Post-PC Era – Not

“It’s not the post-PC era,… as Steve Jobs calls it” says inc.com’s Renee Oricchio. “It’s more like the ‘multiple device’ era.”… The PC is not dead. It’s not even ailing. Try creating or managing a complicated spreadsheet on an iPad when you’ve been doing it on Wintel machines for 20 years. Try editing an industrial video for your business to post on YouTube on your not-that-smart phone.”

Precisely. Indeed, having been an iPad 2 owner and daily user for seven weeks now, aside from its logistical physical advantages of portability and handholdability, I still can’t think of much of anything my iPad can do that my laptops can’t do better. A lot better. Instant wake-up? Even that base is covered by the new MacBook Air. When it comes to serious computing, laptops are just easier, faster, slicker, more versatile, more flexible, than any iOS or other touchscreen device.

Like me, Ms. Oricchio isn’t categorically negative about tablet computing. She cops to having a netbook, a smartphone, a tablet and a Kindle in addition to her laptop workhorse. However, she shares my skepticism that tablets represent the future of personal computing, and will eventually improve to the point that we won’t need laptops to get our work done. Maybe someday thay will, but I can’t envision that point being reached anytime soon, and in the meantime I anticipate personally continuing to live and work in the PC era for the foreseeable future.