The iPhone vs the desktop…
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Posted March 26th, 2008 at 9:21pm
by Corey Tamas
John C Dvorak’s latest article in PC Mag, entitled “The iPhone Is No Desktop”, starts off with “People are willing to make a device that you can drop in the toilet or leave in a taxi cab the next desktop computing platform. Ridiculous.” …and already I disagree with his basic thinking here (but I usually do where Dvorak is concerned).
As the iPhone is emerging as an interesting and unconventional gaming solution (though it’s not there yet), I took interest in this story where Dvorak, known for his hatred of and wildly inaccurate predictions about Apple, basically claims the fundamental philosophy of the iPhone is a mistake. His premise is that smaller devices are, in fact, the antithesis of effective personal computing because (as the above quote points out) he predicts people will be dropping them in toilets all over the world.
And it’s only going to get worse. Everyone thinks that the iPhone is going to be the next major computing platform. Some even hope that it will replace the laptop as the primary PC platform. And what if it does? What are folks going to do when they spill coffee on their iPhones? They’ve already done a lot worse–they drop them into toilets over and over. PodShow’s Adam Curry lamented having this happen to him, as did Leo Laporte on a TWiT podcast.And these devices are poised to become the next desktop replacement platform? Splash. Splash. Splash.
I’d love to come up with a good response to this, but I’m stuck at something of a crossroads: Either 1) I don’t understand what his point is, or 2) His point is stupid. I’m inclined towards the former because, honestly, I can’t really understand a rant which is meant to evangelize larger devices as being better. If he is, then I think that leads me directly to the latter… in which case it speaks for itself.
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