[MacinTommy]

For some reason this term is bothering me. How can Steve call the iPad "Post-PC" when you still need a full-blown comp to sync, get iOS updates etc... Is that not what he means?

[turtle777]

It's an evolution. Give it some time. The iPad / touch pad as a new device category is just a year old.

-t

[Phileas]

Apart from the iOS updates, I haven't synched my iPad for months. I'm certain that these devices will be standalone within the next generation or two - they have to be, seeing that the competition manages it.

[voodoo]

Post-PC is marketing hype. Using meaningless phrases as 'more personal' and outright lies such as 'for typing'.

It's a way to convince people that computers that actually are capable of something aren't 'the future', only 'post-PC' devices that you can consume on. You can make extremely limited and basic (not to mention inconvenient) edits on a device that's actually completely dependent on 'PCs' (as opposed to 'post-PCs') on content, data and storage.

With a credit card and internet you can consume until you vomit, you can take inconvenient photos or record moving pictures, edit in a basic way to sent to CNN to do their work for them.. upload to youtube to share with the wonderful people there (see: youtube comments) and you can browse the web (non-Flash based part), you can do stupid standard-issue effects on Photobooth..

These aren't as much post-PC devices as they are post-creative devices. As succinctly phrased by Steve Jobs at the iPad 2 intro, "we have more than 200 million accounts connected to a credit card and one-click buy".

Which is good, because that's kinda the point.

[Phileas]

The new version of imovie and garageband for the iPad are about as far removed from "consuming" as you possibly can be. Far from being "post-creative", whatever that is supposed to mean, they are inviting people to express themselves even more.

Nobody will use devices we commonly think of as PCs for content creation in twenty years from now.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by MacinTommy 

For some reason this term is bothering me. How can Steve call the iPad "Post-PC" when you still need a full-blown comp to sync, get iOS updates etc... Is that not what he means?

He means simply what he says: the days of a full-blown desktop/lap as the main computer for the majority of people is over, and the future of general computing is devices like the iPad and whatever Android tablet ever appears. Powerful desktops and laptops will eventually become niche machines for people who need the power and/or expandability.

There's actually nothing new in this: technology marches on, and the GPU in my Mac Pro is far more powerful than any supercomputer from 20 years ago, when it took something like a Cray to run CFD/finite element analysis. Now you can get performance superior to that with a cluster of relatively cheap *nix machines, and supercomputers are now a very small niche of the computing world, used for a small set of very specific jobs.

The difference now is that march of technology has filtered down to the every day level of email and gaming. If your computing needs are email/web/music/movies/games, there's no need for you to own something more complicated than an iPad. As tablets become more and more powerful, they will gradually take over more and more of the jobs we use desktops and laptops for. Some of that change has already happened: before the iPod, DJs used to haul crates of record from gig to gig. Now they show up with a couple iPods, an iPod mixer and cables.

As for syncing: that will change, too.

[nonhuman]

Anyone who thinks that you can't do creative things with an iPad clearly does not work in a creative industry (or is blind). My boss (whose title is Creative Director) uses his iPad all the time for all sorts of things, including sketching and wireframing of websites. I have no doubt that as the tools available get better, he'll start using it for some of the heavy lifting of design as well, and I do know people who are already using it for creating artwork and the like.

The Nomad Brush is just the first of what I'm sure will be many products that will make the iPad (and devices like it) a fixture in creative industries: Nomad Brush - Home

[Don Pickett]

And the march of progress continues: FAA approves iPad for flight logbooks | Electronista

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Anyone who thinks that you can't do creative things with an iPad clearly does not work in a creative industry (or is blind).

Or is closed-minded and refuses to believe that tablet computers are more than just "toys."

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

before the iPod, DJs used to haul crates of record from gig to gig. Now they show up with a couple iPods, an iPod mixer and cables.

To be fair:

They show up with a couple of controllers and a MacBook.

The "DJs" that show up with a couple iPods are the ones that used to show up with a box of mix CDs.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

To be fair:

They show up with a couple of controllers and a MacBook.

The "DJs" that show up with a couple iPods are the ones that used to show up with a box of mix CDs.

Not necessarily: I know Oakenfold travels with just iPods. I think Tiësto may as well.

Back when Oakie used to cart records around, British AIrways lost his cases five times in one year.

[Don Pickett]

As an aside: I was listening to Armin van Buuren's radio show last week, and he played a track which someone had uploaded anonymously to his FTP site!

