Last night I opined that Apple would, in the near future, license OS X and kill Windows.
One reader, Rob, accused me of clear logic. Baxtrice and Caped Cod assumed I was talking about personal computers.
I plead innocent on all counts.
First, I can’t really spell my logic all out in the time between starting to post and having too much beer to be coherent. Therefore, it’s unlikely that my logic is is as sharp as it should be.
Second, I never was talking about personal computers in the first place. The only way to discuss personal computers respectfully is in a eulogy. They’re dead. The personal computer is an anachronism in the twenty-first century.
The iPad will do most of the stuff most of us need to do most of the time. There will be inferior competitors. Apple will refrain from crushing inferior competitors because the absence of competition creates a monopoly. Apple won’t be the next Microsoft. At least not accidentally.
Apple is not going to win the war on personal computers. Apple has waited out the war on personal computers until it no longer means anything. The differences between different operating systems, at this point, is roughly the same as the differences between Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Seventh Day Adventists. Details. All the important stuff is the same. They look the same, act the same, respond the same way to the same input.
The war of operating systems is over. Master Jobst Fimil issued a concession a few years ago. The Master knew the trophy was a perishable prize for a perishable product.. A carved-ice loving cup awarded for the best gallon of milk.
Personal computers are dead. DEAD. If you like PCs, savor the one you’re using. It is, at best, the leading edge of the end of the genre.
The iPad marks the beginning of the “cellular computer.” It’s like cellular phone, except it does everything you needed a computer to do wherever you happen to be standing. It isn’t supposed to completely obviate a computer for those who actually need the power of a personal computer. It’s supposed to provide what it provides. You may find you don’t need a desktop or a laptop computer anymore once you have your iPad. That isn’t Apple’s fault.
Nokia didn’t kill the desk phone, either. It’s dead.
When everything you need is available in your pocket, all the time, you’re going to notice less and less need to own a desktop/laptop computer.
Now, if you’re a power user, developer, graphic artist, musician, you may still need a Mac. You won’t need a Windoze box though.
Please include in the comments any insight you have as to why someone would pay the same price for a fixed-location inferior operating system as they would have to pay for a completely mobile device with a superior operating system. Keep in mind that the fixed system will require regular updates to the anti-malware software. Also, remember that this is a device is for reading email and looking up a recipe for low-salt miso soup.
Note: Apple can gain lots and lots of business without reducing significantly the number of people who are ignoring Apple. Most people flat don’t care about computers or digital technology. Most people just want their stuff to do the stuff they bought their stuff to do. So Caped Cod can be right and I can be right.
As for the argument that the iPad isn’t designed to replace various things… Baxtrice is exactly correct. The thing is, nothing can ever replace a personal computer. No more than anything can ever replace a buggy whip or a crank handle. The function of a personal computer was to allow hobbyists and casual users equall access to different parts of a machine.
The iPad will allow neither user access to the guts. It’s all runtime. Access to the guts is for desktop users with the right access codes.
The day of the personal computer is over.
Gone.
Dead.
Glorious.
…
…
I respectfully disagree with your assessment. I’m not saying you’re completely wrong but at the very least, I think you’re jumping the gun by a few years.
The iPad in it’s current (nee, soon-to-be) form isn’t even close to replacing what most desktop and laptop computers do for the millions of people that sit at a desk using them all day every day.
As two examples, I would point to my mother and sister. Neither are power users, but both use a computer all day long, multi-tasking with spreadsheets, word processing, custom databases, etc. Neither of them are anywhere near having their needs met by a non-multi-tasking, glorified web browser and email client.
A home user surfing the web and reading email, maybe. The iPad is not even close to replacing the PC in corporate – or even small business – America, any time soon.
Rip, you ignorant Apple slut!
All kidding aside, your last post was mainly discussing how the iPad will replace the desktop:
Everything the average Joe on the street needs to do will be addressed by the iPad, once it can send to a printer, that is. Or when printed paper becomes obsolete.
When that happens, the desktop computer will be obsolete…
Likewise, the days of the home desktop computer are numbered.
That kind of talk leads one to infer you are comparing the iPad to the Desktop/Laptop PC.
I agree with you that Apple isn’t competing in the PC war anymore, and that this device isn’t aimed at that, I do think they are trying to ignite the OS war again. With the iPhone OS, it was just a twinkle in the eye of the master, the iPad declares full out war. Since the iPad is a new device, a “cellular computing” device, Jobs is staking his ground early. This time around it’s going to be Google versus Apple.
Until the iPad is a little more robust to stand on it’s own and not have to synced with a desktop, the Desktop is not dead. The iPad is directly and squarely aimed at the Kindle and Netbooks in it’s current form.
I predict a bitter struggle in the works, and this is just the beginning.
you have a recipe for low-salt miso soup????
I think you missed my meaning – I said nothing about the iPad being a PC or replacing PCs. I simply recalled conversations that we had fifteen years ago. Your predictions in those conversations did not come true – no matter how logically based. I’m simply saying that because a large portion of the population ignores Apple, your current prognostications will most likely be faulty – for the same reasons that your previous predictions were wrong.
