I’ve noticed a couple of articles by Sarah Perez over in TechCrunch about how we’re crossing into a Post-PC era:
- Here’s What “Post-PC” Looks Like: Over Half Of Info Workers Use 3 Or More Devices
- When Will The Post-PC Era Arrive? It Just Did.
The gist is that tablets and phones are eating the lunch of desktops, laptops, and netbooks.
And that is true. They are. The things that we use computers for are being spread over a wider variety of devices over the course of a day.
Sarah notes: Anyone who wastes their time debating its existence (tablets are PCs! phones are PCs!) is arguing semantics. The shift itself, whatever you want to call it, is happening.
Ah, but I think I’ll argue just a wee bit 🙂
Sure there is a shift. We’ve had rotary 1 phones, push button phones, wireless phones in the home, and finally cell phones. They’re all phones. Nobody would say we’re in the post-phone era. Sure we’ve cut the cord, the dial, and even the buttons and visible antennas, but we have more phones than ever.
A smartphone is a personal computer. A tablet is a personal computer. Smartphones are extremely personal, tucked away in our pockets and purses, and they’re more powerful than a room full of original Macintoshes. Not only that, but they can handle bluetooth keyboards, display to monitors and TVs, and print…
I think that just as our notion of what makes a phone has radically evolved over the last 50 years, the same has happened with computers. We dont have a mass produced computer any more personal than a smartphone! 🙂
I remember the days before an Apple 1 and the IBM PC, so, in some ways, one could say I am just being a cantankerous old git. But my perspective gives me the sense that we’re just seeing a blurring, i.e. a wider variety of devices that tuck into the realm of personal computing 2