At home? Most people don't.

Every computer I've watched my parents buy over the past 15 years, they buy Microsoft Office as a reflex response. When I visited for the holidays and helped migrate them to their iMac, I noticed the number of Word and Excel documents they had accumulated over this period.

About 40.

Outside of school assignments, what need does a child have for a productivity suite? Close to zero, and even then, 98% of what they do for writing assignments can be accomplished by a simple typewriter or standalone electronic word processor. Programming? Don't get me started...

My sister bought a 15" MacBook Pro over the holidays, and a copy of Office. She doesn't work on documents, just logs in to Outlook Web Access and maybe reviews something sent to her. She does the real work, well, at work. Aside from occasionally loading new photos into iPhoto after one of her 2 yearly vacations, it's a $1700 web browser and media consumption device.

My non-IT friends? The same. Webmail. Facebook. Funny pictures of cats.

The computer in the traditional sense is becoming a lot more niche. Why? It's what people want.

It's like the new 2011 Mustangs are hitting dealer lots. I want the V8, a 6-speed, the performance axle and the good brakes. Out of the dozens of Ford dealers in a 100 mile radius, only ONE dealer has manual transmissions. The only reason that dealer has them is because it's Bob "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday" Tasca -- a car enthusiast, catering to other enthusiasts.

We're computer enthusiasts. The virtues of SSDs are just as foreign as the virtues of powersliding to someone who's, frankly, just not that interested and just wants to get something done inexpensively and with a minimum of fuss that doesn't involve a debugger or heel-toeing.

I just assembled a new (fairly top of the line) computer at my house. And for the first few weeks I played on it, installed software, tweaked, etc.

After that I just started using it for email and the web.

Then I got an ipod, and I do all my facebooking, light websurfing, emailing, etc on there. I only power on my computer any more when I want to get some programming done. I don't even use Word all that often -- generally only to open a file that someone has sent me, or is a legacy file from my old computer.

While the general computer will never be replaced (especially at work, or for work-at-homes) I'm seeing a real trend in the desire for single-use, no-fuss hardware applications (the post on Hacker News about TurnKeyLinux is a good example).

For me: Watching Movies at Home: PS3 and a NAS Listening to Music at Home: PS3 and a NAS Music/Video on the Go: iPod twitter, email, facebook: iPod Touch light web browsing: iPod Showing pictures: Net-enabled Photoframe

Every time I visit home, there's something broken that I have to fix -- the printer doesn't show up on the network, the computer fan is making a funny noise, the video card is stuck at a low res, the windows file sharing folder disappeared, etc. If you could print via safari on the ipad, I'd probably buy it for them so I don't have to fix windows problems every time I visit home.

  - xchat (maybe that does work on the iPad, it could be)
 
  - thunderbird

  - varicad

  - 20 or so terminal tabs logged in to just about as many servers

  - about 20 browser windows, each with multiple tabs

  - an ide (currently intellij, I hate it but that's what I'm using)

Just thinking about having to 'downsize' to a single non-multi tasking machine without a clearly defined local file store that I can back up to a server gives me headaches.

edit: I missed open office and okular, different desktop, same box.

It would be like looking at the world through a very small key-hole.

Oh, yes. Heck, yes. I've found that to be a big reason why I love my iPad.

Remember all that psychological research on multitasking? The research that concludes that even the people who claim to enjoy multitasking and have "lots of practice" at it are less productive and more stressed when trying to do more than one thing at a time?

Have you ever seen Cory Doctorow's theory of ebooks? The one that holds that long-form prose on computer screens hasn't worked, not because we're holding out for better screen quality -- many of us white-collar workers spend eight or more hours a day reading from our existing screens, after all -- but because our computers, and our habits when working with them, are so centered around distraction that we can't make ourselves concentrate when sitting in front of a computer? You start to read the novel from the browser window, but then your email beeps. Or, god help you, your mind starts to wander, your hands hit a key-combo, and you check your email as a sort of spinal reflex. And then you notice the RSS feed icon blinking, and then Twitter updates, and then a Skype call comes in, and before you know it you're reading Wikipedia about some band from the eighties while simultaneously watching a YouTube video of some kittens. Or (ahem) posting to Hacker News.

The iPad is relentlessly focused on one app at any given time. This is obviously a problem for some tasks -- yes, you can't really program on the iPad at the moment, or even blog very effectively; that's why iPad owners also have computers -- but for many other uses it is downright refreshing, even Zen. You do one thing. Then you do something else.