[Brien]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

Apart from the iOS updates, I haven't synched my iPad for months. I'm certain that these devices will be standalone within the next generation or two - they have to be, seeing that the competition manages it.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

As for syncing: that will change, too.

I'm hedging my bets that iOS 5 'cuts the cord'.

[olePigeon]

Not needing iTunes to use an iPad will be a godsend for Windows users. Apple will probably double their sales just from that "feature" alone.

iTunes on Windows is horrible.

[ort888]

Won't Apple retail stores do the initial setup for you?

My mom didn't even know she could hook her iPhone up to her computer until I told her a month after she bought it.

I have a couple of buddies who are die-hard Android and Web-OS loving Apple haters, and we frequently have lengthy discussions about this kind of pointless crap. They always bring up things like never needing to sync as a huge advantage for the WebOS and Android, but I really don't get it. Sync what? My question always was, so how do you get gigs and gigs of music and movies onto your device? The answer? We sync. So then what is the damn advantage? What don't you have to sync? Contacts? Calendar items? Big whoop. I don't get it.

Derka-der. You don't need to sync an android... der. If you lose it, your data is all backed up on the cloud. It's a HUGE ADVANTAGE. Well, guess what chicken butt, for that one time every 3 or 4 years that most people lose a phone, you have one less step. Me? I have to plug my phone into a computer for 10 minutes. Oh boy! Talk about a big inconvenience.

[mattyb]

Where am I to store my 50G music collection, my 100G photo collection, my 250G video collection? You can all say 'da cloud', but that means that I have to pay someone to look after this media for me. From what I can see, if you've got 1TB of data, its not small change to store it 'in the cloud'. Are tablets going to get ever increasing disk sizes like desktop and laptops have? I'm still a LONG way from replacing the iMac, although I'd love to be able to.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Where am I to store my 50G music collection, my 100G photo collection, my 250G video collection? You can all say 'da cloud', but that means that I have to pay someone to look after this media for me. From what I can see, if you've got 1TB of data, its not small change to store it 'in the cloud'. Are tablets going to get ever increasing disk sizes like desktop and laptops have? I'm still a LONG way from replacing the iMac, although I'd love to be able to.

It's going to be a gradual process.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

It's going to be a gradual process.

Yes, uploading 500GB to that cloud, that is

-t

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by mattyb 

Where am I to store my 50G music collection, my 100G photo collection, my 250G video collection? You can all say 'da cloud', but that means that I have to pay someone to look after this media for me. From what I can see, if you've got 1TB of data, its not small change to store it 'in the cloud'. Are tablets going to get ever increasing disk sizes like desktop and laptops have? I'm still a LONG way from replacing the iMac, although I'd love to be able to.

Some kind of home media hub for stuff like that seems like a possibility in the future.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Some kind of home media hub for stuff like that seems like a possibility in the future.

iOS 4.3 lets you stream music off your iTunes with your iPad (and iPhone?). We're basically there.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

iOS 4.3 lets you stream music off your iTunes with your iPad (and iPhone?). We're basically there.

Yeah but he's talking going pure iPad. I'm saying you may not need a full fledged comp in the future, but you'll need something more... homebound?

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Yeah but he's talking going pure iPad. I'm saying you may not need a full fledged comp in the future, but you'll need something more... homebound?

Yeah, that'll probably be a year or two out at least. Although I wonder how long it will be before Firefly supports this? Hell, maybe it already does, for all I know... Then all you need is a FreeNAS box and you've got as much storage as you want and can play everything from your iPad. Probably wouldn't be too much hacking to get it to work across subnets either.

[Jawbone54]

A consumer-friendly server at your home that all your wireless devices sync to? Sync all of your contacts, music, calendars, videos, etc. wirelessly, and hit the road.

If they implement something like this, then we can start talking about "post-PC" devices, but until then...it's just marketing rubbish.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

A consumer-friendly server at your home that all your wireless devices sync to? Sync all of your contacts, music, calendars, videos, etc. wirelessly, and hit the road.

If they implement something like this, then we can start talking about "post-PC" devices, but until then...it's just marketing rubbish.

It's not rubbish. Except for activation, you don't need a computer at all to use an iPod, iPod or iPhone. You can buy all the music and movies you want from the iTMS on those devices. You can enter contacts, sync to email accounts, etc.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

If they implement something like this, then we can start talking about "post-PC" devices, but until then...it's just marketing rubbish.

That's certainly my take.

