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Comment by dpweb | Hacker News Reader

Apple almost the #1 PC maker. Wow.

*PC and tablet maker. If you subtract the # of tablets, Apple is far behind Lenovo, HP and Co. Strange that they lump these two together.

What's strange about it? Tablets are becoming another version of PCs, especially with all the Apple news lately. Would you remove all the yoga-books and other convertibles from Lenovo sales? Form factor isn't a differentiator here anymore. Tablets are becoming general purpose computing devices.

Just as MacBooks, which also are becoming "general purpose computing" devices?

True, there are some tablets that can be used for tasks usually done on a PC. Still there's an unknown percentage of tablets mostly for media consumption in there. So they're lumping together productivity/all-purpose devices with media consumption devices.

A lot of "standard" PCs are also mostly used just for media consumption.

Yes, naturally all-purpose includes media consumption as well.

At that point it’s not even worth differentiating between the two. Some people use laptops for work, some people use them for entertainment, many people use them for both. Some people use tablets for work, some people use them for entertainment, many people use them for both. You can’t just say “laptops are for work and tablets are for entertainment” because that’s just not true.

That's not what I'm saying though. I'm saying all PCs are general purpose devices, but many tablets aren't. That's why it makes sense to differentiate between the two and not lump them together.

Why aren’t they? Because they can’t be, or because you think they aren’t used in that way?

I’ve been using an iPad for nearly 100% of my work over the past two years (until this summer, just a regular 9.7” iPad), and I know of developers who have been doing the same for at least nine years [1]. And these days it’s even more “general purpose”, being able to develop locally on the iPad with things like Play.js and Pythonista running locally. Blink on iPad even has a local shell built in, and of course pretty much all Android devices can drop to their local root shell too.

I guess you’re going to have to define what you mean by “general purpose computer” because pretty much every definition I find online includes smartphones and tablets [2][3][4]:

> A general purpose computer is built to perform a variety of tasks, including the most frequent computing tasks, in a reasonably efficiently manner. It can store and execute multiple programs in its internal storage. Personal computers such as tablets, smartphones, notebooks and desktops are examples of general purpose computers.

The difference it seems like you’re making is that laptops are general purpose computers because you want to define them that way, and phones/tablets are not, again, because that’s how you want to define it. So please, define what “general purpose” means and why your definition doesn’t match anyone else’s definition?

What do people get out of gatekeeping the most ridiculous things? Any iPad or Android tablet can install generic applications, browse the web, play games and music and video, do word processing, check email, store and retrieve arbitrary data, edit photos, connect to SSH... you know, general purpose computing. So again... what is the point of differentiating?

[1] https://yieldthought.com/post/12239282034/swapped-my-macbook...

[2] https://www.reference.com/world-view/general-purpose-compute...

[3] https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/general-purpose-comp...

[4] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zkrr97h/revision/1

The guy in [1] is SSHing into a different machine, which is running... Linux.

From the same article:

>I fundamentally believe that most people don’t want to rearrange windows, babysit their own general purpose computers or back up their data.

So for me and apparently also the author, in this context "general purpose" is more of a crutch, to describe something that can do everything a normal computer can do. Most tablets can only do a subset of that.

To rephrase my point: There are many tablets that can only be used for media consumption. There are some tablets that come close to general purpose devices. In contrast, all PCs are general purpose devices. Hence it makes sense to list them separately in a statistic.

I spent all day on my MacBook SSH’d into a remote Linux machine, does that mean the MacBook isn’t a general purpose computer? Does the ability to SSH into another machine mean your computer is not “general purpose”? Because he also used a lot of native apps in those posts. And if you want a local shell on iOS, like I said the app Blink will give you that.

You keep saying “many tablets can’t” but which ones? And why? Android and iOS can both be used as general purpose computers as I’ve mentioned. What other tablets are common enough but limited enough to make the distinction? You keep dodging this question and still pushing this complete falsehood even after you’ve been proven wrong. You’ve offered no proof or defense of your theory despite being asked directly and being proven wrong directly.

At least iPads and maybe android tablets let you rearrange windows although you don’t have to (which is the point). They let you “babysit” whatever that means, although you don’t have to. They let you back up your own data (my iPad backs up to OneDrive, not iCloud) although you don’t have to.

What is this “most tablets” when both Android and iPad allows you to do everything you’ve mentioned? Again... it sounds awfully like “I don’t want them to be computers so I’m going to claim they’re not” which was false when you first said it and now is starting to get pretty ridiculous as I keep showing you that you’re wrong.

> Does the ability to SSH into another machine mean your computer is not “general purpose”?

Sorry, but this tells me you're not arguing in good faith, so I'll disengage. Peace out.

> Tablets are becoming another version of PCs, especially with all the Apple news lately.

> Form factor isn't a differentiator here anymore. Tablets are becoming general purpose computing devices.

You've referenced Apple specifically in relation to all this.

Note that Apple's official position disagrees with you, as seen in their lawsuit against Epic, and their claim that iOS devices are more like app consoles than general purpose computing devices.

