting HP out of the profits area for PCs. Their perceived added value relative to a generic build to order or build your own PC from Newegg has been declining for a long time. Printers were compensating for their declining margins.
Apple has an end-to-end solution for the Digital Entertainment value Consumers use the most. HP tried years after Apple perfected it and were unsuccessful.
With more professionals in the various engineering, sciences and more using Macs for their consumer portion of their lifestyle it just makes sense for those OEMs to start porting their heavy applications over to the Mac. The bleed over from just Windows for Science/Engineering and just Macs for Arts/Entertainment isn't going from the Mac to the PC like it once was, but just the reverse.
Apple is the growth platform for the youth and that means entering University freshmen are spending their money away from Windows where both margins and popularity are exploding. Companies like Autodesk aren't going to pass the opportunity to expand their entire line up on those growth markets.
When HP announced they are getting out of the HP Workstation/PC business this no doubt sent a shock wave out to the likes of ANSYS, PTC [Creo the new Pro/Engineer, etc], Mentor Graphics and more who all have intricate relationships in their end-to-end design and printing solutions with HP.
Expect major Engineering solutions to start porting to the Mac in 2012.
20 years from now we may not even have offices. With cloud computing and IBMs new chip that interfaces directly with the brain, there's no reason to think that keyboards will remain faster than just thinking to a computer or that people will still huddle up in cubicles to do work when they can be more connected with someone across the globe than in their own living room. The iPad is the 2nd device (iPhone is the first) of a new era, where computers are built to work with us and not built for us to learn how to use them. The post-pc era means that we're moving away from these devices that use artificial tools for input which do not match how we as humans intuitively work and think. PCs will be around for quite awhile, but their functions will be continuing to diminish, and at some point in the future, the current embodiment of a box with a display a mouse and a keyboard will seem as outdated as a rotary phone.
The move to the home office/telecommuting will be greatly accelerated by socio-economic conditions... faltering economies, crumbling infrastructure, expensive gas, safety concerns, robotic mechanization of manufacturing plants, computers designing and building new computers, green concerns. As we moved from the farm, so shall we move from the cubicle.
What tablets can't do: they don't have large screen and never will. Hence the need to be able to send signal wirelessly to external display and to intelligently find and pair with available one around it.
Keyboard is the most efficient way to do certain things, and programming and interacting with the computer is one of them. I'm a software developer and I hate when I walk over to someone that doesn't bloody know how to touch type let alone use advanced text editor like VIM or Emacs. Makes me want to take the keyboard and smack them on the head. It literally takes these people a week to do something a proficient UNIX geek does in 10 min.
By contrast, the kb is an inferior means of doing other things:
-- drawing or editing a picture
-- zooming and panning
-- controlling visual objects such as sliders, knobs, dials
-- architectural diagrams, blueprints
-- computing while standing (as I'm doing this) in line
For the above, the kb is incidental, at best -- a virtual kb for text is sufficient.
Ever notice Ballmer'd response to a New Apple technology the MS does not posess?
iPod- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks. There are plenty of MP3 players. We aren't concerned
iPhone- Who's goin' to pay 400 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
iPad- Who's goin' to pay 500 bucks for one of those things. We aren't concerned.
Then later... We are not in a post PC world, we are in a PC plus world. We aren't concerned.
Seems like he he could do more market research. Seems like people are willing to pay X bucks for products what Apple sells.
Shouldn?t be concerned? Why doe MS list Apple and Google as there two biggest threats to the well being of MS. maybe BS, oh, i mean SB could read his own company's 10-K statement.
The story goes that Ballmer was fitted with a clear-glass navel -- so he can see where he is going with his head up his ass
I idea of "post-PC" is not there will be no PC, but PC will no longer be the center of computing like it used it.
Nailed it!
VDI or equivalent will be the corporate desktop. The rest will be mobile thin clients.
High performance stuff may still be workstation centric, but by far not mainstream!
I idea of "post-PC" is not there will be no PC, but PC will no longer be the center of computing like it used it.
That's OK. Like IBM and their once mighty mainframes, Microsoft will ride the PC train to the bitter end. To the bitter end.
Saying Windows is dead is short sighted. At the same time saying that an OS designed fir a desktop is great for a tablet is also short sighted.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has said that it views tablets as PCs. The company is betting that, over time, PCs, tablets and smartphoens will come together into a "unified ecosystem."
"Windows will be everywhere on every device without compromise," Ballmer said in January.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Hah. The Pink Panther strikes again...
Ha!
MS is exhibiting a "rit of felous jage".