“The iPad – and other tablets if we ever get some good ones – poses an existential threat to the laptop. But it might provide a new lease on life for the much-ignored desktop PC,” Steve Wildstrom writes for TechPinions.
“I’m starting from the increasingly uncontroversial premise that a good tablet is all the computer most people need,” Wildstrom writes. “The biggest weakness of tablets, the lack of local storage, is being solved in the cloud. For the times that you want to write more than is comfortable with the on-screen keyboard, a lightweight Bluetooth keyboard does the trick.”
Wildstrom writes, “For some of us, though, a full-featured PC remains very much a part of our everyday toolkit… a 27″ iMac… is my desktop workhorse. What I am finding however, is that is use my laptops less and less. I spent this past weekend at a family event in North Carolina. I took both an iPad and a 13″ MacBook Air and the MacBook never came out of my bag. Everything I wanted could be done more conveniently on the iPad. Even on business trips, I’m finding the laptop doesn’t get used unless I really need it.”
Read more in the full article here.
I know I rarely ever use my MacBook Air anymore. The combination of using an iPhone/iPad & my iMac suits 99.9% of my computing needs now.
2 year old news
I have to agree. This article is complete rubbish from beginning to end and the opposite of what many pundits are saying, that the laptop will ‘kill’ the desktop.
This “premise” is just as valid as the previous one that said, now that Apple’s laptops have “caught up” to desktop computers, it’s time for Apple to kill its desktops.
I’d rather have an iMac than a MacBook, but a lot of people still need high performance, flexibility/compatibility, AND mobility.
Yeah, it certainly is interesting to see how this goes. With an increasingly useful iPad, I’m trying to decide if my next computer is another MBA or an iMac. I no longer carry my MBA while traveling, so it may be an iMac, next.
When I need (or just have a hankering for) a really big screen, I go to the iMac. Its gorgeous and can display multiple windows side by side, each with great resolution! The desktop will never die, but over time, it may become mostly just a beautiful big screen that is too big to bring with you, regardless of where the computation is going on (who cares!). So, yes, get an iMac because there are always times when a big screen is the thing.
Excellent points.
Apple has covered all areas for almost all users.
Products seem to have overlap. Why do I need a AirBook if my iPad does the trick?
Definitely those using iPad and iMac and/or iPhone seem no longer a need to consider a Macbook/Air/Pro. Yet as sales tapper and technology increases – MacBooks/Air/Pros most-likely will return to glorious days when OSX matures or changes to a more iOS feel and touch functionality and the Air becomes a iSlate – then iPad has an official killer.
The really bad news for PC makers is, ambitious salesclerks won’t be shoving PCs down people’s throats anymore, they’ll be sending them home with iPads instead.
iPad and its successors will pop the heart of the PC Nation.
The PC and anything associated with it is my father’s ball and chain, not mine! Give me an iPad, on any beach, anywhere in the world and I can just start typing lik . . . .
It certainly has in my house. Whenever the time comes to put my MBP out to pasture, it’s getting replaced by an iMac and and iPad.
My girlfriend and I who live apart are both going to buy new iMacs. I have a 24″ will get a 27 or hopefully 30 inch for these old tired eyes. I have a 17 inch and an Airbook and an iPad and Iphone. I use the iMac the most, 2nd is the iPad. Both portables I haven’t used in months. The iphone, I just use for
calls and sports scores and Emergency.
I had a 2006 iMac , an planned on replacing with a Mac book pro and the apple monitor . I ended up going with an iPad and 21″ iMac .
I have been suggesting an iPad 16 3G with a Mac Mini as a basic combo to my friends on the Microsoft side that wanted the MacBook Pros- Almost since the day the iPad 3G came out. Both are portable, compact, and travel well. The Mini allows easy hookup to HDTV’s as well as monitors. The price for both is not too bad when you alriead have the other parts. I am glad to see this thought emerging though.
I’ve got a MacBook Pro but it hardly ever gets used unless I have some serious photo editing to do. The iPad is just so convenient! I’ve been thinking of replacing the MacBook Pro with an iMac since I never leave home with it anymore. The iMac can then be used for my more extensive video and photo projects while I use the iPad for everything else.
Agree with this analysis. I have an iPad, and a 27″ iMac.
The iMac is used as my media server (for my AppleTV) and doubles as a media center in my room. It, of course, is also used as my main computer, for programming, web development, running my OpenBSD web server in VMware, etc.
The iPad I leave on the coffee table for anyone to use and take with me on trips.
I still feel like while the iPad is a cool piece of kit, it’s still little more than a large iPhone. Whether at home or away, I use my 11″ Air constantly and my iPhone 4 for casual checks of FB or quick emails, pics, but that’s about it. As a writer by trade, I need a physical keyboard that’s not on the same surface I’m looking at. I love my Air and would buy another one in a heartbeat.
The laptop isn’t going anywhere. It will be the defacto computing device.
