A Screen for Everything

My parents were considering buying a second desktop for themselves. Second as in “addition to”, not as in “replacement of”. Why? For two reasons (this is just my opinion; I could be totally wrong):
1)      The existing desktop is getting old and might conk out sooner rather than later;
2)      One device ain’t enough for two people!
My father was considering a laptop as an option. That is when my wife told me to suggest the tablet option to them. I did; and initially, they were wary of how easy or difficult typing without a (physical) keyboard might be. They then Googled to learn that they could plug in a physical keyboard to a tablet. I was amused by how my dad knew about iPad and Android as the only two options (I guess he learnt about Android from the book I lent him and, surprisingly, one he actually read: Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution).

I pushed them hard to buy the iPad rather than an Android tablet and they finally agreed to buy an older version with minimal features (only wi-fi, which is OK for them since they don’t intend to carry it beyond the house). I also persuaded them to not buy a keyboard until they had time to experience the iPad and figure out whether they really needed one. And thus they entered what Steve Jobs called the post-PC world.

So where does this place my parents on the Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve? If you’re wondering, that curve describes at what point different sets of people adopt a new, disruptive technology:
(In case you’re wondering, the “chasm” is what any new technology needs to cross if it wants to survive).

As per most market research predictions, 2015 is the year when tablet sales will exceed deskop+laptop sales. So that would place my parents towards the end of the Early Majority part of the curve. (I wouldn’t have asked them to spend money on something that hadn’t crossed the Chasm, would I?)

Who know, maybe my parents will next “graduate” to using different screens for different activities?! After all, that’s what the world is moving to, as per Clive Thompson e.g.:
-         Kindle for reading books;
-         Tablet for browsing and mails;
-         Desktop for work.

I guess the next screen on my parents’ shopping list would be the only missing one in their home: the smartphone. Maybe they’ll even buy two of them!

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