Don't fix what's not broken expresses it vividly and perfectly. There's no need to say any more.

"It's about putting the user first and it's about a level of user interaction where the specifics of the hardware are irrelevant."

There are users (like me) to which the hardware is very relevant and there always will be. And I don't understand why everyone feels that PC's aren't user friendly, there's really nothing complicated about them. Let PC gamers be PC gamers, it wouldn't be fair to assume that everyone wants a world where things all work like consoles and iPads. There should not be one set norm like this, this is the Stalin type market that Apple have always dreamed about that we as consumers must never buy fully into if we want some level of market integrity and comeptition. Monopolies or set paradigms with extremely linear edges are bad for development longterm and shortterm.

Seems to me that Apple are just expressing what they realized a long time ago; they can't compete with the PC as a gaming platform or as a customizable and powerful all purpose machine with a developer friendly market. Ease of use is one thing but tech is equally important to many (again, people like me) and Apple simply want the market shaped in their vision so they can force their business model on everyone and revel in the glory of pawning off hardware with insane percieved value and low actual and relative value on the majority of the population.

There should be two markets, like there is now, one for people who delve deeper and have a passion for high end performance, pushing tech, adding and building, quality, fair (or more fair) prices (Apple harddrives cost twice as much as almost all others, for instance...) and a developer friendly market and one for those who don't care as long as the product is shiny and has lots of bells and whistles to impress the cool kids in the schoolyard and has tens of thousands of utterly useless apps.

Lastly, I would just like to mention that dubbing this "new era" the "post-PC" world is beyond arrogant, self absorbed and tacky, even for Apple. They are placing themselves above the PC as a device and effectively claiming ownership and triumph of and in the market as a whole.

Rainbird; Apple want to take over your freedom. That's their whole game.

Great post.

When Lion was previewed last week, a pro-mac friend that works in my office suddenly came over to start laughing at their new iPad launcher for the macos X. He seemed really pissed off at Apple trying to wedge the iPad into his mac, he's actually thinking on going to Linux just because of this. Even though I don't see it as much of a deal, just a screen with Icons and folders... just another desktop!

I picked other but does this even apply to gaming?

And if we live in this so-called "Post-PC" world, what is this device that I'm using now? And what are the devices in my brothers room, the thing on his desk and the other thing on his table? And what is that device in my room sitting on the shelf above my Dreamcast? Oh yeah, those are PCs. Oops.

@ Mummelmann

You're not paying attention to what I'm saying. This has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, they're just the ones who coined the term, it's about software design. You're interpreting this as meaning that the hardware must be locked down and that the software can't be flexible enough to accomodate different kinds of hardware. Of course it can, there's no reason why Linux-based OSs or Windows 8 couldn't be post-PC and still be as flexible as they are today.

Post-PC simply refers to a design paradigm where you design your software in a way that makes it as easy as possible and as nice as possible for your users to use it. And I agree that post-PC is a bad name to pin on it, but it's nice to actually have a term for it.

EDIT: And I don't own an Apple-product, nor do I have any plans to. Apple isn't taking any of my freedom because I'm not letting them. But that doesn't mean they can't be on to something, even if only partially.

Then just please give examples from current PC stuff that's easy and nice and such that isn't. It really isn't the same for everyone. Once it becomes drool-proof enough, it's actually more annoying and difficult to people who want more control and customization.

Seems like a bit of an overreaction if he hasn't even tried for a longer period of time. Maybe it's actually better?

Hmm, actually I was wrong, because it's both software and hardware. Anyway, it's not about sacrificing depth either. It's about improving the way users interact with the hardware, which can happen through software design, hardware features and combinations of the two.

Stuff that is easy and nice to use is things like Windows Media Center talking to your Xbox 360. You run the program, you do the same on your 360, and bam, it works. You can still customize it if you like, but it just works out of the box.

The opposite would be something like writing in LaTeX. Yes, it produces beautiful results, but it's really way more complicated than it needs to be. To write your text, you need to wrap it in another language. It's asinine!

Not for him, I know how he uses his mac similarly to how someone uses Linux, he is really efficient. His desktop is empty, no dock, programs or files launch from searches, uses shortcuts for everything, virtual desktops, uses terminal for specific programs, etc. Loves the keyboard, hates the mouse... It's crazy to watch. He likes the build quality of the computer and being able to use a Unix based system to mold it for his needs.

But yeah, was surprised to see him react like that and consider a Linux distro after the announcement of this ipad launcher, which you could even uninstall for all we care. It's just a reaction to that "post-pc" development, though this guy is an outlier, don't see the common person have the same problems as him. I'm sure my brother-in-law can't wait for the update.