Every time figures are released about sales of PCs these days, they come with the caveat that they either do or don’t count tablets generally and the iPad in particular as PCs. In general, if tablets are counted, then Apple is one of the best-selling PC-makers in the world; if they aren’t, then Apple is one of the lowest. But as the tablet market finally gets around to meaning something other than “just the iPad market, really”, some other devices start to be considered (or not) as well. In particular, in recent figures, the Kindle Fire has come into question.
It’s certainly true that the original Kindle couldn’t in any sense be counted as a PC. Even when it expanded to web-browsing, its functions were very limited, and it was really just an ebook reader plus. In a similar vein, the original iPod was just a music player, and even when it started playing video and games, and letting you browse your photos, it was still a music player plus. But the iPod Touch? Not so much. It’s certainly not an equivalent to the PC on your kitchen counter, but I think most people who own one think of it and use it far less as a media device and far more as a pocket computer.
I think the same will be true of the Kindle Fire. Amazon has, as far as I can tell, been the first company apart from Apple to have a more long-term approach in terms of their device philosophy. Their takeover of the book market (some would say “liberation”; others “domination”) has been hugely similar to, and probably modelled on, Apple’s takeover of the music market. But, as Apple gradually extended the abilities of the iPod, so Amazon are doing now with the Kindle. It’s even implied in the name: from this little device, we’ll start something huge. The new Kindle Fire (again, the name is significant), like the iPad, is too large to be a pocket computer, but for many people far too small and lightweight to be a PC.
But I think it’s time we start to rethink what we mean by PC. The only (working) computer that I own that definitely counts as a Personal Computer is my MacBook Pro, which has three user-accounts – for myself, my girlfriend and my brother. So not exactly “personal”. People use PCs at work and at home, but I think it’s very rare – and going to get even rarer – that any PC is used by just one person. Meanwhile, tablets are almost invariably devices which are absolutely exclusive to the user. And it’s not just the fact that they don’t have room for more than one account; they really do feel more personal. A PC is a device you work on; a tablet is a device you work with.
I think at this stage it’s becoming better to think about two different levels of computer: the work or home computer, and the personal computer, and it’s seeming more and more like the personal computer will be that little tablet we carry around with us – the computer that’s personal. So we aren’t moving into a post-PC era. In a certain sense, we’re moving into a true PC era, where everyone has their own device, which they have with them everywhere, and each device is connected both to the hub of the home and/or work computer (I had to resist typing “PC”), and to the cloud. The technology that allows this to work is just coming into fruition now.
The problem these days is that the words personal computer have come to be almost totally removed from their original meaning and context. The computer has evolved so much over the past century that the connection between the advanced number-crunching machines used in, say, World War II and those used now is almost invisible. Show someone today an Enigma machine and they see a relic (albeit a beautiful, astonishingly well-crafted relic). But take an iPad back in time to someone from that era and they would see magic. Computers compute, at their core, but that’s not what we think of them doing any more. We think of computers as devices for keeping in touch with friends, for editing photographs, for making and watching movies, for playing games. The fact that they are doing complex mathematics in order to perform all of this isn’t relevant to most of us.
Equally, describing a computer as personal was originally a way to suggest that it wasn’t for laboratories or hobbyists, but for “the rest of us.” Here was a computer that the whole family could use, not just the geeky cousin. The PC was friendlier and more useful for more people than the computers that preceded them. And if they weren’t really personal, well…it wouldn’t be the first time that a word was misused for simplicity’s sake.
But now we’re seeing real personal computing. Within the next few years, most people will have some kind of tablet device, and that will take the place of most of the stuff that they carry around with them. These devices are genuinely personal, a fit for the owner. They’re also gong to be the only computers that a lot of people need. (I know plenty of people who are going to get a tablet, but balk at the idea of owning an Apple product and so are waiting for a viable competitor.) It’s likely that there will still be room for what we now think of as PCs, but they will be just home computers, or work computers, used for bigger tasks, larger storage, and as a hub for our personal devices.
I don’t think that in that time we’ll switch to calling tablet- and smartphone-type devices PCs, and PCs home or work or hub or whatever computers – language doesn’t work that way. After all, people still dial phone numbers, even though phones haven’t had dials for decades; people still watch films, even though they’re not usually shot on film any more; people still read novels, even though it’s been a couple of hundred years since the novel was just a novel diversion. I just find it interesting to think about language, and how, as John Gruber said, it’s a pity that the term PC was already used before the iPad was launched.
