Matthew Panzarino, The Next Web:
You can’t put the tablet genie back in the bottle, keeping it safely ensconced in its own category. Tablets are PCs, get over it.
Panzarino offers some compelling reasons why the iPad should be grouped with PCs. More importantly, he takes aim at the arguments used by those who disagree.
The iPad is dinged for not having a “full keyboard.” Neither do netbooks and yet those are counted. The iPad is dinged for being consumption-only. Netbooks can’t run every program that desktops can, yet they are counted. Even that aside, authors write, musicians create music, and artists draw on the iPad. It is a content creation tool. The fact is that the incumbent PC manufacturers don’t want to count the iPad because they are getting their asses kicked in the market.
Just think about the name, personal computer. That implies a computer with personal appeal - a tool to accomplish the tasks that are relevant to the user. As Panzarino says:
In fact, with its intimate touch interface and expandable input options, the iPad could easily be considered the most personal computer ever created.
It is evident that consumers are rapidly shifting their ideas about personal computing. My thoughts are summed up in a previous post:
I think that times have evolved, computing needs have transformed, and the vision of Steve Jobs’s “post-PC” world is in play. In that world, Jobs said that the PC was being demoted to just another device - a tool to do certain tasks that are relevant to a user at that time. We are in that world. I think the iPad is simply another computing device - the same as a desktop computer or phone.
In other words, a PC is now a broad category. The form-factors contained within merely differentiates the location and purpose of use.