What's a Post-PC device?

http://www.asymco.com/2011/03/08/whats-a-post-pc-device/

by strandev • 15 years ago

22 53 15 years ago

ohadpr• 15 years ago

I actually believe that PCs are so == Computers for most of humanity that its perfectly fine to discuss post-PC devices

I personally think that a Post-PC device is simply a device that for some (and later many) people replaces a PC in their day-to-day computer-related tasks. So if whatever they used to do on a PC they now mostly do on say an iPad then an iPad would be a post-PC device.

brudgers2• 15 years ago

"Post-PC device" is Newspeak for "Personal Digital Assistant."

chris_j• 15 years ago

While it's not fair to define a new generation of computing by its isolation and exclusion of the previous generation, people have been taking a pop at the iPad because a PC (or a Mac) is required before your iPad will work. At all. I'm pretty certain that the Apple II didn't need to be sync-ed up to a minicomputer via iTunes before you could turn the thing on.

recoiledsnake6• 15 years ago

The real reason is that Apple wants to nudge new iUsers towards providing a credit card when being forced to create a iTunes account for activating a iDevice, so that it can have it on file.

That's why the process to create an account without providing payment info is made intentionally difficult without jumping through hoops. It is as simple as that.

recoiledsnake6• 15 years ago

>...allow a new population of non-expert users to use the product more cheaply and simply.

More cheaply? I would say you can get more powerful laptops/netbooks and desktops with more storage for less than $500.

There is so much hot air expended on essential meaningless PR terms such as this, especially when it comes to Apple.

All of this is just posturing for the media and general public and does not hold up to technical scrutiny more than the previous claim about the iPhone running the 'full OS X'.

I am more worried about the 30% tax on services that seems to tag along with the so called Post-PC devices.

wmeredith• 15 years ago

It's just sales copy, relax. It wasn't written for you.

ugh4• 15 years ago

This is an article about past paradigm shifts and their properties in general, not about whether or not tablets are actually another such paradigm shift, isn’t it?

hasenj3• 15 years ago

> I would say you can get more powerful laptops/netbooks and desktops with more storage for less than $500.

Come on, don't compare crappy netbooks running windows 7 on a tiny screen to the iPad. The iPad is a completely different kind of device. While its specs might be (hypothetically speaking (for the sake of the argument)) crappier than some netbook out there, that's not the point.

You ignored the whole sentence and picked on "cheaply". You forgot "non-expert users" and "simply".

Also, coming back to the price. Think of the value the iPad is offering; not just the specs. Easy to hold, looks gorgeous, plenty of apps, fun to use, fluid experience .. etc.

sorbus• 15 years ago

If one part of a sentence is factually incorrect or an outright lie[1], it is entirely appropriate to point out that it is so, ignoring the other portions of it.

> crappy netbooks running windows 7 on a tiny screen

The iPad has a 9.7in screen, with a 1024 x 768 resolution. By comparison, many netbooks have 10.1in screens with 1024 x 600 resolutions. I wouldn't call that enough of a difference to say that netbook screens are tiny while iPad screens aren't.

> its specs might be (hypothetically speaking (for the sake of the argument)) crappier than some netbook out there

Your bias is showing, as is your ignorance of the current specs of iPads and netbooks. The first generation of iPads had specs which were inferior to many netbooks at the time, especially when considering RAM; the current generation (which isn't shipping yet) has comparably fast processors, but much less storage and probably less RAM.

But yes, Apple is trying to position themselves as not a part of the herd, removing the need to compete on specs. They are definitely succeeding[2], which allows them both to focus on the interface and appearance and to make their products into appliances, where it doesn't necessarily make sense to compare them to anything else. How do you compare UI, after all? If Apple is able to avoid objective measurements, that's a huge success for them, since they'll be able to sell hardware that's slower or older without anyone noticing.

[1] In this case, it is factually incorrect, and perhaps an outright lie, to claim that iPads are cheaper than netbooks. $379.99 for a netbook is less than $499 for an iPad.

[2] As your comment makes abundantly clear, Apple does not lack fans, nor will these fans stand quietly by while objectively true statements are made that disparage Apple.

recoiledsnake6• 15 years ago

Who talked about "crappy netbooks on a tiny screen" ? When did you last shop for laptops? 2007?

See this:

Latitude E5510 Also Includes Intel Core i3 Dual Core 2.53GHz Windows 7 Home Premium 2GB 160GB 15.6" DVD ROM $499.00

That is neither a netbook, doesn't have a tiny screen either.

Whatever the post-PC devices might be, they don't seem to be cheaper than the PC devices.

raganwald9• 15 years ago

Tethering to a PC/Mac is an obvious hack, but nevertheless today's tablets (whether iOS, Android, or whatever) are clearly post-PC devices. Why?

