The most Personal Computer

by Konstantin Weiss on October 18, 2018

When #apple announced the Personal Computer, they were thinking of a computational device that would serve one human, to augment and expand one’s capabilities to think. “A bicycle for the mind”, like Steve #jobs used to call it. And the original Macintosh was their expression of the idea.

Bill #gates saw in a #pc like the IBM PC Convertible the means to a different end. Through standardized #software, especially the combination of an #os and #applications on top, he revolutionized the handling of business processes in corporations and small businesses. He stripped the “P” out of the #pc. Business goals dictated those machines, and people had to follow like drones and surrender to the grey boxes of the #wintel empire.

#jobs brought the PC back. And I’m holding such a device in my hands, writing these lines.

In a sense, I’m late to the party. I’ve been using iPhones 5 and then 4 during the past year. These are great devices for calls and partially messages. But not much more anymore. The web is too slow, so are map apps, and a lot of apps don’t work anymore. This week, I switched to an iPhone X, and it’s a leap. It’s not a phone by any means anymore.

It’s weird to call it a #smartphone, since the phone functionality is long gone as the main focus, and “smart” is a rather blurry name for something with a chip in it. In fact, this device is made to delight people with most of what a computer is supposed to do. It’s the most #personal device that I have, carrying it with me almost all the time, storing most personal information on it, and #sharing it with the closest friends and family. And it’s fast, often faster than a #laptop, with vast computational capabilities.

Although I love my #ipad pro, and I use it for most tasks at work or at home, iPad-users are a minority, and even I don’t carry it around with me all the time.

Thus, even tough people call it a #smartphone, in fact this kind of device is the most Personal Computer there is to date.