Guilty as charged. You have me almost convinced that I should cut down my screen real estate to something a bit more modest and a maximum of one open window at a time.

Maybe I should try that for a week and see how it works and do a write-up.

When I am programming I have one terminal window open for subversion, the IDE I am programming in, and the web browser for documentation.

When all three are on different screens life is awesome, if I have to move my mouse to switch between windows it becomes a burden and annoying. Having even one extra screen is an absolute must as a programmer. I don't think I could live with just a single screen.

Now on a day to day browsing machine, sure, one screen, like the iPad is perfect. Hell, I tend to sit on the couch with my iPhone browsing the web while watching TV.

(Mind you, I'm still glad it's an all-purpose x86 machine.)

At work I probably have SQL Server Management Studio open, a tabbed text editor, Visual Studio, a Terminal Services client, an IM client, Chrome and MSIE both open, Outlook, several internal apps developed for our trading workflow and monitoring, internal design documents, specs and documents from data vendors... etc. My average window count is probably 16 across three displays, and I'm just a developer. Even in most offices that's absolutely abnormal. Heck, in your average office multiple displays is incredibly abnormal. I've worked in other quant shops and I remember in one even the guys driving the company's bottom line were given just a single 19" display.

But that's fine. I don't need most of that at home. At home I get by with a browser, iTunes and occasionally a Terminal Services client.

iPads aren't going to replace desktops for doing real work. They can't. They never will. However the average user -- and the average power user most of the time -- doesn't need a desktop either. I'm pending a home hardware refresh. I'll still get a decked out iMac, but I have a gut feeling it'll mostly be asleep because 95% of what I do at home is with a web browser. And my lounge chair and sofa are much more comfortable.

You just might not use thrum every second. My sin use for my iPad, in s programming context, is coupling with Papers.app. I basically sit down at a coffee shop in the morning, do my morning email routine, and read an academic paper. If I'm riding the train, it's an easy way to fill wasted time with productivity. I find this much more desirable than using a tiny smartphone. What's more, I try not to waste smartphone battery on reading, I need to husband that for calls.

For you.

You represent a vast minority of computer users though.

X-Chat? Nope. However, I can personally vouch that IRC works on the iPad. And will work even better once we get Colloquy for the iPad released :)

- an ide (currently intellij, I hate it but that's what I'm using)

There's no JRE on the iPad. No bundling your own interpreter either. However, I can see someone making a very good web development IDE for the iPad. Hell, I'd probably pay a lot of $ for one..

A more interesting scenario is when Mozilla's Bespin works properly on the iPad. It doesn't yet, but the developers have mentioned interest in getting it working.

[1] http://smokingapples.com/ipad/markup-gusto/

I wonder if anyone has plans for an IDE written solely to run on jailbroken iPads.

This is also the problem with the ssh client on my G1. I can do minor tasks in the shell but I can't use my editor.

Even his daughter that wants one for college wouldn't want it as her ONLY computer. It would be a pain to write a paper on, or make a spreadsheet for your lab report, or probably even a powerpoint presentation. I had a tablet in college and almost never used it.

True, but there's also the possibility of a device either truly replacing previous technology or creating a whole new niche. For example, my iPhone was cool and fun when I first got it and I had been a Treo owner for years, so smartphones aren't new to my life. However, today, my iPhone is quite integrated into my life, way beyond just a cool new gadget.

I know for my family, the iPad fills almost all needs, such that we really only need iPads plus my own laptop which I can share with my wife and kids on the few odd occasions when they actually need to use a computer. I can definitely see that being the trend in other families.

  He doesn't seem to realize everything is new and exciting when you first get it.

The other stuff was, likely, a lot more cumbersome to use. Waiting for machines to warm/boot up, waiting for software to start, etc, adds friction that can have bigger than expected effects on how often devices are used.

The iPad is far from perfect, but an almost instant-on and rapid interface, along with the form factor, makes for a game-changing device that's perfect for checking something on the Web, checking e-mail, or updating Twitter almost anywhere in the house or garden. Phones could do some of this before but the form factor provides a similar friction to usability.

An avid PC gamer, I suddenly, overnight, quit playing PC games after getting the Xbox 360. The gameplay experience was equivalent (the PC was plugged to the same projector), but the "hassle" factor went to zero on the Xbox 360.

Reducing friction makes users into fans. In the article's examples, sounds like people wanting to accomplish simple goals, finding friction reduced when using the new appliance.

There will still be dirt cheap fully featured PCs, so if anyone in the family ever feels like they not only could but will want to do more they can to that. That’s hardly depressing.