The filesystem has gone away.

Everything about the previous generation of computers revolved around files. To a user, everything on a PC is a file. Nothing on my iPad looks like a file. There are icons for applications. Are they files? Or is this HTML presented in a browser? Does a user know or care?

This simple difference changes everything. No files means that DVDs, floppy discs, thumb drives, and all other forms of storage are suddenly repositioned. iTunes sucks in so many ways, but one way it doesn't suck is that I don't care where my songs are, just that there's a database of songs with an interface that is song-specific. Music playing applications are post-PC ways to manipulate music.

Obviously iTunes exists on a Mac/PC as well as on an iOS device. On a Mac or a PC, it provides an interface for dealing with music files, but I can still hunt for the files if I want to. If I move a file, I break the carefully crafted illusion of there just being music.

On a Mac, I install software by downloading it and dragging it into my Applications folder. I'm manipulating files. Sure, there are fronts put up so I can avoid the files, like installer packages and the new Mac App Store. But the application files are still there to be manipulated and I can still fool around with the Library and stumble over the filesystem's spoor when I go trekking through the Finder.

On an iOS device, there are no files, there is no Finder. Software is installed by some magic process that never exposes me to the implementation. The illusion is complete. This is what makes an iOS device a post-PC device. I imagine that there are or will be tablets and phones where I can break into the device and discover that hidden from the user is a world of files. Such devices won't be post-PC devices, they'll be PCs in a tablet form factor.

To summarize, my contention is that "Post-PC Device" doesn't mean tablet or phone, it means "No filesystem."

gloob2• 15 years ago

In order to clarify, I assume when you say "no filesystem", you mean "no user-visible filesystem, but is still muggle-usable (and might well have a filesystem under the hood)", yes? Because we've had computers without filesystems for about as long as we've had computers. Computers with filesystems are a significantly more recent innovation.

a-priori• 15 years ago

Yes, iOS uses a filesystem under the hood. The applications just never expose it to the user. As an application developer you should be aware of it, but as a user? it doesn't matter one bit.

raganwald9• 15 years ago

A computer without a filesystem that predated personal computers can be called a pre-PC device if you like ;-)

If a device has a filesystem for its own use but does not expose the filesystem to users or to applications, that's a post-PC device. If we merely denude the device of the Finder but all the apps use the filesystem, I'm on the fence. It's a post-PC device in all the ways that matter to users, but it feels transitional to me. Future generations of post-PC device won't expose a filesystem to developers or users.

So yes, iOS devices are post-PC devices, but they can become even more so.

Isamu• 15 years ago

Agreed. The file system is hidden away as an unnecessary distraction from the user's view of the task at hand. The iOS devices are arguably more task-oriented than PCs.

Also in calling them post-PC devices Jobs is signalling his intent to continue moving in a new direction, one that separates them from the pack. Contrary to the article, Jobs did not claim that tablets are post-PC, just that his iOS devices were post-PC.

pavel_lishin3• 15 years ago

> one way it doesn't suck is that I don't care where my songs are

Until it's time to back them up, right?

raganwald9• 15 years ago

What is "backing them up?" Why am I doing this? What purpose does it serve? It sounds like something that people with pocket protectors care about... They like the arcana of playing with PCs whereas I like music.

In all seriousness, if losing all your music when you lose your tablet is a fatal flaw, the solution is to expand MobileMe so that it syncs my music to the cloud, not to ask me to know what FAT32 is and why some hard drives can hold a 1080p movie but others can't even if they claim to have enough disc space and...

Oh, my head hurts just trying to describe the awful experience that is using a PC.

r00fus2• 15 years ago

Which is why the OS (Win7, iOS, OSX at least) reminds you to back up the system and makes it easy to do so (ie, attach drive with sufficient space, go).

iOS requires iTunes on a PC/Mac to back up, but this is likely a business decision to make more $$, and could easily be replaced by a clouded or local backup appliance.

In this mechanism you have to willingly ignore the backup requests... it's like the seatbelt beep in modern cars - at that point, it's 99% PEBKAC if no backup exists.

ugh4• 15 years ago

I tell Time Machine to back up. It will do just that for me, I don’t need to know where the actual music files are for that. This is really no problem. (This is from the perspective of a casual users.)

dexen4• 15 years ago

1990's called, they want their technology back. [1]

It's been tried times and times again. I've seen it on Symbian on SE P910 (virtual directories per file sense, like video, audio etc), Windows 95 & later(`My Computer'), KDE, N900. You have seen it on other software, and probably will see a few more times.

The `no filesystem' is a leaky abstraction [2]; sooner or later programs start exposing files and directories, because that's what people understand and want to use. `No filesystem' is flimsy magic, files feel like physical objects you actually own. `No filesystem' is the limited menu of your DVD, files and directories are your house with rooms with drawers with shelves with boxes with items.

