Why Your College Kid Still Needs A PC (And You Do Too, Probably)

Forbes’s Brian Caulfield asks whether you would want to write all your term papers on a tablet, noting that at yeaterday’s third-generation iPad launch Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook revealed that 76% of Apple’s revenues now come from post PC devices, and that that iPad sales now surpass PC sales for HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Acer, and Apple’s tablet computer having become the poster child of a post-PC world.

To which he cites HPs personal computer global business unit’s general manager James Mouton parrying that while tablets are great at the limited range of tasks they do well, personal computers are still indispensable and remain key tools for everything from video editing, music mixing, and spreadsheet crunching to thoughtful writing, and contending that when youre sending Junior off to college, the first computing product needed for homework is a PC, and that when the task requires is content creation, business productivity or immersive gaming, among many other things, a PC is the fundamental and indispensible tool needed.

I agree. I would be delighted if my iPad could do everything I require of a prodiction platform, but it can’t by a very long shot, and the Retina display, better camera, LTE availability, and other tweaks added with the iPad refresh yesterday don’t change that reality one iota. Apple did essentially nothing to address iPad’s work platform deficiencies with either its new hardware announcements or with the iOS 5.1 update.

I maintain that the tablet will never be a satisfactory work platform for serious content producers until (at least) the following deficiencies are remedied.

Access to the file directory at a document level is non-negotiably necessary.

A better means of cursor control, especially for text selection is crucial, ideally including a mouse driver.

Some form of non-wireless, non-iTunes-mediated data transfer is implemented.

For the full commentary visit here:
http://onforb.es/yztOtI