The beginning of the end of the PC?

[TimberWolf]

Steve Jobs says PCs will be lorries that will be largely superseded by sleek iPads, or some other trucking metaphor. Is 2011 to mark the beginning of the end of the gas guzzling PC? Apple are targeting the business market with the iPad too, while other manufactures jostle to catch up and produce cheap imitations of yesteryear.

Is the (near) future office environment going to be one dominated by iPads connected wirelessly to a LAN, or will the future office need the PC's larger screen and locally connected boxes, wires and peripherals, such as a keyboard and mouse?

Is the iPad2 first and foremost an office laptop killer?

Is it a mouse killer? Is the future poking, pinching, squeezing and rotating of the digits in the office, with man's opposable thumb still surplus to requirements?

I can see finger (or pen in some cases) driven screens going forward, and thinner more mobile screens, but is the iPad 2 the breakthrough needed that we can look back in the distant future (a few years) and say, this gentlemen was the machine that would one day topple the might PC (or laptop) off it's office perch?

[Alf W]

iPad (1/2/3) is a slickly marketed, well overpriced, sofa / bed / toilet web browser. Apple has created a consumer known as the iTwat that would buy a turd in a bag should Apple put their logo on the side.

Replacement for an office laptop? Get real.

[VectraMan]

No.

If you need to actually use a computer, tablets aren't much use. The old fashioned keyboard and mouse just work too well for 99% of applications for them ever to disappear from common use. I suspect touchscreens will become a lot more common, but nobody's going to be writing a report on a touch screen for example, or coding on a touchscreen, or sending more than the occasional email.

I guess most of us here started around the time when Java was going to render all concerns about platforms obselete and so bring about the death of the PC and Windows and move everything to thin clients supporting a minimal runtime. How's that going?

[wobbegong]

I doubt very much if the average beef-witted office based user could be trusted not steal/loose/sit on/spill coffee on/drop or otherwise f**k up, an iPad.

[amcdonald]

I've got a company smartphone thats good for social uses, but for real productivity I'm still stuck with a PC workhorse

I'm finding 2Tb of main storage isn't that much, and have to rely on external 1TB USB based storage.
But then I've got nearly a TB of games on it so YMMV

My PC has 8 gig of RAM of which is just enough to run a few virtual machines, and a 4 gig USB stick which uses "Ready Boost" to speed up caching

Trying it on a tablet would be tiresome. By the time tablets catch up I'll have a desktop that makes them look old skool

[TimberWolf]

No.

If you need to actually use a computer, tablets aren't much use. The old fashioned keyboard and mouse just work too well for 99% of applications for them ever to disappear from common use. I suspect touchscreens will become a lot more common, but nobody's going to be writing a report on a touch screen for example, or coding on a touchscreen, or sending more than the occasional email.

I guess most of us here started around the time when Java was going to render all concerns about platforms obselete and so bring about the death of the PC and Windows and move everything to thin clients supporting a minimal runtime. How's that going?

A lot of us started here when the mainframe (and dumb terminals) was still king too.

[Cliphead]

iPads won't replace PC's and Mac's in the recording studio, publishing house etc.

[sasguru]

I think the machine you use will show your status in the hierarchy.
Lower level technical types like analysts, developers and support people will be wedded to a keyboard for obvious reasons.
Higher level strategic types will only need the output that the lower levels produce - and a touchscreen is good enough for that.

[TimberWolf]

iPads won't replace PC's and Mac's in the recording studio, publishing house etc.

Not even if (or when) the target market is predominantly one of smarthone and iPad users?

I guess the office market should really be broken down into at least two major business categories anyway: users (the majority) and developers (who may need more wires and boxes).

[MarillionFan]

The actual trend is that in the next few years the internet will be accessed more through smart devices(phones/pads etc) then PC's.

Am at a R&D site today which is driving that revolution and I am doing that analysis.

I can't talk about it though(and it's not for charity)