Your way.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbian

[2] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?LeakyAbstraction

raganwald9• 15 years ago

"No filesystem" is only a leaky abstraction when people rooted in the 1980s write filesystem software and try to wrap it in a filesystem-less interface.

Files and directories are what you--and people like you--like and want to use. The rest of us don't give a damn about them, especially the way you build them for us.

Now I will return to your snarky quip. Your contention is that if something failed in the 1990s, it will necessarily fail in 201x? This makes no sense to me whatsoever. Almost everything that succeeds today failed in some form in the past, it's just that times have changed and things previously impossible or impractical are suddenly reasonable.

The whole point of $500 thingummies is that they exist in a very different world than $2,500 whatchamacallits.

ugh4• 15 years ago

I don’t buy it. I haven’t touched any of my 4,822 audio files in the filesystem in years. They are in my music library and I couldn’t care less about where on my drive they are or how they are organized there. The same is true of all my photos. The abstraction works perfectly for me in those two cases, I’m missing nothing.

(My parents would be delighted if Word or Excel had a similar library of documents.)

recoiledsnake6• 15 years ago

>To summarize, my contention is that "Post-PC Device" doesn't mean tablet or phone, it means "No filesystem."

It could mean "Locked down to need app approval and 30% cut of services" too.

dstein• 15 years ago

The concept of "files" were an abstraction in the first place. The icon, or the row in my directory list output that says "/Documents/file.xml" is simply an abstract way of visualizing "where" and "what" that particular data represents.

What is different (compared to personal computers) is the filesystem (the location of your data) itself is becoming abstract and disjointed from the physical device you are using. Data is moving into the cloud and our devices become stateless interfaces. It's simply an undoing of what the personal computer did which was to tie your data to the physical device.

Thin-client with a new buzzword.

oconnore2• 15 years ago

Someday the iPad developers will realize that users want to access their content from several different applications in a compatible, centrally accessible manner. They will want to combine a picture from Hipstamatic with a song from iTunes with a thank you letter they wrote in some editor, combine them into a greeting card and then send it via email.

In order to orchestrate this, they will need a central repository of their data, that they can search around, and is hopefully organized (ie, they remember that their picture was taken in 1997 at that trip to Chicago, or that the song was a rock song they heard on the radio in highschool).

Apple, recognizing this need, will release a new app that will allow users to create hierarchical categories for their stuff, search their stuff, move it around, and make copies of their stuff. The app will probably be named "Finder", and these pieces of data might be named, "files".

raganwald9• 15 years ago

What makes you think that a hierarchy is the right way to represent shared data? I don't use a hierarchy to organize my documents, I use search. The problem with a hierarchy is that it appeals to ontologists, people who like to organize things in one and exactly one way, and they like to do it up front.

Search, and its cousin Query, are the other way of looking at things: Put everything somewhere and give me a way to get what I want. I predict that if and when Apple provides something along the lines of shared data, it will look more like Microsoft's original vision for WinFS than the Finder.

Or maybe... just maybe... it will look like Newton's soup ;-)

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/WinFS https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Soup_(Apple_N...

jamesbritt• 15 years ago

'Apple, recognizing this need, will release a new app that will allow users to create hierarchical categories for their stuff, search their stuff, move it around, and make copies of their stuff. The app will probably be named "Finder", and these pieces of data might be named, "files".'

They will be heralded for their visionary move; "game changing", some will say.

Meanwhile, Android fans will wonder why they didn't already have the equivalent of a shared "find resource" Intent.

Bickering will ensue.

nickolai• 15 years ago

> Post-PC Device : Build me a computer - No Local Filesystems Allowed.

I'm not sure I would agree with the post. It is difficult to argue with the success of the tablets, but I am not sure if diskless systems could really qualify as a ". Post-PC computing system" unless they replace the PCs.

Harddiskless computers have been around for quite a while now, but i'm not sure a standard workstation could be replaced by one anytime soon. Even though most data is stored remotely, local work copies are at the foundation of most of the tools we use.

These tools would have to be rewritten either to no longer make local copies or to hide their locality from the user. Both of the solutions are nontrivial and their benefits are non-obvious.

What is the exact gain of doing a checkout to a remote disk instead of that of my workstation? That i can ligitimately slack off at the coffee machine when the network goes down?

But maybe it is just that im not open-minded enough to allow my PC to need anything other than power for me to be productive.

brudgers2• 15 years ago

>"'Post-PC Device' doesn't mean tablet or phone, it means 'No filesystem.'"

"No user accessible file system" is probably a more appropriate meaning in terms of Apple (other vendors may vary). Another way of describing the Apple model is that the user cannot access the file system without Apple's explicit permission (e.g. iTunes and MobileMe mentioned elsewhere).

subway• 15 years ago

I'm not sure I understand the need to organize new innovations into "generations". I see the current tablet offerings as a solution to a different problem than the one PCs currently solve.

