How is Ipad not considered "a computer"??

[0098386]

If the iPad is classified as a computer then so can any smartphone, a DSi, a PSP. They can all browse the internet, listen to music, watch videos, install/download applications. They all share the same functionality.

To me at least, a computer is something that isn't walled in. That I can install software from various sources, I (or the manufacturer) can open it up and upgrade the hardware or repair individual components.
If the iPad was a macbook with a giant touchscreen then I'd class that as a computer. What we have here is something with the same functionality as an iPod or any other high-end MP3 player in a bigger case.

 

[imacdaddy]

Actually, I consider the iPhone to be a computer as well. And surely, the iPad is more than just its screen? How am I typing this post on my iPad if it were just a monitor? The iPad's CPU and other internal chips are an integral part of the iPad, whereas an xbox is a separate add-on device to the TV. Attaching an xbox to a TV doesn't make the TV a computer, while on the other hand, you can't detach an iPad's screen and use it by itself! So your statement about the iPad screen makes no sense whatsoever.

Exactly!

Also any underlying OS (be it mobile, desktop, handheld etc.) need a "computer" to run it. The argument whether an iPad is a computer is just ludicrous. I think people generally born after 1990 have no clue what a computer "really" is IMHO and believe a computer is only a computer if it plays Crysis.

I will bet the next argument would be that Google Chrome OS is not an OS because it lacks a file system. Sorry to burst your bubble but Chrome OS is an OS and needs a "computer" to run it. As with iPhone 3.1 and all prior versions need a "computer" to run it....a mobile/handheld computer ie iPhone/Touch/iPad.

 

[Bentov]

This was my family's first computer. An IBM PCjr. See those two holes below the 5.25" disk drive? Those were where you'd plug in cartridges. Yeah, honest to god cartridges, which booted the computer into BASIC. Why would you boot from the cartridge? Because it had no hard drive! The CPU ran at 4.77 MHz, it had 64 K memory on board, a 16 color display, and had a 300 bps modem on board that my mother used to do some of the first consumer online banking in the world.

My god did that thing kick ass. And if that's a computer, the iPad sure as hell is too.

Blast from the past. I had one of those as well. I think we upgraded the memory to 128K, but that still wasn't enough to play Sopwith Camel, I think I might have cried when I saw the dreated "no core" error. My dad eventually bought a memory sidecar to go between the computer and the parallel port which bumped us up to 784K Sopwith and King's Quest, true treasures of my childhood....and I guess I shouldn't forget changing the basic code for some poker game to make it recognize me instead of the author, and giving me negative money because I didn't quite understand signed and unsigned integers yet

 

[63dot]

Anyone ever hear or read the difference between the terms denotation and connotation? This debate reminds me of the differences in the iPad being a computer vs. the Mac being a computer. Both are denotative computers but the CURRENT connotation of the computer is the Mac not the iPad.

Define current.

The lines are very blurred these days, but that's what makes Apple an exciting company. Just when the PC side comes up with nice tidy categories or a way to do things, Apple comes out and redefines high tech, and some say the way many of us live.

Personally, I wouldn't put the iPad in the same category as a "computer", but it still is, at least on a very basic level. But the iPad is in its first version and let's see what happens in the future. I like the iPad but I would rather get the Mac mini for my purposes.

 

[Outrigger]

People who say this must not have seen what can be done with jailbroken iPhones -- you can do almost anything you'd do with a desktop/laptop. Much of the limitation with the iDevices is not on the hardware level, but in the way Apple configured the OS. Plus, the microwave does one thing, iPad does a thousand things (at least). How can you talk as if they are on the same level????

I find this arguement extremely troubling. You really think an iphone jailbroken or not can do "almost" anything a desktop/laptop can do? And that the limitation is not on the hardware level? This leads me to believe that you have never used a desktop/laptop or don't know what their capabilities they have. This is so absurd that I don't even know where to begin. Its akin to someone telling me their skateboard can do almost everything my car can. Clearly, the only logical conclusion is that they have never been in a car.

 

[Night Spring]

I find this arguement extremely troubling. You really think an iphone jailbroken or not can do "almost" anything a desktop/laptop can do? And that the limitation is not on the hardware level? This leads me to believe that you have never used a desktop/laptop or don't know what their capabilities they have. This is so absurd that I don't even know where to begin. Its akin to someone telling me their skateboard can do almost everything my car can. Clearly, the only logical conclusion is that they have never been in a car.