I have to agree with Baxtrice on one section. I don’t see that the iPad (and future generations of it) will obliterate the personal computer. I see the iPad as a medial device that would fit nicely between a desktop computer (the central hub that holds all the data and ability to do more than one thing at a time) and the iPhone (small form of cellular computing). The iPad would work well as a small subset of computing day to day for a family, with the main desktop computer as the more robust information database. I could use my ipad at school to type up notes, work on some papers, check school and home email, and do some internet searching (while listening to music and watching some fun movies). Then I could go home, put all my day’s work on the desktop, and work on the main computer on research projects.
Anyways, this was just how I see the iPad working into everyday life for a college student. It’s highly improbable it can do everything a desktop can do. It will most likely work fluently with a desktop for the optimal user experience.
Another tidbit I’ll throw out there – expanding on comments by baxtrice and jas:
I predict it’s only a matter of weeks or months after the iPad release that we see an official app from Apple that will turn it into a quite capable wireless remote for a traditional Mac. Think “Remote” (the iTunes Remote app for iPhone) on steroids.
I run an 11 year-old, first gen G4 as a headless iTunes juke-box connected to the home theater and I LOVE that Remote app for my iPhone! It’s much more convenient than VNC or Screen Sharing.
Today’s Macs are powerful enough – both hardware and OS-wise – to allow two users to be simultaneously logged in to their “home” on a single Mac over wi-fi. One can use the Mac directly and another could simultaneously do 90% – 100% of normal Mac tasks elsewhere in the house using the iPad as a remote.
For that matter, a decent 3G connection – and certainly the coming 4G networks – could probably do the same from most anywhere.
In fact, it should be relatively simple to do with a basic VNC app for the iPad, similar to Screen Sharing on the Mac and even easier to use over cellular with Back to My Mac on the iPad. I’m not certain the iPad has the CPU power to do it, but I’d bet it does.
That’s where this is going and I predict we’ll see it before the end of this calendar year.
That’s my kid. Did you read that? Damn. It’s only a matter of time before she’s kicking my ass at Scrabble® on a routine basis.
I didn’t even know what “medial” meant when I was that age.
Boy Rip, have you taken some heat here! I feel the need to jump on your wagon and hopefully clarify the sort of points you were making. As I see it all the commenter’s are still missing what, I think, you are trying to say. We all keep thinking within our own little boxes and what it is we want in our computing experience and confuse the terminology “power user”!
DC brings to his argument, as support for his position, his mother and sister. Both of whom use a PC “all day long, multi-tasking with spreadsheets, word processing, custom databases, etc.”. Hmm sounds to me like these people know how to use their software and thus in my opinion would be Office power users! Sure they don’t know how to program, 3D render etc but I bet they rock at Excel, Word and Access! iPad not for them in that regard.
My interpretation of comments from Baxtrice and Jas is they are still thinking what it would do for them and find the iPad wanting.
DC says earlier “the iPad in it’s current (nee, soon-to-be) form isn’t even close to replacing what most desktop and laptop computers do for the millions of people that sit at a desk using them all day every day”. Guess what he is right! It won’t but here’s the thing I think you are saying, there are millions more people who DO NOT use a PC everyday and possibly want to but find the challenge of understanding the worlds most prolific OS beyond them.
To support my assertions I will introduce my older brother who has absolutely NO idea how to use a computer other than for web browsing (and even then)! I can see in his eyes and hear the infliction in his voice that it is all too frustrating but he wants to be part of it! He wants to be able to enjoy the internet experience and least not be such a noob in the eyes of his 12 y.o. son. His wife is a little better but if it’s not on the desktop forget it and believe it or not there are more of these kinds of people than there are people who at least know what a spreadsheet is and how to autosum.
These are the people the iPad is for and when they get their hands on one I can see the lights turn on inside their heads and because of this to their minds the PC suddenly becomes obsolete!
God I hope that makes sense!
Ok. So I missed all this action by a few days… Now that this thread is as cold as an eskimo’s bum I can say what I like and no one will have to know.
I disagree (not passionately, just in a kinda vague hunch kinda way and of course speaking only for myself) with Rip’s recombinant, the erudite jas. I have a sneaking suspicion that the iPad really answers about 80% of the needs that normal laptops/desktops used to answer.
To ruminate a bit; back in the 80′s, I always lusted after the top of the line desktop machines, because more power was always, always good. For the last decade or so though I have been quite happy with my iMac. My lust for power has been satisfied by a low end machine. I see no reason why this trend might not continue and the iPad turn out to have all the power I need.
If they can get WoW running workably on an iPad, and I can work out how I get to watch my DVDs without too much futzing about, I would have no need for any other machine at home. As for work, my spreadsheets are too big to be done on an iPads screen, but that’s the only problem.
Actually, there’s a flaw in the paragraph above. I am sitting in front of a 24 inch screen. I love it. So um, as long as I can also plug in my iPad (like one of those docking Macs from years ago) and have it drive this screen when I’m playing WoW, *then* I’d be set…
Which really leaves me with only one thought, do eskimos have cushions to sit on in igloos?