smlierow
5 HN mentions · mentioned in 4 months, 2017–2020
2:21 · 40K views · Apr 29, 2013
A short clip of Steve Jobs at the D8 conference discussing the post-PC era, including his analogy of PCs as trucks that will remain for a minority of users.
HN uses it as the source for Jobs's truck analogy in debates over whether PCs are dying.
5 comments from Hacker News
>This to me is one of the really big but less talked-about implications of Apple Silicon Yes. Everyone is too busy hyping. No one is asking questions. ( Hype has die down a bit and we are now starting to see some quality information and discussions going [1] ) It was basically Apple admitting defeat. I mean even Steve Jobs didn't write off PC completely[1]. Or Intel is partly to blame because their roadmap were off by 4 years. The MacBook 12" in 2015 was designed with the hypothetical 10nm in mind. People keeps talking about Tablet taking over PC, Phone taking over Tablet etc. It really isn't the form factor. It is the default input devices, and how they are optimised for. The PC is strictly optimised for Keyboard and Mouse. And for lots of task, business conducting activities, Keyboard and Mouse remains the best option. Business are not switching to Tablet, or Tablet with Keyboard. In fact they are switching back to Keyboard and mouse for lots of the task they thought Tablet were better. In other sectors, AutoCAD CEO mentioned ( sorry cant find the video , it was about 2-3 years ago asked by Emily Chang on Bloomberg ) in certain fields ( I remember it was construction ) all of the their customers has literally moved to Tablet / iPad. So it really isn't a once size fits all solution. And the PC market is still growing. A very low single digit number, so 2020 will be an outliner. But it didn't slump to 150M or 100M unit a year as many predicted. Something somehow even Horace D
I think this is Steve Job's famous truck, the vehicle that only very few people need.[1] Admittedly this is slightly ironic given recent Tesla news headlines. Unlike with the iPad this device can be upgraded, repaired at home, it'll run software purchased outside the app store, the battery won't degrade and users may even get a whole decade of use out of it. One could argue that's all lost potential revenue to Apple and thus priced into the machines. Perhaps I'm wrong. The main thing that makes me doubt this theory is that the Mac mini exists at its current price point. Come to think about it, one could build quite the renderfarm out of these for $60k. [1] this video
It’s surprising, or at least very interesting, that the move to work from home did not result in people using iPads, but actual desktop computers. Turns out people actually need “big trucks” to get work done, and the “post-pc” world is actually dependent upon PCs. Reference: “Steve Jobs on the Post PC era” this video Was Steve wrong?
Indeed Jobs himself described computers as like trucks (large ute/pickup), whereas most people only need a regular car.[0] [0] this video
Is it just me, or do many Unix users get offended by any computing device that can’t run Unix? Here’s Steve Jobs’ take: this video