Trucks, Cars, and Vespas

Watts Martin:

Am I saying Steve Jobs’ famous cars and trucks analogy was wrong, then? Sort of. Desktop computers may be trucks, but the laptops are the cars. That’s why they’ve been outselling desktops for years. Tablets are motorcycles. Maybe Vespas. They’re fun and in some circumstances they’re genuinely your best choice, but most people just aren’t going to get by with them as their only vehicle.

Maybe. And the evidence today certainly fits Martin’s theory. But I say give it a decade — a decade of slow, steady, incremental improvement in post-PC devices and software, a decade for people to gradually adjust their computing habits. (Also, a decade for iOS-using teens of today to become adults who never saw Macs and Windows PCs as anything other than legacy devices for their parents.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re both right, and Apple meets us in the middle with an iOS notebook. (I expect an iOS notebook eventually; I expect never to see a touchscreen MacBook.)

★ Friday, 24 May 2013