Over at Moneybox at Slate Will Oremus says the prediction of the death of the PC was premature.
Two or three years ago, all the pundits were predicting the tablet would soon kill the personal computer. I’ve always been skeptical of that narrative, although it has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy in the PC world, where trend-chasing hardware manufacturers have largely given up on making great laptops. Apple has not, and the result has been surprising resilience in demand for its MacBooks. Its latest, the ultra-light 12-inch MacBook, went on sale earlier this month, and Cook said Monday that the company is “very happy with the response” from consumers. The iPad may not be dead, but neither is the personal computer—and right now, for Apple, they’re heading in different directions than everyone expected.
I must admit that being a tech geek I bought a tablet early on. After only a couple of months it was sitting on a bookshelf discharged and unused. I do have a Kindle HDX which is an Android tablet of sorts but I primarily use it to read books. My 17″ laptop and my desk top with a 25″ monitor are my best friends. Laptop sales are up tablet sales are down. I do use my smartphone for some of the things I once used to do on the computer but not many. I can’t imagine doing a blog post on my smartphone.