Even if you believe in the cloud, wouldn't you want your own on-site copy?

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Some kind of home media hub for stuff like that seems like a possibility in the future.

Preferably a home media hub with 12 cores, 16 GB RAM, a 26" monitor and several TB of drive.

[Laminar]

They are iToys!!!

[Big Mac]

I don't really believe in "the cloud" that fully. Last December my mother's MobileMe Inbox got deleted, and I had spend an hour on the phone with MobileMe support to get it recovered. (At least there is phone support.) Then we see Google's problems. Sure, cloud services usually work, but sometimes they fail. Are we setting ourselves up for increasing levels of disappointment if we increasingly trust our important data to the cloud?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

And the march of progress continues: FAA approves iPad for flight logbooks | Electronista

1) The Jepp/EJM announcement has nothing to do with logbooks despite Electronista's headline.

2) It's only approved for one operator.

3) You have to carry a backup.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by mduell 

1) The Jepp/EJM announcement has nothing to do with logbooks despite Electronista's headline.

2) It's only approved for one operator.

3) You have to carry a backup.

However, it's still progress.

[mattyb]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Even if you believe in the cloud, wouldn't you want your own on-site copy?

Especially if you can't always have access to the cloud. The 'old' Europe that I live in doesn't always have decent network connectivity.

[Spheric Harlot]

A customer recently told me of a client of his who'd gone Google corporate for all his inter-office documents and communications.

Due to a billing error, Google shut down their account. No warnings, no phone call, and no tech support for three days.

Three days.

That's enough to break a company's neck.

I have no idea how much the outage actually cost them, but he said his client would have hopped on the next business-class flight to *personally* deliver the money, in cash, had he had any address to visit.


The Cloud is all fun and magic as long as it's running, and for private customers and non-critical stuff, why not?

But for anything serious, there's nothing like have some tiny fault crop up with completely disastrous results because you didn't figure on the entire service being run by a couple of high-school nimrods who thought they had a great idea but have no idea how others run their businesses.

Didn't Google just "lose" 44,000 mail accounts due to a bug in a software update? How many days without email access?

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

It's not rubbish. Except for activation, you don't need a computer at all to use an iPod, iPod or iPhone. You can buy all the music and movies you want from the iTMS on those devices. You can enter contacts, sync to email accounts, etc.

You're forgetting software updates.

People ask me all the time: "Can I get an iPad if I don't have a computer?" Thus begins the lengthy conversation where I explain they need it for activation, and if they want to update the software, they'll have to go back to that same computer with the same account, blah, blah, blah...

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

That's certainly my take.

Even if you believe in the cloud, wouldn't you want your own on-site copy?

Yeah, I was basically seconding your point from before I arrived in the thread.

I'd absolutely want my own on-site copy. I'm a cloud agnostic.

[Jawbone54]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The Cloud is all fun and magic as long as it's running, and for private customers and non-critical stuff, why not?

But for anything serious, there's nothing like have some tiny fault crop up with completely disastrous results because you didn't figure on the entire service being run by a couple of high-school nimrods who thought they had a great idea but have no idea how others run their businesses.

Amen, amen, amen.

For business, the cloud is not the answer. Yet.

[Phileas]

Most successful cloud services - dropbox, EverNote - run a hybrid system, where content is mirrored. Which works for me.

[Don Pickett]

Does this mean my old calculator is a Pre-PC device?

Originally Posted by voodoo 

These aren't as much post-PC devices as they are post-creative devices.

You seem to be confusing the term "creative" with "data-entry". Not everyone carries a full-blown laptop wherever they go. When someone gets inspired, they want to record their thoughts instantly. They don't need to take the idea from inspiration to production-ready on the spot. An iPad, being portable, and large enough to work on, can easily facilitate recording of ideas whether graphical or textual. And quite honestly, the iPad is maturing and is moving beyond just the recording of ideas.

To say the iPad can not be used for creative purposes is just laughable - people are "creating" on it every day.

[Laminar]

NO! iTOYS!

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by hayesk 

You seem to be confusing the term "creative" with "data-entry". Not everyone carries a full-blown laptop wherever they go. When someone gets inspired, they want to record their thoughts instantly. They don't need to take the idea from inspiration to production-ready on the spot. An iPad, being portable, and large enough to work on, can easily facilitate recording of ideas whether graphical or textual. And quite honestly, the iPad is maturing and is moving beyond just the recording of ideas.

To say the iPad can not be used for creative purposes is just laughable - people are "creating" on it every day.

