>How many people do you know who have an iPad but not a PC (or a Mac)?
Here's an edge case -- my parents' apartment community. This is a 2-building apartment complex (with about a dozen condo units in the front) with about 500ish total residents. When my folks sold their home a few years ago and moved in, no one else on their floor (two buildings, three floors each) owned a computer, and many never had owned one in the past. My parents today are still on the younger side of the spectrum (57 and 63), so we're talking about a population whose kids went off to college or moved out in 1992 or earlier.
However, there was a desire amongst people they met to own one as they were aware of what could be done, they just didn't want to deal with the hassle. My mother (a textbook technophobe) showed folks her Kindle, and people in the community felt that was easy enough to deal with (especially when getting to a library in the sticks can be a hassle). As a result, my parents helped get folks set up with 3G Kindles. My parents bought themselves iPad 2s about 18 months ago. My father, unlike my mother, was comfortable around computers, but his computer/iPad usage shifted to 10/90% after about 3 months. My mother was initially more 70/30, but is now more along the lines of 20/80. As of right now, they have no intention of replacing their computer with another one. Moreover, my mother who was always paranoid of someone "messing up" the family computer 15-20 years ago is eminently comfortable with her iPad. An even weirder outcome is she apparently follows Apple product news a bit, as do one or two of her aged 55-65 friends.
The new thing? The septuagenarians and octogenarians are now getting iPads. They're buying an Airport Express, calling Comcast to get internet access, and the iPad is the first computer they've ever owned. And they're pretty chuffed about it. And using them. Significantly. Do you have any idea how fantastic the idea of HD FaceTime is to grandparents who almost never get to see their grandkids (and that they'll use it every chance they get)? When I mentioned LetterPress to my mom, the next time I talked to her she mentioned how big a hit it was at her community.
I think to date my parents have set up a dozen other residents with Kindles and about another dozen so far with iPads + internet access. This number will continue to grow.
That's kind of old news. On the other end of a spectrum I know quite a few people who are my age (nearing 30 (already?! eh...)) and who never had a PC or had one for some time and then didn't replace it when it broke. They were using, however, game consoles and then early smartphones and then tablets. They wouldn't use Kindle, though...
It's just that not everyone needs the full power and flexibility of a PC. I think in reality just a tiny fraction of users needs one, and as a number of users grows that percentage only lowers. The truth is that a PC always was and always will be much too hard for average user to operate (by design!) while not offering anything meaningful for said average user.
I suspect that tablets and other narrowly focused devices will only gain popularity with time, replacing PCs for most day to day tasks for most users. They are easy to use and they give people something of value without too much hassle. I welcome this trend with joy: it means less calls from family to help them set up/configure/uninstall/clean up things.
There is one thing, however, that I'd like to see included in this future of tablets and similar devices. It would be a tiny, protected with PIN, but mandatory on every single device icon which, when clicked/taped, would invoke a BASIC interpreter (or Lua, or anything similar). I'm worried that while it's getting easier for average user to use these devices, it's also getting harder and harder to hack them. And when there won't be a PC in a household anymore, how children are supposed to learn to love computing? Instead of just using devices...
I've experienced something similar. My grandma recently got into computers because of being able to stream her favorite shows on demand. She now also has an iPad where she can watch her shows and play casual games (solitaire/bejeweled/etc). This is a person who has never really used computers before.
My mom is another case. Never used computers seriously other than a rare web lookup, until I got her an iPad. She too now does casual gaming and streams shows.
Here's an edge case -- my parents' apartment community. This is a 2-building apartment complex (with about a dozen condo units in the front) with about 500ish total residents. When my folks sold their home a few years ago and moved in, no one else on their floor (two buildings, three floors each) owned a computer, and many never had owned one in the past. My parents today are still on the younger side of the spectrum (57 and 63), so we're talking about a population whose kids went off to college or moved out in 1992 or earlier.
However, there was a desire amongst people they met to own one as they were aware of what could be done, they just didn't want to deal with the hassle. My mother (a textbook technophobe) showed folks her Kindle, and people in the community felt that was easy enough to deal with (especially when getting to a library in the sticks can be a hassle). As a result, my parents helped get folks set up with 3G Kindles. My parents bought themselves iPad 2s about 18 months ago. My father, unlike my mother, was comfortable around computers, but his computer/iPad usage shifted to 10/90% after about 3 months. My mother was initially more 70/30, but is now more along the lines of 20/80. As of right now, they have no intention of replacing their computer with another one. Moreover, my mother who was always paranoid of someone "messing up" the family computer 15-20 years ago is eminently comfortable with her iPad. An even weirder outcome is she apparently follows Apple product news a bit, as do one or two of her aged 55-65 friends.
The new thing? The septuagenarians and octogenarians are now getting iPads. They're buying an Airport Express, calling Comcast to get internet access, and the iPad is the first computer they've ever owned. And they're pretty chuffed about it. And using them. Significantly. Do you have any idea how fantastic the idea of HD FaceTime is to grandparents who almost never get to see their grandkids (and that they'll use it every chance they get)? When I mentioned LetterPress to my mom, the next time I talked to her she mentioned how big a hit it was at her community.
I think to date my parents have set up a dozen other residents with Kindles and about another dozen so far with iPads + internet access. This number will continue to grow.