Okay, so I may have exaggrated in the heat of the moment. But really, when I first jailbroke my iphone, and started figuring out what could be done with it, it felt like I could do anything I could do on a desktop -- scaled down, of course, to the size of an iPhone's screen and CPU/memory power. Obviously, you couldn't run Photoshop or edit a movie on an iPhone. But once you jailbreak an iPhone and get a look at its file system, it's exactly the same as on a Mac OSX, and you can manipulate it the same way. So if a desktop is a car, maybe a jailbroken iPhone is a motorbike? I guess my point is that it's a lot closer to a car than a skateboard.

 

[MT0227]

My iPad is having a hard time editing video in AVCHD format...just one example.

Ok....all kidding aside, the iPad is predominately a consumption device/computer. My MBP is both a consumption and creation device/computer; but not nearly as portable as an iPad.

 

[hamlinspahn]

Control

But a REAL computer is one that you, the user have complete control over, and the ipad is ***** NOT ***** a real computer, it's a device that has LIMITED FUNCTIONALITY and is 100 % CONTROLLED BY THE APPLE COMPUTER CORPORATION.

What type of computer do you have? I would love to have complete control.

 

[sracer]

I mean we all don't think of as a full scaled computer but nevertheless, its still a computer. Gimp or not Gimp. It's just Apple decided to make the environment closed as opposed to other operating systems.

In this case, you can also think of your phone as a computer too.

As far as I'm concerned...the first real PC i have bought was

166MHZ Intel Pentium MX processor (I was pissed to find out 2 weeks later PII arrived)
128MB Ram
Hard Drive was 32GB
It had Floppy and CDROM
It couldn't do Flash
It could play P-dddy music known as Puff Daddy back then
I played Quake 1 and 2 on it.
and Worms...

My Iphone and Ipad can do circles around that computer. How much did i pay for my PC back then....2200 dollars!!!!!

I'm a big iPad fan and am thoroughly pleased with it. It is doing everything that I had hoped to do with a netbook but was unable to. The iPad is doing all of that, and more.

Having said that, the iPad is NOT a full computer. If a person owned only just an iPad... they could not use a printer. They could not retrieve data from it... nor put data on it directly.

 

[firewood]

I find this arguement extremely troubling. You really think an iphone jailbroken or not can do "almost" anything a desktop/laptop can do? And that the limitation is not on the hardware level? This leads me to believe that you have never used a desktop/laptop or don't know what their capabilities they have.

More desktops and laptops than you apparently. My first Apple Desktop had a 1 MHz 6502 CPU. My first Apple PowerBook had a 25 MHz 68030 CPU. The iPad I'm typing this on can do far more than either. With a $99 dev certificate (cheaper than a Disk ][), I can even install any software I want.

 

[jaw04005]

Apple considers the iPad a “post-PC” device like the iPod and iPhone. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates discussed post-PC devices at length during their All Things D interview a few years back.

Here’s an excerpt of Jobs describing the future of computing:

"But then there’s an explosion that’s starting to happen in what you call post-PC devices, right? You can call the iPod one of them. There’s a lot of things that are not. … I think there’s just a category of devices that aren’t as general purpose, that are really more focused on specific functions, whether they’re phones or iPods or Zunes or what have you. And I think that category of devices is going to continue to be very innovative and we’re going to see lots of them.”

http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070530/d5-gates-jobs-interview/

 

[HiRez]

The problem is people have come to associate the term "computer" with "PC". The original definition of the word referred to human beings who computed (for example, those working on cryptography in WWII), not machines. The iPad absolutely is a computer (as is the iPhone), it's just that no one is used to thinking about it that way yet.

 

[notjustjay]

These days the distinction is certainly less clear than it might have once been.

Perhaps a modern definition of a computer would include a device with multi-purpose input and output devices (usually including a display), that runs an operating system designed to allowing the user to run different programs to accomplish tasks.

This is still a pretty wide definition and this still encompasses devices like the iPod touch, PS3, etc. but it leaves out single-purpose devices like toasters and calculators and printers and cars. Sure, those things have CPUs embedded in them but they are running custom firmware that is designed to do one thing only, and there's no way to reprogram them to do anything else.

So then you go back to the definition of computer and you can start creating categories like "desktop computer", "handheld computer", "server computer", etc. But a lot of the time these distinctions are based on marketing and hardware optimization than they are physical limitations. A desktop computer can usually accomplish the same tasks as a server, but servers tend to be built to more rigorous reliability standards. Even the iPad is more powerful than server machines you bought in the 1990's. And there's no technical reason why you couldn't run Photoshop or edit AVCHD video on an iPod touch or iPad or a modern cell phone. It may be slow and unpleasant, but it could be done.

Under this definition, a modern cell phone is a special kind of handheld computer with hardware optimized for small size and wireless connectivity. Contast this with the older cell phones, which lacked a general-purpose OS but had simply firmware to allow you to make phone calls, and there was no way to run apps or make it do anything else.