Steve Jobs was wrong about the post-PC era and the next wave of iPads should embrace this
The original iPad was important enough to get its own live onstage introduction by the late Steve Jobs. It was such a revolutionary idea that it predated the iPhone and we might have been using Apple’s first tablet in 2007 if Steve Jobs hadn’t pushed the technology to pocket size.
For a while after its launch on January 27, 2010, the world seemed to revolve around Apple’s iPad, a silicon, glass and metal gadget so groundbreaking that it rated its own storyline as the then wildly popular Modern family TV series (it really looked like a 22 minute ad with lots of jokes).
It’s a different story for the iPads that we expect on May 7. Instead of a big, breathtaking live event, Apple will launch the tablets (and likely a new Apple Pencil) virtually. That means a pre-recorded, Apple CEO Tim Cook-hosted affair that will breeze through four or more new gadgets with deep dives into new screen technology (OLED?), new designs (thinner than ever!), wireless charging (oh, make sure that this is so), and a completely redesigned Apple Pencil.
It will be exciting in a way, but also anticlimactic.
The first and best real tablet
Fourteen years ago, I was in the audience when Steve Jobs explained his vision for a post-PC world and the need for a device that sat somewhere between the then-popular netbook laptops and his own wildly successful iPhone. Jobs wasn’t just explaining this: behind him, the word “iPad” dramatically appeared between a netbook and an iPhone.
Jobs, a small figure in front of the screen, held up the iPad to wild applause.
From then on, Jobs dove into the demo, showing us photos, maps, newspapers, and apps on the 9.7-inch iOS screen (there was no iPadOS back then). As radical as the iPad introduction seemed, Jobs knew we already understood the product. Since 75 million iPhones and iPods have been sold, Jobs said, “there are more than 75 million people who already know how to use the iPad.”
Like the showman he was, Jobs didn’t hold back on exaggerations, declaring, “Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary product at an incredible price.” Like the iPhone before it, the iPad started at a relatively affordable price of $499 and has only gotten more expensive since then.
A new era
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Months later at the AllThingsD conference, Jobs said, “PCs will be like trucks. They will still be there (but) one in x people will need them.” He later added, “We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it actually starts happening, it’s awkward.”
I praised Jobs as an ‘oracle’, and the numbers backed him up. In 2011, Apple reported that it had sold 15 million iPads and had 90% of the tablet market share.
However, Job was wrong and has seen the iPad in the intervening years declining sales and has transformed itself into a new ultra-computing option via iPadOS updates and keyboard accessories. It is a tablet but also a personal computer or “PC”. There is no post-PC world, just a world of laptops and tablets racing toward the middle.
As the iPad, with support for the Magic Keyboard and mouse, has become more laptop-like, traditional Windows laptops have adopted tablet features such as touchscreens and stylus support.
The question for this next generation of iPads is whether they will further blur the line between PCs and tablets or restore the distinction. It was a standalone record that could do everything, without any accessories
In addition to describing access to a full-size virtual keyboard (and yes, a hardware keyboard that was nearly unusable because the iPad was just millimeters away from the top row of keys), Steve Jobs illustrated in 2010 how to make countless entertainment come true. content and productivity task via a touch screen. He positioned the original iPad as the best book and newspaper reader (The New York Times was a partner on launch day), but also as a fantastic gaming platform. It could be your word processor and your spreadsheet manager. It was lighter than a netbook, but much prettier and much more fun to use.
Is it a PC?
The current iPad, iPad Mini and especially iPad Pro are laptops in tablet clothing. With Apple Silicon (up to the M2 in the iPad Pro) they match the performance of the last generation of MacBook Airs. The new models will certainly have M3 chips.
I’m not sorry that the post-PC idea is dead. When Jobs launched it, I was working at a publication with “PC” in the name. I also knew that consumers might not care so much about such technology labels. They loved the original iPad because it did so many things that a device with that form factor had never done before (at least well). It satisfied their desire for content and entertainment and, to their surprise, was built to last.
Apple iPads sold 8 or 9 years ago still work, which is of course part of the problem. You can’t post anything if the products last forever.
For the iPad line, the potential to change the trajectory of computing is gone, but the opportunity to reclaim its place in the mobile technology market remains. Let’s see if Apple chooses a new path.