First it was desktop PCs (and Macs), then luggables, then laptops, then notebooks, then netbooks, and now tablets. Farhad Manjoo in Slate:
By 2015, desktops will constitute just 18 percent of the consumer PC market, if Forrester’s projections bear out. In other words, more than 80 percent of PCs will be portable. Part of this is driven by what Forrester forecasts will be the wild success of tablet computers like the iPad. In just three years’ time, tablets are projected to outsell desktops, becoming the second-largest PC category after laptops. This sounds crazy until you consider that Apple alone is already selling 1 million tablets a month.
For now, we need a Mac notebook or desktop (or, comparable PC) to manage the iPad and iPhone. When will that end and the handheld devices become truly mobile, not tethered to a dinosaur?