Is The iPad a PC?

Horace Dediu:

But the more interesting story is that the decline in Windows seems to be coincident with the growth in the iPad.

[…]

One wonders if these “media tablets” are not PCs and yet they negatively affect the purchase of PCs whether they are indeed competing with PCs.

The question posed by Dediu isn’t framed in the context of what people define as a PC. Rather, the problem is focused around the iPad’s relation with, and impact on, the incumbent PC market that existed upon its creation. While correlation does not prove causation, all evidence points to a decline in the Windows PC market that started at iPad’s inception. If the iPad did indeed harm the PC market, is it a PC itself or merely a new class of product?

In the end, it seems that definitions are dependent on those who craft them. Companies like HP and Microsoft don’t think they should be counted with “traditional” PCs. Perhaps that isn’t surprising considering that the iPad comes from Apple. The incumbents have long relied on a large market share over the Mac platform to control the perceptions of consumers. If the iPad is counted, then Apple would surpass HP as the world’s largest PC manufacturer. With a large reduction in market share, consumers might not view a Windows PC as the defacto choice. The stance shared by these companies, while understandable, are disingenuous. Especially when one considers that the first tablet prototype was unveiled by Bill Gates in 2000 and marketed as a PC. One is left to wonder why tablets were considered PCs in 2000, yet the iPad is not in 2012.

The answer is illustrated by Dediu with a quote from research firm Gartner in which they classify the iPad as a “media tablet”. This directly falls in line with the fallacy that the iPad is a consumption device.¹ Hell, opponents even resorted to arguing that lack of Flash meant the iPad wasn’t a PC. How is that argument working now? As is the case when any disruptive product is introduced, the goalposts were shifted and definitions repurposed. Instead of competing, others attempted to discredit the iPad as falling extremely short of a traditional PC experience. The death grip on “traditional” is very telling.

As to the original question, I say no - at least in the context of traditional. 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. I believe these computing devices should inhabit a single category. That is to say, I think it would prove useful to monitor how many computing devices relevant to consumers are sold by each respective company. Their use to consumers are integrated. Why not their market impact?