- Image via Wikipedia
Besttabletreview.com has posted a great essay: “The A-Z’s of tablets: Why tablets hold so much potential”. Definitely worth a read, especially if you’re of the mindset that tablet computers don’t have anything to offer you.
Some of the common arguments I’ve heard against the Apple Tablet are “it’s going to fail because nobody’s made a compelling tablet before”, or “Who wants a big device with an onscreen keyboard? Give me a netbook instead”. I think the latter argument is inspired by the former – nobody has made a compelling tablet with a natural input system designed for tablet use. Instead, almost every tablet manufacturer to date has slapped a standard desktop OS like Windows on their device, then added an onscreen keyboard or “text input window” as an afterthought.
What’s needed is a way to input information that naturally lends itself to a tablet form factor. No dedicated input panels please – if the tablet does support handwriting recognition, then I should be able to write anywhere (much like you could on the Apple Newton). If the tablet supports voice recognition, then the user should be able to dictate via built-in microphone or bluetooth headset. But most importantly – please don’t stick a desktop user interface onto the tablet and call it done. Desktop UIs are not meant to be poked & prodded with your fingers.
The author of the A-Z essay agrees:
The typical computer operating systems aren’t practical for tablets. Touchscreen interaction needs larger icons and hit boxes for finger input and can’t offer the pixel selection that a traditional mouse can…
Touch-based interaction is something everyone can figure out. It’s not imposing like traditional computer interaction can be to new users. You see something you want to interact with? Touch it. There is no learning curve or time spend figuring out which buttons do what on an input device.
That brings up another point – the market for tablets. Traditionally, tablet devices have not done well with consumers. But give someone a very intutive, easy to use device, and whole new market segments open up. If I know Apple, they aren’t targeting their new device at traditional computer purchasers. They’re going after Mom & Dad. Aunt Jen and Uncle Joe. Steve, the tech-wary cousin. Look at the iPod and iPhone – my 77 year old parents both disliked computers. Until they got an iMac and their two iPods. My father loves to read – given his positive Apple experiences, I can see him sitting in his favorite chair with an Apple Tablet, surfing the net and reading ebooks. With a Tablet PC running Windows 7? No way.
The A-Z essay covers a number of other tablet applications (I would’ve killed for a tablet with all my textbooks on it when I was finishing my physics degree). I think that if you take the time to read it, you’ll see that a properly-designed tablet has a lot to offer consumers. I’m betting that Apple will be the first company to get a tablet right (or at least, closer than anyone else has managed so far).
Mike is a former sysadmin and embedded developer, who worked on several prototype tablet devices way back in the dot-com era. He's also a non-practicing physicist and a big fan of anything resembling a tablet computer (or a telescope).