Meanwhile for $500, you can get a cheap plastic laptop that will break on its own through normal wear and tear. It runs an OS that is far more advanced than what you need. The OS needs maintenance, and you need to pay attention to what you're doing. It's super hard to keep a computer running. You might not think it is, but look at the existence of Geek Squad and how many people are afraid of their computer, or can't do simple things. But they're using iPads like an expert.
That's post-PC. You and I will keep our x86 systems with massive globs of RAM and terrabytes of hard drive space because we need them. And the rest of the world will finally get to use their computing devices the way they want to use them for a change.
We could easily see a return to more traditional hardware that gets back to simplicity. I would love to see affordable SoC laptops with discrete graphics running something like Ubuntu and Steam. This would be an amazing combination of reliable OS, high quality free software, and access to entertainment. Selling a device with good software included should be a selling point instead of tricking people into an app store pyramid scheme.
E.g. The Wi-Fi issue in iOS 8. Already on 8.2 and not fixed for many people.
Is this inescapable?
Today, that iPad has cracks in the screen from the minor bumps and scuffs it's taken over the years. After several iOS updates it's become slow and tedious to use. Wifi reception is terrible so I often have trouble using it when sitting in bed, exactly one floor above my home router. Opening more than one or two tabs in the web browser causes each one to reload when switching and overall performance is barely acceptable.
Contrast this with the less expensive Asus laptop. My girlfriend still uses it as her sole personal computer and runs Office apps, connects to her work VPN for access to company resources, uses it to watch movies on Netflix, browses the web, and plays casual games. It runs just as well as it ever did and while there are also minor scuffs on the housing, the screen has no sort of cracking and the touch input still works as it always has.
I think that a big part of this has been how iPads and the more "appliance" style tablets have gotten more capable but so have more traditional notebook and desktop computers. Likewise, the performance you get from budget/entry class computers continues to go up even as hardware stays cheap.
At some point, the whole "post-PC" thing will happen as the traditionally "non-PC" devices continue to become more capable up to the point where they can do 90% of the average PC user's tasks. But then, aside from the inability to customize or upgrade, what makes them not PCs?
Just look at Android. Now a days a app can't really get direct access to the filesystem. Everything has to go through the "media storage".
The way i see it, these "post PC" devices are Big Media's wet dream. Now they can get the DRM enforcement built in that before they had to attempt to "hack" in (Sony's rootkit, anyone?).