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Comment by charlieflowers | Hacker News Reader

As a programmer, I always want a powerful, open computer that I can do anything on. So it is taking a long time to dawn on me that the typical American (and I don't know enough about other cultures to speak of them) would much rather have a trendy, hip, portable iPad than a "full" computer. It's not like they're going to learn to program it or anything.

I'm sure this has been obvious for a long time to non-programmers who are observing, but I'm glad I'm at least becoming aware now.

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Its not about trendy or hip (those are generally ways people insult mere mortals), it is about appliances versus computers. We can now build a device that does 95% of the things a PC does and is very easy to learn to use because of touch. PC's are devices of the twilight zone that require a priesthood to maintain and use. Never mind the rituals (always check your virus protection, watch out for e-mail attachments, reboot if it locks).

Get in most cars and they are automatics even though car lovers despise non-manuals. Gear heads still exist, but it gets harder now. Basic education opportunities have disappeared from most high schools. Look at the car ecosystem and see where computers are headed.

You seem to imply that iPads never lock up and never have to be rebooted. Not so.

They might need rebooting once in a while but the maintenance of an iPad is negligible compared to a proper pc.

I own a number of electronic devices - Galaxy Nexus, iPad (3rd gen), MacBook Pro, iMac, and a Windows desktop.

Surprisingly, the most unreliable (in terms of application crashes and weird issues that require a reboot of the device) is hands-down the iPad. I guess a few mitigating factors might be - app crashes are usually relatively easy to recover from, reboots fix most other problems, and viruses/malware (which have traditionally been vexing for many casual PC users) aren't an issue.

I'll supply a counter-anecdote... my iPad has never crashed nor needed a non-update reboot in the year I've had it, whereas my Galaxy Nexus is a continual source of reboots, dropped signals and general trouble :-)

Yeah, my Nexus is slowly overtaking my iPad in that department.

It is a little surprising to me that I appear to have far more negative experiences with iPads than is normal - I don't really do anything out of the ordinary or even push the limits of the device, and yet, I run into all sorts of consistent minor issues that seem to be indicative of software issues (especially with mobile Safari).

Don't get me wrong - I'm generally happy with the device, I'm just a little surprised at how flaky it is at times.

>the maintenance of an iPad is negligible compared to a proper pc

Oh, I agree with that. The iPad was a huge advance for people without the desire and inclination to spend a lot of time learning to maintain a computer.

Compared to a PC they are very easy to maintain - if they lock or reboot, it is a pretty easy recovery for the normal person. Amazingly, cable boxes and satellite tv has conditioned people to the "wonky appliance needs to be restarted" thing.

Some people want to write novels, but others prefer to read them.

Some people love to cook, but most prefer to have dinner.

Some people live to fix their car, but most would rather use a garage.

I'm sure you're not as much an enthusiast about every aspect of your life as you are for programming.

Somewhere there's a chef expressing disgust that people use microwaves to cook their food rather than a proper gas range, but then again, it's not like they're going to learn how to cook properly with it anyway.

You are missing the real reason iPads sell well. "trendy, hip" is only part of it. Easy to use and simple is a much bigger part, and arguably contributes to "trendy, hip" more than any sort of consumer gadget fashions.

Programmer here (well, in a past career...) I have never really understood the appeal of hacking the machine you develop on. It's fun to develop for a PPC embedded board, or a fat multi-CPU multi-core machine, but I want my actual development machine as locked down and hard to break as possible, because that's what runs my Emacs, etc.

Until it gets so locked down it can't run Emacs, anyway.

And this was a huge factor in Steve Jobs' success - he understood the typical American better than almost any engineer.

As a programmer, I embrace the fact that people buy iPads or other tablets - by writing software for them and making money in the process. Why would I care what people use their devices for? For me(us) this is a fantastic oportunity - thanks to iPads and the like,more and more people have computers in their houses, which means that we can make new software to sell them. Wins all around :P

A large number of Americans want just want easy to use. But another large number have serious work they need a real PC to accomplish. But most of the who want PCs already have them whereas iPads are pretty new. Moreover, Microsoft seems to want to step on the useful part of PCs to bully their way into the tablet market.

So the PC is not going away but Microsoft could suffer a lot in the next few years. It's hard to weep for them, though.

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