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Comment by olalonde | Hacker News Reader

> What’s happened over the last five years shows not that Apple disrupted the phone handset industry, but rather that Apple destroyed the handset industry — by disrupting the computer industry.

That's a bit of a stretch. There is still a large difference between an iPhone and a desktop/laptop computer from a user point of view. I'd be very surprised if smartphone sales had any noticeable influence on computer sales (in the developed world). The traditional computer industry doesn't seem to have been much impacted by the iPhone and I can't see by what definition of disruption it was disrupted... Sensationalism is probably good for pageviews.

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Given that smartphone sales passed PC sales as of 2011 in a sense it did disrupt the computer industry as the focus of innovation is now in the smartphone/tablet space rather than the desktop and server space.

I do think however that saying that it destroyed the handset market is a bit much. The iPhone totally disrupted the embryonic smartphone market but the dumb phone market is still going fairly strong (if in volume rather than profit). The last numbers I saw had a 5:1 ratio between dumb and smartphone sales so there is still a ways to go yet.

PCs last longer these days, are no longer subject to significant performance improvements every couple of years, aren't frequently lost or dropped/broken/stolen, and don't come on plans with carriers that have you in a constant upgrade cycle.

True, but those points don't yield the PC an inherently superior computer from a utility standpoint.

Despite what you've said, non-PC devices are for core tasks (email, web browsing, messaging, etc.,) a highly-refined, elegant and convenient experience for many end users. Given a person who uses their computer almost entirely for the tasks I've mentioned (and there are plenty of this type of user), would it not be right to recommend them an iPad or other tablet?

What, exactly, would that user be gaining from a full-fledged desktop or notebook PC? That question is getting increasingly difficult to answer.

A hardware keyboard.

Microsoft is betting their future on a redesigned Windows with an unprecedented upgrade price of $39, and just pissed off their hardware vendors by launching their own PC devices.

And you don't think the PC industry is being disrupted?

Microsoft has redesigned Windows and lowered prices multiple times in the past, before the advent of the iPhone. I wouldn't call this a disruption. Furthermore, I would guess only extremely few people are choosing an iPhone rather than a laptop/desktop computer.

Microsoft redesigned Windows around tablet interfaces and launched their own ARM hardware to run it.

How much does it take before you'll call it a disruption?

I was specifically talking about the iPhone. Tablets definitely stand a better chance at "disrupting" the industry although this is also debatable.

I will call it a disruption when people start using iPhones/iPad instead of laptops/desktops. This doesn't seem to be the case for a large majority of people.

It's not necessary for it to be a majority to be a market disruption.

Microsoft having to lower prices is more a function of the total cost of a PC these days. When an average PC cost $2000, suddenly $200 for an OS upgrade wasn't huge. Now when your PC costs $100-$200 then a $200 OS upgrade suddenly hurts the pocket.

Also for Microsoft's strategy to succeed its essential for them to get as much of their market using Windows 8 and Metro as quickly as possible. Hence the sacrifice of the existing cash cow in the hope it will birth a new cash cow.

Lots of business users only need smartphones or tablets day-to-day where previously they needed laptops, they don't want to carry a laptop all day and now make do on a smartphone so they do.

Given a limited budget I'd expect they'd choose an upgrade phone/tablet over a laptop that they rarely use and is most likely locked down by IT anyway.

At home, I've seen people who have a desktop and laptop - when they get a phone and tablet, they stop using the laptop.

This. I won an iPad 3 at a conference and got a zagg bt keyboard case. With mail and issh it has reduced my need to bring my laptop home to zero.

Well, that site is a notorious pro apple source so I don't see how they could have come to a diff pov on the smartphone disruption success story that is the iphone. The narrative is at the point of the post-pc world now, let us see how the masses react to these fantastic news.

I totally agree that the iPhone disrupted the cell phone industry. Where I disagree is that it disrupted the PC industry as well. It might have influenced the industry to some degree but it definitely didn't "disrupt" it.

I just started reading The Master Switch over the weekend, and I think what the writer here is talking about is the potential to completely destroy the current PC industry, much in the way that the telephone destroyed telegrams.

Whether it has or not won't be obvious until much later. I'm not hoping it has happened, nor do I necessarily believe it has. But I think 30 years from now we might be reading about how this was the defining moment in the death of PCs.

This may be completely obvious to everyone here already, but it was a whole new line of thinking for me after reading a bit of that book.

I'd say it disrupted the computing industry by converging the cell phone and pc industry.

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