What is the Post-PC Era? Discussion

[Jamison Cush]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs made headlines last week when he described the post-PC era as ushered in by the iPad and other tablets.

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[Jamison Cush]

Segmentation is the keyword here. For some, even the lowliest netbook is just too much for their needs. All they want/need to do is consume media. As such, the market will segment and products will come along that better serve them.

And that's where the iPad and the current crop of tablets comes into play. I think Jobs knows that. He designed the iPad for my mother, who knows nothing about computing. For her, the PC is dead, she just doesn't need it so long as she has her friendly iPad tablet.

[Shogmaster]

The distinction is more like X86 computers vs non X86 (read ARM) computers. And iPad is leading the ARM tablet charge. MS Tablet PC standard makes up most of the X86 tablets group.

I think for the foreseeable future, ARM computers will be mostly for consumption and X86 computers will be for content creation and work.

[NamelessPlayer]

I think the "post-PC" era will mostly consist of smartphones being the new PCs and today's powerful desktop PCs being tomorrow's home servers. Advances in remote desktop/VNC implementations (particularly interface and networking) can make this happen, but I don't know when.

The next tablets could be smartphones docked into a large screen/battery unit, or they might still be intermediate computers. I don't really know, but whatever the case, I'd just hope that they'd still retain Wacom pens in the future and really start displacing paper.

[purplepeopledesign]

I think for the foreseeable future, ARM computers will be mostly for consumption and X86 computers will be for content creation and work.

+2

The Post-PC era won't happen until bandwidth becomes high enough for cloud computing to be a viable alternative for the really high-power applications in engineering, architecture, design, photography, graphics, movie-making and audio.

No matter what Apple would like consumers to believe, CAD, Photoshop, Pro/Tools and RealFlow are not going to be possible on little toys like the iPad. In many cases, the workstations required for this kind of work need extra power in the form of graphics and audio cards. And even when networks can manage this kind of throughput or Apple manages to shoehorn enough CPU into an iPad, you still have the added problem of tiny displays. While many creators (in all disciplines) will tell you that the tools matter less than the wielder, they will also admit that some tools are totally inadequate for some tasks. There is a reason that people have huge monitors and only massive improvements in wearable 3D or holographics will make the PC as we know it obsolete.

:)ensen.

[Bronsky]

I think for the foreseeable future, ARM computers will be mostly for consumption and X86 computers will be for content creation and work.

I don't think of a tablet as merely a consumption device. Clearly, this is what Apple would it to be. But, for me, the tablet can fill in a massive gap between the high-powered notebook that stays on my desk most of the time and the small blackberry that follows me where-ever I go. The tablet could take the place of the thin leather folio that I also take with my everywhere I go during my working day.

Typically, when out of the office, my most pressing need is to review documents that need approval and, on occasion, editing/redlining. The blackberry is simply too small for me to read documents forwarded for my review. What I need is something near the size of a piece of paper that will display the document near its original size. Can Arm based tablets use Word, Adobie and WordPerfect?

I also typically need to do computer aided research while on the road as well. A web browser would suffice. So, there is clearly a need in some professions for a tablet that is something less than a full blown notebook. Handwriting recognition and possibly a voice/typing program would be nice.

Finally, it would be nice to have print that is as easy to read as the kindle.

Bronsky

[heatlesssun]

PCs are still evolving as well. Been playing games with nVidia's Surround since the beta drivers came out on my 3x SLI GTX 480 rig with three 24" 1920 x 1200 rig, all I can say is "Wow!"

PCs and smaller devices aren't mutually exclusive.

[NamelessPlayer]

PCs and smaller devices aren't mutually exclusive.

And that's the problem these journalists have: they can't think beyond absolutes. Only one tool must be present, or sometimes even no tool at all:

"In fact it eliminates the need to hold a controller entirely, just like the iPhone and iPad free users of mice and styluses. Beyond Soviet Russia, the input device uses you."

Yeah, like different, specialized input devices are a bad thing...ugh. Some of these people make me cringe. (Oh, and that same writer wrote off pen computing. Prepare to rage.)

[heatlesssun]

And that's the problem these journalists have: they can't think beyond absolutes.

Bingo! And the thing is that when these iPad and slate nuts go to town they seem to think that the PC is a stangnat form, the PC platform evolves VERY quickly, every time I turn around there's something neat.

One thing that gamers have been getting into is multi-monitor and 3D gaming and that didn't even exist really a year ago, not at the consumer level. It really changes the gaming experience like nothing else, your whole field of vision is in the game, just amazing. Not coming to the iPad anytime soon.

[Bronsky]

Bingo! And the thing is that when these iPad and slate nuts go to town they seem to think that the PC is a stangnat form, the PC platform evolves VERY quickly, every time I turn around there's something neat.

One thing that gamers have been getting into is multi-monitor and 3D gaming and that didn't even exist really a year ago, not at the consumer level. It really changes the gaming experience like nothing else, your whole field of vision is in the game, just amazing. Not coming to the iPad anytime soon.

Yea. I don't see a slate as a replacement for the PC, more of an adjunct.