Carry a paper and a pencil. Never runs out of batteries and if you know how to use them, deliver way better result!

[Spheric Harlot]

I'd like to see you respond to Phileas' post from above, please.

This one:

Originally Posted by Phileas 

The new version of imovie and garageband for the iPad are about as far removed from "consuming" as you possibly can be. Far from being "post-creative", whatever that is supposed to mean, they are inviting people to express themselves even more.

Nobody will use devices we commonly think of as PCs for content creation in twenty years from now.

[Don Pickett]

This reminds me of twenty years ago, when dedicated typesetting machines were the norm, and the Mac was seen as a toy. I remember being in a local newspaper in Connecticut in 1987 or so, and listening to one of the typesetters tell me that the Mac would never be able to do anything other than create a few, very simple ads, and would never amount to anything.

We're actually past that point already, as several pictures painted on an iPhone have already run on the cover of the New Yorker. It's just a matter of time.

Lack of imagination can be as dangerous to industries as lack of sales.

[exca1ibur]

Another factor...

AT&T and Verizon have a 2GB data cap and you have a an iPhone or iPad, with about 16GB to backup. The Cloud is gonna be kinda expensive or you are gonna be staggering this over several months. Clouds and data caps are gonna conflict often if data caps are a factor and they always will be, as we have a lot more streaming and data options in homes today.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by exca1ibur 

Another factor...

AT&T and Verizon have a 2GB data cap and you have a an iPhone or iPad, with about 16GB to backup. The Cloud is gonna be kinda expensive or you are gonna be staggering this over several months. Clouds and data caps are gonna conflict often if data caps are a factor and they always will be, as we have a lot more streaming and data options in homes today.

That's not really a big issue, because there's no need to use either AT&T's or Verizon's data plans. I think within a couple years we're going to see internet connections go the same way as phone connections: everybody has an individual one and it's mobile.

I can already make and receive calls with my normal phone number on my Nexus One without a SIM card in it thanks to the built-in VoIP support in Gingerbread and Google Voice. So instead of paying AT&T for my phone and data plans, there's no reason that I can't just instead get something like a ClearSpot 4G WiFi hotspot and use that with my phone, iPad, laptop, &c. A cheapo pre-paid SIM card can provide backup voice service if necessary. (The biggest issue with that right now is 4G coverage, and battery life of the hotspots.)

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Carry a paper and a pencil. Never runs out of batteries and if you know how to use them, deliver way better result!

So, if I'm a musician, I have to write out to notation instead of playing it on an onscreen keyboard? No thanks.

So, if I'm a graphic artist, I have to sit there and sketch a picture, and remember the colours instead of snapping a photo or drawing in colour? No thanks.

So, if I'm collecting more than a single phone number, I have to sit there and write (typing, even on an iPad, is faster than hand writing) and then transcribe later? No thanks?

And I don't see how a paper and pencil can deliver a better result than any of the above.

Originally Posted by Jawbone54 

A consumer-friendly server at your home that all your wireless devices sync to? Sync all of your contacts, music, calendars, videos, etc. wirelessly, and hit the road.

I can foresee a future version of iOS with a management app that lets you back up everything to a USB hard disk. If Apple did that, they market would become much larger.

[Spheric Harlot]

Time capsule is the obvious tie-in, were it not too high a premium over the iPad itself.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by hayesk 

So, if I'm a musician, I have to write out to notation instead of playing it on an onscreen keyboard? No thanks.

So, if I'm a graphic artist, I have to sit there and sketch a picture, and remember the colours instead of snapping a photo or drawing in colour? No thanks.

So, if I'm collecting more than a single phone number, I have to sit there and write (typing, even on an iPad, is faster than hand writing) and then transcribe later? No thanks?

And I don't see how a paper and pencil can deliver a better result than any of the above.

Someone's sarcasm detector is down.

[Brien]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Time capsule is the obvious tie-in, were it not too high a premium over the iPad itself.

Actually, they might integrate some sort of Time Capsule/Time Machine functionality into iOS 5 for all we know. It certainly seems the most elegant of solutions (from Apple's perspective).

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Time capsule is the obvious tie-in, were it not too high a premium over the iPad itself.

Yup - not only does it give you the disk space, but the WiFi too. I wonder if Apple would consider releasing a "Time Capsule Express" - basically an Airport Express with hard disk in it.

[Hawkeye_a]

I finally figured out why i love my iPad; It's a personal computer, without the PC.