Apple accelerated the PC’s decline but didn’t cause it

The post-PC era arrives

PC sales were already slowing long before the iPhone appeared. Apple didn’t kill the PC; it simply pushed it over the edge. The company accelerated a shift that was already underway as hardware matured, software demands eased and users moved more of their work to the cloud.

Some call it the post-PC era. In truth, it’s the natural result of a mature market reaching its limits. The familiar personal computer no longer sits at the top of the technology food chain.

Dave Lane says blaming Apple’s 2007 iPhone launch — see How the iPhone meteor killed dinosaur PCs — for the PC’s decline overstates the company’s role. “I’m not convinced that the iPhone was the reason for the change in the PC market,” he says. “It might be a factor, but there are many other things, to do with the maturity curves and performance gains of PC hardware and the relative lack of sophistication or advancement of PC software.”

“Also, I’m not convinced that smart mobile devices only came about because of Apple, although I acknowledge that Apple’s initial heavy investment in the iPod and iPhone accelerated the speed with which touch-based devices achieved the necessary manufacturing scale to become widely affordable."

Lane makes an important point. He argues that the PC’s decline is part of the broad sweep of technology history — a long, inevitable shift rather than the result of one company’s actions.

It’s a complex idea, but put simply: the big picture matters more than individual players. The same historical forces that drive political or social change apply to technology. The Russian Revolution would have happened without Lenin; Europe would have reached the Americas without Columbus.

In that sense, the fall in PC sales would have happened even if Apple had never made the iPhone.

By the late 2000s, the PC market had reached saturation in developed countries. Everyone who wanted a computer already had one, prices were low and second-hand machines were good enough for most users. The market became one of replacement rather than expansion — enough on its own to stop growth.

Better computers

At the same time, PCs became good enough. Hardware quality improved, components lasted longer and failures were less common. For most users, there was no urgent reason to upgrade.

The shift from desktop software to cloud apps added to this. Once the heavy lifting moved online, users could hold on to older machines for far longer. In the 1990s, PC makers wanted us to believe we needed a new machine every two years. By 2007, that upgrade cycle had stretched to many years.

Better software

Software was changing too. After years of bloated operating systems, Microsoft finally delivered something lighter. Windows 7 ran better on older hardware than Windows Vista, which helped extend the life of existing PCs.

Applications followed the same path. Developers learned to write leaner code. Many users moved to browser-based tools. Software as a Service arrived. The bloatware era ended, at least in mainstream computing.

All this meant users no longer needed new machines to get more done. The PC industry’s old growth model — sell faster hardware to run hungrier software — had broken down.

Change

Those changes, and in some cases the lack of change, were real enough. Until the late 1990s, PC hardware and software leapfrogged each other in what you could call a virtuous, or depending on your view, a vicious circle.

So yes, PC sales would have slowed or dropped without Apple’s iPhone launch. Lane says Apple “may have been a factor”. When that sits alongside the wider historical trend, the company’s influence becomes clearer.

The iPhone arrived just as the PC market was losing momentum. It kicked the industry when it was already down, turning up at the moment users were ready for something new.

There’s no question that phones — and later tablets — displaced a share of PC sales. The iPhone didn’t start the decline; it accelerated it.

Cause and effect

Lane’s second point is that smart mobile devices didn’t begin with Apple. He’s right. Smartphones existed before the iPhone — we called them Blackberries. They were built for business users and priced that way. Unless your company paid for the service, you faced steep costs for push email and data.

Apple changed that. The iPhone turned what had been a niche business tool into a mainstream consumer device. That may sound odd given Apple’s reputation for premium pricing, but compared with Blackberry ownership, the iPhone was cheaper and easier to use.

Breakthrough

Could another company have achieved the same breakthrough? Many tried. Nokia led global phone sales. Motorola was still strong. Palm had the Pilot and an early phone variant. HP and others built Windows phones.

The problem was structural. Large corporations with the talent, resources and capital to innovate often lacked the will to disrupt their own markets. Promising products sat undeveloped in skunkworks labs while management stayed focused on quarterly sales.

Microsoft, despite its wealth and dominance, couldn’t have made an iPhone-style leap. Even if it had, its leadership would never have risked undermining Windows and Office, which drove most of its profit. Windows Phone 8 was a capable system, but it arrived too late.

At the time of the iPhone launch, Microsoft was the world’s richest company. It took years to recognise that its core business was being eroded by mobile computing.

Samsung’s pre-Android phones were weak. Motorola’s early smartphones missed the mark. Nokia, still attached to its Symbian platform, failed to see the shift coming.

Apple ready

Apple was prepared. It brought together hardware, software and design into a single, approachable product. Anyone could pick it up and understand it — no manual required. Other companies didn’t have all the pieces ready at the same time.

Apple leveraged its experience with Macs and iPods to build a near-perfect smartphone. It wasn’t flawless, but it was as close as the market could get in 2007. Most importantly, Apple had everything to gain and little to lose by disrupting the mobile market.

Android

Android was an iPhone copy. Development teams may have had early smartphone software in the works, but the arrival of the iPhone forced them to scrap their original plans. No other company had Apple’s combination of manufacturing scale, cash reserves, infrastructure, or ecosystem ready to go.

While it’s true that some form of smart mobile devices would have emerged eventually, Apple’s timing and execution changed when and how the shift happened. The company took a calculated risk that paid off, democratising mobile technology in a way that competitors could not.

Not just Apple

Apple’s success didn’t happen in isolation. Other companies contributed to the rise of smart devices, but Apple turned it into a mainstream phenomenon. It simplified the user experience, made technology approachable and created a model that combined innovation with mass-market appeal — all while generating unprecedented profits.

The PC’s decline was inevitable, driven by market saturation, longer-lasting hardware and the rise of cloud computing. Apple didn’t start the trend, but the iPhone accelerated it, showing how timing, execution and risk-taking can reshape an industry. Today, smart devices continue to evolve, from tablets to ARM laptops, proving that the shift away from traditional PCs was always part of a broader technological story — one Apple helped define, but did not create in isolation.

Note: This article was updated in 2025. It keeps the original argument but clarifies how broader trends in hardware, software and cloud computing shaped the modern PC market alongside Apple’s iPhone.