This is subtle, but they’re not advertising the iPad as a replacement for a PC or Mac.

They’re advertising an iPad as a replacement for the things most people use a PC or Mac for.

An iPad is certainly not a viable PC replacement for me, nor most of HN I would guess. But for a lot of “casual users,” who really just surf the web, watch videos, etc, it’s great.

What’s way more interesting is how iPad has become appealing to a lot of “semi-power users,” like photographers and videographers. These are people who, twenty years ago, really needed to be computer savvy to do their work, but didn’t (and still don’t) think of themselves as “computer people.” Or to put that a different way, they “use a computer for work,” but they don’t “work on computers.” That audience has been greatly expanded as iOS devices have lowered the cost and skill barriers to entry making a lot of content creation possible.

For those of us who actually “work on computers,” I don’t see iOS devices ever being a great fit… or at least not any time soon. But for others, an iPad might do everything the user wants from a computer, and maybe do it faster and easier as well. That’s what Apple is advertising.

> This is subtle, but they’re not advertising the iPad as a replacement for a PC or Mac.

> They’re advertising an iPad as a replacement for the things most people use a PC or Mac for.

To me that sounds pretty similar, they advertise it with similar features, functions and in practice it's also used similarly.

I kind of like how Apple's advertising went from "the computer for the rest of us" to "what's a computer?"

Well, uh, kid, it's a bit like that iPad you're using, but you can run any software you want on it.

> That argument would work a little better if they did not market their phones as a computer replacement in the first place...

It's a very effective alternative model. Steve jobs said no stylus and no separate keyboard and it did quite effectively replace PCs at a lot of boring office tasks that any manager would need.

I believe many people use a smartphone as their only computer.

Smartphones have useful features that many laptops don't have, including: subsidized pricing, long battery life, small size that fits in your pocket, mobile data, and the ability to make phone calls.

I’ve seen the iPad marketed as such but never the iPhone.

Just have a look at the difference between an Iphone ad and a PS4 ad. On one side you have screen, processor, new apps & all the productive things you can do with the phone, on the PS4 side you have games games and more games. The marketing difference is obvious.

Sure but that doesn’t mean that Apple markets the iPhone explicitly as one and it’s not like Apple is shy to not market one of their devices as such i.e the iPad. I think everyone is trying to fit these items in categories when they already have categories they’re marketed in. The iPhone is a Smartphone and has always (as far as I’m aware) has been marketed as a Smartphone. Just as the PS4 is market as a Game console because it IS a game console.

In the end what separates these are not by what they can do , cause in reality if someone really really really wanted to ALL these devices can run a OS that makes it function like a desktop/laptop. It’s about what they’re meant to do. We’ve seen Apple market something as a computer before and it was never the iPhone.

What separates them is how they are used in practice and they are used in practice as computer replacement (it's especially visible in developing countries). Apple themselves marketing them as multi-purpose computers in their ads is further proof but not needed for my argument.

And I’m telling you that’s not the case since we have an actual case of Apple marketing one of their products as computer replacements and it was never the iPhone. The iPhone was always market as “An iPod, a phone, an internet mobile communicator... these are NOT three separate devices” m. There’s a difference between a computing device and a computer. All devices with a chip are computing devices hut jot all computing devices are computers.

To each their own, I don't see a big difference between the marketing of an Iphone and the marketing of any laptop out there. Apple might claim whatever suits them for their defense but even themselves have realized internally how their product is used.

There's an app for that.