The concept of the desktop is going to change to a docking monitor with a keyboard. The desktop computer as we know it is already dead and just doesn’t know it. The basis of what we will call a desktop is what we have in our pockets to make call.
When the iBook AirPort were unveiled in
’99 I swore I’d never buy another desktop. Now I have an iMac iPad.
Add me to the list of people who fit that description. I sold my MBP and bought the first iPad and Mac Mini. I use the Mac Mini for my iTunes Library/AppleTV streaming and for occasional computing but use my iPad significantly more often.
I had a PowerMac but when it couldn’t be updated to Snow Leopard, I kept the 22″ monitor and got a MacBook Pro. When Belkin (finally) releases their Thunderbolt dock, my MBP will cease being a pseudo-desktop and will be used more away from the desk. There are still somethings for which a computer is still better than an iPad … oh I love my iPad, don’t get me wrong.
I agree. Since buying the original iPad two years ago, I’ve barely touched our MBP, and I continue to use my Mac Pro as much as before. The notebook is definitely the odd man out.
Yes.
Depending on preferences, people will have iPhone-iPad-iMac or iPhone-MBA-iMac (but not iPhone-iPad-MBA) as the basic triad (with the iMac also perhaps playing the role of always on home ‘server’). To expand you also have the smartwatch-like iPod Nano on one side, and Apple TV on the other.
I love my iPad, but I’m not giving up my Macs. I use the iPad for reading news and games, but not for anything else. Its the 1st version and probably some of my issues are not relevant to the latest iPad but this is what prevents my iPad from being a Mac replacement:
1: Typing. I’m just not as accurate on the on-screen keyboard. I keep missing the space bar and my words are often connected with m and n. Correcting errors is cumbersome – positioning the cursor is difficult and often takes several attemps. I have a wireless keyboard which helps somewhat, but the lack of a mouse or trackpad still makes cursor positioning tricky. As I type this, its very difficult to scroll backwards within the box – no scroll bars… Its possible, but slow. Typing other characters such as %#[]+= etc is cumbersome. Auto capitalisation is annoying – deleting an unwanted capitalised character leaves capitalisation on, unlike the Mac. Lately, perhaps because of resources used by notifications, typing can be very slow, with characters not displaying for some time and then suddenly catching up…
Browsing: Its awful… It is very slow to load pages and navigation is tricky. For instance, following a link on this site often leaves me unable to return to the article without reloading the article from scratch. I am always accidentally selecting links with my finger when i am trying to scroll. And for some reason Safari on the iPad crashes with lots of sites – the Washington Post website, for instance, is unreadable on my iPad, crashing Safari on every page with a pile of javascript errors. For a long time I have been unable to enter comments on this site from my iPad and have to retypenthem from my Mac. (note the “n” instead of the space – I have already fixed several of these typing errors). Usernames/passwords. The iPad doesn’t remember my usernames and passwords on some sites for some reason and I have to type them every time.
Multitasking. It doesn’t… And navigation between loaded but suspended sites is clumsy.
Video: I haven’t found a player which supports slow motion, and many of the videos on my Mac won’t run or even transfer to the iPad, or if they do they look awful.
Apps: Most apps are buggy. This app, for instance, does not always refresh the article list properly. The Huffpost app, despite regular updates, crashes regularly or hangs.
However, i would rather read the news on my iPad, and the iPad has replaced my iPhone for everything IOS except phone calls and text messages.
The marriage of the iMac and iPad has been foretold by this patent, and I can’t wait until we see it come to life:
http://gizmodo.com/339918/apple-docking-patent-works-perfectly-with-ultra+slim-macbook
Why so much gear for a family weekend? Whatever happened to talking to each other?
I use a 27″ iMac all day, and my 13″ MacBook Air (the original) for about an hour every day, 7 days a week. I use my iPad for reading mostly. Love them all. But the MacBook Air is something I’ll never give up and one day update. When I go to coffee shops, its Mac laptops I see everywhere, not iPads, much as I appreciate the iPad. They all serve different markets.
mobile is everything… iMac is dying.
I have a late 2008 MacBook Pro which I love, last year I bought an 27 IMac and I am an IPad owner since the original and the iPad2 now.
Since I bought the original IPad, I feel like I use my 27 iMac and my IPad the most, my MacBook Pro is just collecting dust nowadays, it stays days OFF.
I was thinking trading it for a MacBook Air, it seems even I buy an MBA it will collect dust too, The iPad is taking over my MacBook Pro, I am afraid the laptops are going to be useless in these years coming specially if the coming tablets become more powerful.
For me, it’s the 13″ MBA with the 27″ Thunderbolt Display along with the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. They cover everything I could ever need everywhere and anytime. I still think the MacBook (both Air and Pro or a merger for the two) will be around for a long time to come but a lot will depend on how the iPad progresses. The desktop will be around for a good while as well but it’ll mainly be about a big screen.