May 30, 2007. Watch Señor Bill Gates describing the future of computing, with Apple CEO Steve Jobs next to him: An iPad-like device being used alongside an iPhone-like device. Then watch Jobs saying that, actually, the future was the PC.
First, Bill Gates’ idea of the future of computing:
I don’t think you’ll have one device. I think you’ll have a full-screen device that you can carry around and you’ll do dramatically more reading off of that… yeah, I mean, I believe in the tablet form factor [...]You’ll have some way of having a hardware keyboard and some settings for that. And then you’ll have the device that fits in your pocket, which the whole notion of how much function should you combine in there, you know, there’s navigation computers, there’s media, there’s phone.
Nowadays, Steve Jobs agrees. He thinks that the iPad is the future and the traditional PC is dying. Like he told Ryan Tate: “The times are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away.”
Back in 2007, however, he believed otherwise:
It will be the PC, maybe used a little more tightly coupled with some back-end Internet services and some things like that. And, of course, PCs are going mobile in an ever greater degree. So I think the PC is going to continue. This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it’s a tablet or a notebook or, you know, a big curved desktop that you have at your house or whatever it might be. So I think that’ll be something that most people have, at least in this society. In others, maybe not, but certainly in this one. But then there’s an explosion that’s starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them. There’s a lot of things that are not. … I think there’s just a category of devices that aren’t as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functions, whether they’re phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we’re going to see lots of them.
In a way, you can argue that the iPad and the iPhone are personal computers. Just evolved into different form factors with different UI paradigms. Jobs later pointed this out:
We’re getting to the point where everything’s a computer in a different form factor. So what, right? So what if it’s built with a computer inside it? It doesn’t matter. It’s, what is it? How do you use it? You know, how does the consumer approach it? And so who cares what’s inside it anymore
I wonder how much Jobs’ believed the iPhone – and whatever came next – was going to affect the world in the way it did. If only I had a time machine.
William Neal
May 19, 2010 at 8:17 AM
Just shows ta go yeh, that the big boys don’t know anything more than you or I. Or, that it’s biz as usual, and will ‘appropriate’ with impunity wherever\whenever applicable. *sigh*
Report PermalinkJay
May 19, 2010 at 8:47 AM
It shows that Bill Gates is a true evangelist who thinks up of the future technologies, where as Steve Jobs is a Business Man who gets the product to you and makes money off it.
Report Permalinkmatt
May 19, 2010 at 9:21 AM
thats ironic, because while yes, you could consider the ipad and the iphone a PC in a different form factor, they are so nerfed and controlled by apple, that they really are NOT PCs, they have gone out of their way to make them NOT PCs, NOT the future he describes, all in the search of more control and hence, more money.
IIRC bill was talking about cloud computing, something MS are still very into. just goes to show that he was a true visionary, or atleast stuck to his guns, where Jobs is just a business man.
Report PermalinkRojith
May 19, 2010 at 9:40 AM
You can just see how Steve dodges the question when he is asked about the future device. He already know about the iPad but does not want to reveal to the world that he is doing it. You don’t get devices into the market in a month but it can take 2 or 3 years to finally bring into the market. Steve Jobs already had iPad being designed at Apple but was just so so secretive as not to reveal it.
Report PermalinkTom Killingbeck
May 19, 2010 at 10:23 AM
I think you missed the point of what Steve Jobs was getting at. He describes the PC as having a variety of shapes and form-factors, like the tablet or desktop or laptop. You even quoted him in your article: “This general purpose device is going to continue to be with us and morph with us, whether it’s a tablet or a notebook…” So if Bill Gates is the one proposing the iPad, then surely that’s only because he was asked the question first!
Report Permalinkriggy
May 19, 2010 at 11:34 AM
Some would argue that these two have slowed us all down in technology because of the simple fact that it’s more about brand, money, company, shareholders, control and ego’s, not about society, general public ie consumers.
Report PermalinkThe Dude
May 19, 2010 at 1:33 PM
Jobs is basicly saying that desktops and laptops will remain for some time and that there’s a growing development of devices designed for specific a more limited and specialized use. I would say that is exactly what is happening now so he was in fact spot on and Gates, with his tablets only World, was completely wrong. I mean, a lot of people say the iPad is more of a consumer device and that you’d still use your laptop/desktop to do any serious work. This might change of course in a few years. :-)
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