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To Be Or Not To Be, Is The iPad A PC

2012-02-02 11:21
A few hours ago I listened to the latest episode of Shawn Today (a daily podcast from Shawn Blanc available to members of his site), and in it he discussed the issue of whether the iPad is a Personal Computer.В This follows an article by Matthew Panzarino on The Next Web yesterday, titled Look, tablets are PCs, get over it . In fact I could point to quite a few articles and discussions about this question of whether tablets (specifically the iPad) are PCs. But Shawn 8217;s episode and Matthew 8217;s post have inspired me to also weigh in on the discussion today, with why I believe the iPad should legitimately be counted within the PC market. I 8217;ll just start with this question: what computer is more personal than an iPad The tablet form factor and iOS software combine together to make using the iPad a far more personal computing device than a traditional PC desktop or laptop, where you have to interact with the software from an arm 8217;s length away, using a mouse or trackpad and a keyboard. So the iPad is personal device, but is it a fully functional computer John Mello at PCWorld says no, because in his opinion people don 8217;t use it for content creation. Matthew 8217;s article on TNW does a great job at dismantling this oft-quoted complaint about theВ iPad and I recommend reading his entire argument. When the iPad first came out I must admit I had the same thoughts about the device, but as time has gone on I have increasingly used it for content-creation - whether it be annotating PDFs for studying, writing, and even some (very average) efforts at using iMovie. Content-creation on the iPad will continue to become more common as people adjust to the device and as app developers continue to adapt to creating great software for the iPad 8212; just look at how productivity apps have improved and advanced in the past year on the iPad. Sure, some content-creation tasks may never be as easy to do on an iPad compared to a more traditional PC 8212; things like advanced video editing or long stretches of writing. But by the same token, a small netbook isn 8217;t good for those tasks either and yet it is counted as a PC. I know I would always choose an iPad over a netbook for virtually any task because in my opinion it is a far more capable personal computer. On the flip side, I think the iPad is actually a better computer for things like annotating PDFs with apps such as PDF Expert. Then for things like advanced video or audio editing it 8217;s only inevitable for those apps to transition to iOS, in fact just today Avid Studio was released -В it may be a distilled version of the advanced desktop version, but it will evolve and become increasingly powerful for most tasks that an average user and even pro-sumer will need. The iPad is personal and (in my opinion) it is also a functional computing device. So if you are excluding the iPad from the personal computer category, does that mean there is some checklist of requirements for a device to be...
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