“‘Post-PC’ has been a buzzword in the past few months, since Steve Jobs announced at the iPad 2 launch event that Apple now gets a majority of its revenue from ‘post-PC devices,’ including the iPod, iPhone, and iPad—a major milestone for a company that was originally named ‘Apple Computer,'” Sarah Rotman Epps blogs for Forrester.
“So what does ‘post-PC’ mean, anyway? It doesn’t mean that the PC is dead: Forrester Research forecasts that even in the US, a mature market, consumer laptop sales will grow at a CAGR of 8% between 2010 and 2015, and desktop sales will decline only slightly,” Epps writes. “Even in 2015, when 82 million US consumers will own a tablet, more US consumers will own laptops (140 million).”
Computing is shifting from:
• Stationary to ubiquitous.
• Formal to casual.
• Arms-length to intimate.
• Abstracted to physical
Epps writes, “In the post-PC era, the “PC” is alive and well, but it morphs to support computing experiences that are increasingly ubiquitous, casual, intimate, and physical.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks, because that’s what you needed on the farm. But as vehicles started to be used in the urban centers, cars got more popular. Innovations like automatic transmission and power steering and things that you didn’t care about in a truck as much started to become paramount in cars… PCs are going to be like trucks. They’re still going to be around, they’re still going to have a lot of value, but they’re going to be used by one out of X people… I think that we’re embarked on that… You know, people laugh at me because I use the phrase “magical” to describe the iPad. But it’s what I really think. You have a much more direct and intimate relationship with the Internet and media, your apps, your content. It’s like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away. – Apple CEO Steve Jobs, June 1, 2010
“You have a much more direct and intimate relationship… It’s like some intermediate thing has been removed and stripped away.”
right… windows.
Is Jobs trying to say that the computer is about to become more personal?
Pc desktop sales will slump…
But my new 2011 iMac isn’t included in that.
It’s funny how people say things like smartphone sales are slow, yet apples goes up..
Pc sales are dropping, yet apple sells record numbers of macs…
When will they learn?
I assume that anyone uttering the praise “Post-PC” around Steve Ballmer at Microsoft may remember those as the last words they remember before the lights went out and the next thing they remember is waking up in the parking lot next to their car with a pink slip in their hand.
…with a broken chair lying nearby….
Steve Jobs to Personal Computer: “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!”
Awesome
this has to be one of the best posts of the year anywhere!
Thanks!
PPCD is a stupid label. Let’s kill it please. It’s simply an era of mobility. Period. End of story.
It’s the post PC era. PC’s are on the way out to be replaced by iPads and their siblings. The desktop will be gone first followed by laptops. That’s just the way it is!
Steve was signaling this clear shift. Even our beloved Macs will be replaced by tablet likecdevices of various sizes.
Sounds like Post PC to me.
PostPC? No, the devices are all literally still “personal computers” in different sizes and flavors. Apple’s success has many faces, statements and edges followed at length…
Underneath it all is a core concept: Simplicity which leads to Ease of Use!
Tablets, iPhones & MacBook Airs embodying Ease of Use from hardware to software are why they are succeeding.
The first competitor which really matches Apple’s Ease of Use coupled with the services that compliment Ease of Use will succeed in taking over a significant market share.
Seriously, ‘post-PC’ means just one thing- it’s time to see µ$oft in our rear-view mirrors. PC is analog, noisy, inaccurate, clumsy, chromed instead of designed. PC is also dangerous now.
Post-Gates
Dang. I thought Post-PC meant we could say, “girl” instead of “woman,” once in a while without having a hole stared through our heads by every female in earshot.
Be a good little boy and do the right thing.
What Post-PC era means is that Microsoft, HP and Dell, combined are worth less than Apple. Yep, add it up and weep!
Stupid, there’s no post PC. I have told you all that. It’s just PC in various form factors. Right, Bill?
Your iPod/iPhone/iPad is still tied to a more ‘traditional’ computer, of course. So there’s some way to go before this new era.