The idea that tablets are "post-pc" seems far too limiting, and I think it reflects the current trend in consumer electronics to race for some lowest-common-denominator-does-it-all-general-purpose device, rather than understanding that different needs can sometimes be better solved with different devices.

dualboot• 15 years ago

I would actually say that Microsoft's tunnel-vision on everything being a Windows powered "pc" is why they have always failed in the tablet market over the years.

vdm• 15 years ago

Post-PC means Wifi/OTA system updates work without tethering. Android, Nokia S60: check. iOS: fail. I have gone for months without an iOS update because my Mac was broken.

Also, I wish to get out of the music sysadmin business and will cut iTunes loose at the earliest opportunity.

uvTwitch• 15 years ago

A Post-PC Device is a Marketing Term used to refer to a iPad, and as far as apple are concerned, Only an iPad.

Personal implies choice, customization, and individuality, and these are precisely the things apple strives to remove from it's devices and services. The ability to choose one of seven particular colors and three price-range specific models is a laughable substitute.

The iPad is the first Computer which is post-Personal.

SlipperySlope• 15 years ago

Steve Jobs uses "post-PC" to drive a brand wedge between the previously dominant Microsoft Windows/X86 platform - the PC, and IOS/ARM - the iPhone & iPad. He wants customers to regard the "PC" as old-fashioned, behind the times, and unable to catch-up. Post-PC is a brilliant marketing slogan that fully illustrates the positioning of the Apple mobile platform brand.

Microsoft and Intel are indeed faced with the innovators dilemma. Both are fully constrained by their legacy product lines, which respectively define their brands. Intel went so far as to sell off its ARM CPU business to Marvell in 2006. Intel's Atom, even if eventually energy competitive with ARM, will face commodity pricing rather than monopoly pricing. Likewise Microsoft already has ARM-compatible Windows CE and Windows Mobile. These do not run typical cash-cow Windows applications. In order to make the leap to the Post-PC era, both Microsoft and Intel must leave their cash cows behind, or worse, participate in their decline.

We are at just the beginning of the Post-PC era, and I'm very excited about the multitude of sensors and potential actuators that can be coupled with, and enhance the usefulness of, smartphone and tablet devices. The GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, microphone, speaker, cameras, and NFC are just the starting point. Expected in a few years are barometric pressure, humidity, and temperature sensors. Most of these don't these make sense on a PC. Furthermore, smartphones and tablets will mesh with each other and with the increasingly intelligent devices encountered in our everyday environment.

The Post-PC era is additionally characterized by responsive cloud services that offset the limited hardware capabilities of ARM mobile devices. For example, Google is rolling out a real time speech translation app that simply wraps up the microphone input, translates it at a server farm, then immediately sends the translated speech waveforms to the speaker output. Your Post-PC device can hear and talk. Likewise, imagine what happens when the video camera output is processed by a powerful cloud server - we have product and facial recognition, and beyond that I expect general vision capabilities to arise.

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

I don't buy the taxonomy, I don't buy the evolutionary relationship. Is a screw driver a post-hammer device?

People have a relationship with data, they refine it, they explore it, they correlate it, they hoard it, they spend it to get more data.

Computation, networks, and storage are the tools of data manipulation. Visualization via iPad, visualization via color plotter serves different versions of the same purpose.

As the cost of assembling a sufficiently rich network of computation, network and storage resources drops below the personal value of the data manipulation that the set of resources is capable of, an economic opportunity is created.

Look at network attached LCD 'picture frames' as a canonical example of this value equation playing out in the real world. In 1984 people took color slides printed on cellulose, put a 250W lamp behind them and projected them periodically on the wall. The cost of doing a 'picture frame' application with acceptable resolution was north of $250,000 (yes a quarter of a million dollars, I worked at the Image Processing Institute at USC and we had such a system in house for flipping through a variety of images in "true color" (24 bit RGB) and that is what it cost.) My Mom got a Kodak "easy share" picture frame in 2006 with better resolution and more storage for less than $250.

The constant here is a personal relationship with data (pictures) the variable here is that cost to instantiate that data such that it can be interacted with.

Post-PC implies a sequential relationship with PC. I claim that its a parallel economic relationship. An economic choice is made to view images with the picture frame rather than the slide projector or the laboratory image analysis setup (or the PC).

PC's have a low marginal cost for adding a new data manipulation capability, that gives them great value when new data is encountered. For established data they have a high unrecoverable cost (and on-going maintenance burden).

Tablets 'work' because they provide a data interaction service (surfing the web, reading, watching video, tracking your friends) at less economic cost than a laptop.

What's a Post-PC device?

Related Stories