“Over the past few months I have found myself using my mobile devices more and more and my computer (A 2012 13″ MacBook Air) less and less,” brad0885 writes for iSource. “It’s not that I don’t like my MacBook Air (I still feel it’s the best computer I ever owned), it’s just that my iPad and smartphone are able to do more and more of the basic tasks that I require of a computer.”
“The majority of times I need a computer, I am looking to do simple tasks such as checking my email, reading my Twitter feed, messaging friends of Facebook, or getting some very basic work done,” brad0885 writes. “All of these tasks are often more conveniently done with a smaller device that I have with me at all times and one that I can pull in and out of my pocket or use while lying on the couch or in bed.”
“As a teacher, my work doesn’t call for heavy computing tasks or large computer projects that are better handled on a full fledged computer all that often,” brad0885 writes. “This has led me to only using my laptop computer for literally minutes a day or for bigger computing projects, while spending hours per day on my mobile devices. As smartphones and tablets become more powerful I think my experiences have become more and more the norm for people who own tablets or smartphones.”
brad0885 writes, “This being the case, I began to wonder why I have a thousand dollar machine sitting on my work desk basically going unused everyday. I began to think I could ditch the laptop all together and move solely onto my mobile devices for all my computing needs. The recent release of the 128GB iPad gave me the perfect excuse to give this idea a try.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – 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. – Steve Jobs, June 1, 2010
Related article:
Steve Jobs was right, of course: Tablets are cars and PCs are trucks – January 9, 2013
Day 1. Got new iPad into how without wife seeing. So far so good.
Day 2. Still looking for something to work on.
Day 3. Man there’s a lot of new iPad oriented porn out there.
Day 4. Crap. Gotta write an article about something. But what?
Day 5. That fish keeps staring at me…
I still say the iPad IS a Personal Computer. Anyone who denies that is a moron, and I’m being kind. We are not seeing the post-PC era, we are seeing the post-Windows era, in which the combination of standards, the cloud, and BYOD are creating a world of choice for how you get your work done.
Most home computer users can get along with nothing more than an iPad. They just need to be shown how.
My iPad is my primary interface to the Web, books, periodicals, movies, and TV now. People keep asking where the new television from Apple is, and I’m pretty much sure that’s the iPad. We just haven’t psychologically caught up. Entertainment for me is often sitting in a chair with the iPad and using Airplay to watch things like Ted videos and such. Or I just plug in the headphones and watch a movie on the iPad.
I tend to gravitate back to the Mac for heavy projects and work, but that’s it. If you took my MacBook Pro and my iMac away from me, I doubt my clients would be aware by the end of the day.
All of my correspondence is in the cloud, my documents of all sorts, etc.
Man I wish Apple would allow WiFi stumblers on the iPad so I could do iPad based heat maps. Grumble…
Totally agree!
I have mixed feelings. It IS a computer, since is has everything a computer (as we know it) should have: CPU, storage, memory, I/O, etc. It’s capable and powerful enough for most operations.
The bug “BUT” is, you can’t do with the iPad what computers were meant to be: Build programs. I agree most people are program consumers, and not program builders. But besides that, I understand a computer as a device which you can make it do whatever you need it to do. You can’t do that with the iPad. You’re limited to whatever apps the App Store provides you.
I’m not arguing whether the App Store provides enough applications or the usability of the iPad. I have one, I’m perfectly happy with it, and I’m happy with the available apps in the App Store. All that is not the point.
The point is, I use a Mac, Windows, Linux or any other PC, and I can choose and develop software, either in Java, C++, .Net, PHP, and build it and shape if for my own use. The tools are out there and I can do it straight in the COMPUTER.
I can’t do that with the iPad. At least not yet. In fact, I can’t do that on Android either.
And that’s where the gap between a “consumer device” and a “computer” is. Computers are the trucks for developers. Tablets are the cars. They will remain on the consumer side of things. Which is not a bad thing. Takes complexity out of the user.
Is the iPad technically a computer? Yes, by all means. Is it functionally a computer? No, not at all. It has computer capabilities, but it doesn’t have a full computer functionality.
It is a comsumer device, the same way PDAs and Smartphones are.
@Thelonious Mac
I hope you don’t get my reply the wrong way. I’m a fan, and I follow your blog 🙂
Sorry, but the iPad screen isn’t big enough for me and I still can’t stream tv shows or play Rummikub (because, stupidly, they are Flash only).
When Flash is finally dead and I can stream whatever I want on the iPad, then, and only then, will it be a viable computer.
Buy the App TouchRummy – It is a very nice Rummikub version – been using it since the first iPad
The IPad screen two feet from your eyes covers the same portion of your vision as a 48 inch television screen ten feet away.
I tried using my iPad for work and found it a complete failure. As a golfer, I could not hit a single straight shot using my iPad. I’m going back to my 7 iron
Works fine as a cutting board
Computers have a wide dynamic usage range now and I love them all for what they do. I couldn’t live without my iPhone, iPads iMac and Mac Pro’s, all used for different but often overlapping reasons. We are enveloped by a tech cocoon that covers everything and now people can step away from unnecessary Windows reliance with a giant sigh of relief.
A friend of mine who works with PC’s but is nuts for his iPad Mini (doing most of the tasks he needs a computer for) sees other clueless MS Zombies, one of whom has a Surface Pro and disavows Apple had Bluetooth keyboards available for iPads first. So desperate are Wintards to be first, instead of always being last (thanks to the sleeping fools in Redmond), they attempt to rewrite history. Sorry Charlie’s!
Revisionist history is the easily accessible refuge of the deluded, clueless, and desperate.
Perhaps the Apple keyboards didn’t “snap!” loud enough to capture this person’s attention? ;-P
As I’ve said before, the Ballmer monkey dance surely inspired the clickety-click mania seen in those classic commercials. Apple goes for dead silent keyboards.
Boring! Plain bored out of my mind at these usage blogs!
Whereas your comment was stimulating, exciting, and refreshing.
Nothing is more exciting and inspirational than bored people.
“Light my fire, light my fire, light my fire….”
Wel, go the fsck away then! Nobody wil miss you.
hi there apple will release a 128 gb iphone 6