Market analysts Gartner must really love the iPad. Not only have they lowered their annual forecasts for global PC sales by 14.6 per cent for the coming year to 440million, but they’ve also provided a rather absurd reasoning for their economic predictions: iPad’s are really, really popular. Who didn’t see that coming?
Unfortunately, Gartner’s reasoning is a little vague, because they essentially assume the impact of an emerging market (Apple tablets) to greatly impact on the main PC market. Guess how many iPad’s are likely to be sold? Solid estimates figure it closer to 30 million. Let’s see now, a quick bit of math tells us that the total estimated iPad figure will still be less than 7 per cent of the total (expected) global PC market for 2012.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s hardly the PC sales killing robot I imagined the iPad to be.
Are traditional PCs doomed? Will Apple morph into Skynet and eventually become self aware, locking us into bloated proprietary formats, forcing draconian censorship laws and…hang on a sec! Let us know below.
MDolley
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 12:11 PMSomebody should tell Gartner that you still need to actually plug an iPad into a PC for activation/updates/syncing
Jon
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 2:01 PMtrue, but people are going to be less inclined to upgrade that PC if they are doing the majority of their web browsing from the comfort of their lounge via their new iPad.
I for one rarely ever fire up my PC any more simply because I have an iPad that sits on my coffee table that’s always ready to go. I did actually consider upgrading my a little while back, but since I now rarely ever use it I’m certainly in no rush whatsoever.
[doa]
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 2:10 PMSure, but it can be the same old crap PC you’ve had for the last 3+ years.
matt
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:51 PM@both the replies:
yes, but anything you can do on an ipad, you can do on one of those older PCs… so the ipad isn’t stopping them from upgrading… if they were going to upgrade their pc for whatever reason, it would be to do something you can’t do on an ipad anyway…
in short, they can browse the web on their old pc, if thats all they wanted to do, they wouldn’t have upgraded anyway…
in fact, a bigger cause of the decline may simply be this: PC’s are powerful enough for most people, they don’t need to upgrade… the ipad is irrelevant in this case…
Steve Tran
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 9:43 PMPretty much this. Traditionally, hardware specs had to improve at such a pace, just to stay a step ahead of minimum requirements. Now, all modern devices are more than capable of running almost any program.
The iPad (despite being relatively weak) is very capable of running apps designed with its limitations in mind. It’s still ultimately a parasitic device that needs a host to take advantage of all functions though.
Mr Biggles
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 12:36 PMThere’s a good chance the tablet (not specifically the iPad) will take a large amount of market from those who just browse the internet, send emails, and play the occasional game, but have a proper PC at work for all that work stuff.
It’s almost akin to saying laptops were going to take the market away from desktops – sure, they took some, and I use a massive 17incher as a portable desktop, but seriously, no matter how good/fast/etc you make a portable device, a fixed device is always going to be able to pack more punch.
If the iPad is going to be the death knell for the PC, then surely the iPhone (by the same logic) will be the death knell for the iPad… Think about it!
Nodeity
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 12:44 PMHmmm,… let me see,.. Proprietary, Restrictive, Manipulative, Bloated, Expensive, Crap battery, Crap support, Chinese killing,… shall I go on… :[
Daniel Long
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:05 PMI like where this is going…
Gareth
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 11:24 PMDaniel L – Its pretty clear to see where your bias is… I haven’t seen so many anti-apple articles on gizmodo before!
Daniel
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:24 PM“Proprietary, Restrictive, Manipulative, Bloated, Expensive, Crap battery, Crap support, Chinese killing”
Wait, Proprietary is bad? Everything is else you said is pretty much rubbish. But don’t let lies get in the way of your rapid unfounded hate.
Nodeity
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 9:44 AMAhh,.. Apple Fanboys,.. So dedicated to the cause,… :]
Nodeity
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 12:36 PMOhh,.. and what’s with every time “Apple” builds a new device, say,.. every six months or so? you “Fanboys” can’t wait to throw more money away to get the latest one available cos it does one more thing that the competition already had..??
Assaph Mehr
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 12:59 PMiPads (and tablets) will never replace PCs. Like my CEO puts it:
Desktop + tablet >= laptop
These days I keep my weighty MacBook Pro at my desk attached to the big screen, and only carry a Galaxy Tab to meetings unless I need the MBP for presentations. Feels a heck of a lot nicer on my back :)
JT...
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 1:12 PMIMO: Everyone that might want a new ipad will already own a PC so I doubt will upgrade nearly doubling their costs. PC’s have gotten to a point where they don’t need upgrading as often as they used to (unless you are a mad gamer/video editor).
Brant
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:01 PMI imagine the conventional desktop to be irrelevant soon or later, the ipad proves this.
Zac Sch
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:54 PMsuggests, no need to make unfounded claims
James
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:41 PMI typed this message, laying on my lounge with my iPad. I can do nearly anything I need with it and it’s instantly accessible as opposed to having to wait to boot it up.
Crap battery Daniel? At eleven hours…… I don’t think so pal.
Daniel Long
Friday, March 4, 2011 at 4:51 PMNo probs with the battery – I’ll give you that. But my netbook does the job for now thanks with longer battery life. Oh and it has USB ports too!
Tezz
Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 7:04 PMbut will it blend?