Research firm Gartner today released its quarterly estimates of PC sales in Western Europe for the third quarter of 2011, finding that Apple bucked the trend in a declining market to join the list of top five vendors. Apple's sales in Western Europe were up 19.6% year-over-year, compared to an overall decline of 11.4% for the market. Apple's performance was understandably strongest in mobile PCs, where it registered 28% year-over-year growth.
Gartner's Western Europe PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q11 (Thousands of Units)
In addition to the totals for Western Europe, Gartner also breaks out data for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, with the UK being the only one of those countries where Apple ranked in the top five. The company's 21.8% year-over-year growth there landed it in fourth place with 7.8% of the market, although Samsung's 39% growth left it only slightly behind Apple with 7.3% of the market.
Gartner last month released preliminary numbers for the U.S. and worldwide markets, finding that Apple had taken 12.9% of the U.S. PC market during the third quarter, a substantial jump quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year, as well as a continuation of a long-term trend that has seen Apple increasing its share of the U.S. PC market.
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I didn't know the PC had a screen size requirement. Don't tell Toshiba (http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/mini-notebook) or Samsung (http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP-NF210-A01US). They use terms like "computer" and "PC" to describe their 10" laptop, er, such-and-such in their marketing material.
Wouldn't there have to be a file system so as to allow delivery of iCloud shared documents or documents synced via iTunes, or do you mean "lack of file system" in the traditional sense we've become acustomed since adopting a GUI? There obviously must be a file system, as I have several apps on my iPhone for accessing stored music files besides the default Music app.
I'm guessing you're like me in that you spend a good deal of time with computers. We take for granted that many people do not or, at the very least, struggle with them.
It is interesting that so many in the forums seem hellbent on considering anything that doesn't meet minute criteria should not be considered a computer. I'm old enough to remember when people used to argue that the GUI wasn't a true computer experience due to the lack of power when compared to working in DOS or within terminal on a *NIX machine. They saw the command line as what constitutes a computer and the proliferation of a computer with a GUI as an affront to everyone and "too simple." The author/blogger Corey Doctorow believes a computer needs to have a user-replaceable battery.
If the computer is going to come to the masses, it needs to evolve. The masses shouldn't need to evolve to come to the computer. :p
But, to get to the point, including calculators would indeed be absurd. In fact, so would perhaps including early-age personal computers (despite them, by definition, being just that - albeit in the past).
Thus, we know that the meaning of the word "computer" is situated, or historicized. This is what i tried to make clear by speaking of the conflict created by the shift in "computing" towards consumption, with the notion of what a "computer" is - which, still, leave the ipad as the computer which is not.
That said, the measure itself holds value. But it only does so in so far as the ipad is seen as the computer that is. If not, the measure loses value.
Is the ipad a computer? Of course, but that is besides the point.
p.s.
The observation that Y were able to successfully replace A with B does not imply that A is B.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
(Just saying... in essence i agree with your reasoning).
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Dont forget about the Padfone - now thats when things get really ****ed up.
The evidence is right there on the chart. The manufacturer that jumped on the netPC bandwagon fell 45% due to the iPad. That's some "statistically relevant" numbers.
But only you and Steve could see these things, and now he is gone. So that leaves you. Everyone else is wrong except for you, and hopefully for your sake Tim Cook inherited the sixth sense from Steve.
I don't disagree. Again - as I said in a previous post - it's only for sales and marketing (and these boards) it seems. At the end of the day - they are all computing devices. And whatever works for an individual is all that matters. Not what it's called. I had a cousin (no longer alive) who after his stroke used a speak-n-spell to communicate. It was every bit a computer for his use case than what can be used today. Maybe not the best analogy - but my point is - it was a computing device.