The most worrying part here is that we're already sliding into a world where we're accepting these walled gardens as general purpose computing devices, when the manufacturer is stating definitively that they do not see it this way. The limitations we're imposing on ourselves is a shame.

(EDIT: to add, I'm on my third iPad now and continue to be very happy with them. I'm part of the problem.)

> Note that Apple's official position disagrees with you

I don’t think it’s quite that simple, as Apple has at least two different “official positions”. The first being that the iPad is more computer than you need (see their marketing around iPad, trucks vs cars, iPad Pro, etc). The second being what you described in their legal battle.

If you believe their marketing, iPad is 100% a computer. Just a different kind of computer than the Mac.

Sure, a Yoga has a touchscreen and a polyamorous hinge mechanism, but it doesn't seem comparable in any real sense to an iPad.

> Tablets are becoming another version of PCs, especially with all the Apple news lately.

That's what Apple wants people to think, but in the real world I'd argue that's highly suspect.

iPads are closer to glorified entertainment consoles than anything else. (They're 100% locked down, just like a video game console. Their compatibility is artificially limited, just like video game consoles. They're sold exactly like video game consoles, on game console lifecycles, with a game-console-like business model and revenue sources). Apple itself seems to agree, Apple claims the iPad is a video game console in their legal fight with Epic when defending Apple's monopoly over the software market.

If anything, it would make slightly more sense to compare iPad sales to Nintendo Switch sales, than to compare iPad sales to Laptop / Desktop PCs.

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who uses both apple's hardware and hardware you get from everywhere else.

I've been using multiple macs for 6 years, 0 problems.

I've been using PCs bought from computer stores for 20 years, each one has had multiple hardware problems, each one.

I have no interest in taking hardware apart, blowing air through it, re-applying thermal paste, diagnosing which component is overheating, figuring out why it's so fucking loud, figuring out which part died that's causing my computer to no longer turn on and so on.

All that bullshit, on top of Windows and its awful operating system.

The day Apple finally gets their shit together and gets gamers on their platform, windows PCs are going to perish.

Other than all the software glitches and the increasing number of bugs with every release, Macbooks still have the best (& possibly the biggest?) track pad I have ever used on a laptop. Personally, I am yet to find a terminal front-end on Linux that is as feature rich as iTerm. Also, if you're all in on the Apple ecosystem with a watch/iPhone/iPad, the Continuity features work pretty well too.

the increasing number of bugs with every release

I don't think that's new, early versions of OS/X were riddled with problems. I remember my first iMac would kernel panic every time I unplugged a USB stick, even after ejecting it.

Software-wise/productivity-wise apple is pretty bad though.

Snapping windows to sides(and to quarter of the screen), splitting windows across multiple monitors are two biggest offenders imo. Microsoft dealt with them perfectly. Also, using shortcuts to move windows between different monitors, and maximizing windows.

Also Mac is constantly running slow for me, to the point where I need to reboot it every couple of days. Opening a new tab in chrome can take seconds.

I've never had problems like this on windows/Linux.

There are some good Mac window managers out there.

Can you recommend any?

Company policy mostly forbids installing third party software, but if there is one that's trustworthy, I can probably install it.

In that case they'd probably be more comfortable with something provided through the app store. Try BetterSnapTool for $2. It's pleasantly customizable.

Microsoft took ages to get multiple desktops and notifications right and are still lacking in other areas. I guess both of them even out counting all pros and cons.

Regarding the slowness try weeding out third-party background apps and using Safari.

I hardly have any 3rd party software. Chrome and iTerm is all I am running. I have installed xcode and Android studio, but both were unbearably slow, so now I'm remoting to my main computer. I have plenty of extensions in chrome though.

(Un)fortunately I can't be using Safari, company requires chrome.

Also, I am charging Mac from the right side, because that apparently matters :-)))

(I have Mac pro 2017 or 2018 with 16gb ram)

I use a Mac and windows everyday and I find the third party windows management tools such as ShiftIt, Spectacle, Magnet, etc to be much better than anything that Windows 10 has built-in.

Primarily, I can never seem to predict what pressing win+Left will actually do. Sometimes it moves the window to the left half. Other times it moves to the right half. And some other times it does nothing until I press win+right first. Overall I think it’s a terrible window management system. Sure MacOS has nothing built in but it takes about 5-10 mins to install and configure a much better system.

With the swap Apple Silicon that should be an easy move into first as there are many wanting to make the jump.

However they did include tablets in that one chart

> With the swap Apple Silicon that should be an easy move into first as there are many wanting to make the jump.

Source for this? Normal users don't give a dime or don't even know about different processors (and these are the vast majority). Fan-boys will always upgrade to the latest no matter what. Prosumers might be interested or not in the change depending on the audience, and the same applies to professionals.

Being able to run their iOS and iPadOS apps on Mac is something that matters to the consumers and that’s thanks to silicon (could’ve been done otherwise too, but that’s how it’s marketed).

> Normal users don't give a dime or don't even know about different processors (and these are the vast majority).

Intel's marketing in the 90s is a case study in how to make 'normal users' care, not necessarily about different processors, but about one manufacturer's in particular.

"Intel Inside" was hugely successful at turning 'normal users' sentiment away from any competitors.

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