But they are obsolete beyond 'not being portable'.
Here is why tablets are winning:
1. Instant on. I can keep my thoughts in tact and act on them immediately. No booting, no memory lags, no millions of tabs open in a browser.
2. Focus. Desktop interfaces seem to be desperate to put everything onto one screen. I have a PC and a Mac (both laptops). I prefer the PC to the Mac; better memory management for photoshop and browsing, and I love Snap. But that's where the usefulness stops. With an ipad, I have no distractions on the screen.
3. Bigger isn't better. That includes screens. Steve Jobs was wrong. The iPad Mini is better than the bigger variants. Hands down. Same goes for desktop screens. I want a big TV, because I'm watching with loads of people. I don't need a big screen for a PC because the resolution isn't better than an ipad and I'm using it solo. Google Glass could quite possibly be the next advancement in this theme.
4. Build quality. PCs look and feel cheap. Including my beloved Sony Vaio Z. The ipad in my hand could never be criticised for build quality.
5. Price. The ipad doesn't do more than 10% of what I need to do. But, I do those 10% of things 90% of the time. So why pay more for a PC when the ipad has no performance issues and takes care of me 90% of the time.
I used to think shoehorning a full desktop OS into a tablet is what I wanted. Seeing Surface, I can happily say I was wrong. I don't want to do the 90% of things I do 10% of the time. That's inefficient and frankly boring. PCs and Macs are boring. Tablets are fun. There's one last point why tablets are winning:
6. Always connected. It strikes me as absurd seeing laptops on the trains with dongles sticking out. It takes ages for those dongles to boot up. I used to spend 5-10 minutes of a train journey waiting for the laptop to be ready. My ipad mini with LTE is ever ready. And cheaper. And built better. And more fun.
The PC isn't dead, but it will have next to no investment going forward, so will suffer a mediocre retirement in homes and offices across the world.
Note: I love my PC. I just love my ipad mini more.
You probably own a really nice PC but most people do not. I'd wager that an iPad is at least as expensive as the PC that it is replacing in most homes.
> 1. Instant on. I can keep my thoughts in tact and act on them immediately. No booting, no memory lags, no millions of tabs open in a browser.
Suspend to RAM, 8 GB of RAM and as many tabs open as I like (usually none, but Opera appears to handle 100s quite well, too). You must be using PCs wrong.
> 2. Focus. Desktop interfaces seem to be desperate to put everything onto one screen. I have a PC and a Mac (both laptops). I prefer the PC to the Mac; better memory management for photoshop and browsing, and I love Snap. But that's where the usefulness stops. With an ipad, I have no distractions on the screen.
I also have no distractions on the screen if I don’t want them. You must be using PCs wrong.
> 3. \…] The iPad Mini is better than the bigger variants. […] I don't need a big screen for a PC because the resolution isn't better than an ipad and I'm using it solo. Google Glass could quite possibly be the next advancement in this theme.
The iPad mini has a resolution of 1024x768, roughly the same as my X41. If your current PC doesn’t have a higher resolution, you must be using PCs wrong – I expect at least 1200 pixels vertically and 1400 horizontally if I am expected to do any work at this thing. 900 vertically might be enough for casual browsing, but it does feel inferior.
> 4. Build quality. PCs look and feel cheap. Including my beloved Sony Vaio Z. The ipad in my hand could never be criticised for build quality.
I tend to be very wary around Apple hardware, seeing how people put them into protective sleeves, pockets and all other assortments of stuff. I don’t think a tablet would survive the things my T410s survived.
> 5. Price. The ipad doesn't do more than 10% of what I need to do. But, I do those 10% of things 90% of the time. So why pay more for a PC when the ipad has no performance issues and takes care of me 90% of the time.
I won’t argue about performance issues (the iPad lacks the software to even test performance properly…) and at least I pay for a PC because I want 100%, not 90%, of the job done.
> 6. Always connected. It strikes me as absurd seeing laptops on the trains with dongles sticking out. It takes ages for those dongles to boot up. I used to spend 5-10 minutes of a train journey waiting for the laptop to be ready. My ipad mini with LTE is ever ready. And cheaper. And built better. And more fun.
Time from button press to xscreensaver unlock window: 2s. Time to get LTE modem ready: 5s. Time to open 100s of tabs in Opera and decrypt email locally and do all other things I could possibly want to do: nearly instantaneously. With an iPad mini (which would most likely break in my backpack on the way to the train), I couldn’t even do half of these things – it admittedly might be cheaper, though, but 1600 € every four-or-so years vs. 480 € what appears like every year are roughly equivalent, wouldn’t you say?
As I said, if you settle with inferior stuff and use PCs as absurdly as described by you, I can see why you like tablets more.
As you suggest, I simply must be using PCs wrong. But then, the ipad doesn't need an instruction manual, or to be used perfectly, for me to use that right.
Operating an automobile requires you to have passed a theoretical and practical exam and attended numerous lessons. Bobby-cars[0] are given to kids as young as two-or-so. Which one is preferable to get from A to B?
Of course, you should generally aim to use the tools that suit your needs and capabilities, but preferring a tablet over a proper PC strikes me as rather odd.
You analogy would make more sense if you added the word 'performance' to the statement.
A car is fairly intuitive to drive. Driving licenses are required for safety.
The comments you make are akin to performing in a sports car, where concentration and accuracy is key.
You car analogy would fit if you had PCs as a F1 car and tablets as a Mini. F1 car is for speed and requires perfecting to get the tyres working right. A Mini, you can pretty much drive through all sorts of faults and be none-the-wiser, because performance just isn't an issue. Well, 90% of the time. :)
Yes, PCs aren't ageing as fast as they used to.
But they are obsolete beyond 'not being portable'.
Here is why tablets are winning:
1. Instant on. I can keep my thoughts in tact and act on them immediately. No booting, no memory lags, no millions of tabs open in a browser.
2. Focus. Desktop interfaces seem to be desperate to put everything onto one screen. I have a PC and a Mac (both laptops). I prefer the PC to the Mac; better memory management for photoshop and browsing, and I love Snap. But that's where the usefulness stops. With an ipad, I have no distractions on the screen.
3. Bigger isn't better. That includes screens. Steve Jobs was wrong. The iPad Mini is better than the bigger variants. Hands down. Same goes for desktop screens. I want a big TV, because I'm watching with loads of people. I don't need a big screen for a PC because the resolution isn't better than an ipad and I'm using it solo. Google Glass could quite possibly be the next advancement in this theme.
4. Build quality. PCs look and feel cheap. Including my beloved Sony Vaio Z. The ipad in my hand could never be criticised for build quality.
5. Price. The ipad doesn't do more than 10% of what I need to do. But, I do those 10% of things 90% of the time. So why pay more for a PC when the ipad has no performance issues and takes care of me 90% of the time.
I used to think shoehorning a full desktop OS into a tablet is what I wanted. Seeing Surface, I can happily say I was wrong. I don't want to do the 90% of things I do 10% of the time. That's inefficient and frankly boring. PCs and Macs are boring. Tablets are fun. There's one last point why tablets are winning:
6. Always connected. It strikes me as absurd seeing laptops on the trains with dongles sticking out. It takes ages for those dongles to boot up. I used to spend 5-10 minutes of a train journey waiting for the laptop to be ready. My ipad mini with LTE is ever ready. And cheaper. And built better. And more fun.
The PC isn't dead, but it will have next to no investment going forward, so will suffer a mediocre retirement in homes and offices across the world.
Note: I love my PC. I just love my ipad mini more.