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Good god, why on earth did that get downvoted? It's an intelligent opinion, and he's not the only one who thinks it. That said, I strongly disagree. iPad cla

Good god, why on earth did that get downvoted? It's an intelligent opinion, and he's not the only one who thinks it. That said, I strongly disagree. iPad class tablets are a portable window into the digital world. Apple's video did a pretty good job of showing how that could help people do things they care about, and we're only just getting started.

Silhouette 16y ago
Apparently we'll just have to have a civilised discussion in light grey. ;-) I would certainly agree that mobile devices with networking capabilities are a big step forward in general. What I think remains to be seen is whether tablet-style devices like the iPad and Galaxy Tab can carve out a sustainable niche fast enough to survive in a notoriously fickle market. For leisure use, they seem to have fundamental weaknesses like very short battery lives and being difficult to read in sunlight. No doubt with time these will improve, but for now they reduce the applicability of tablet-style devices, and notably leave them vulnerable to competition from Kindle-style e-book readers in a major segment of the market. For serious work, I think the lack of a real keyboard is a major disadvantage compared to netbook-style devices. It's going to be a long time before some sort of physical feedback screen is anything like as comfortable and efficient for sustained typing as even a cheap-and-nasty keyboard already is today. Speaking of controls, while touch-based UIs could become the norm and stylus-type pointing devices might take over from mice for precision work, I don't think I'll hold my breath. Portable mice are widely used with laptops, simply because even the best built-in trackpads are relatively clumsy controls. Also, many a useful UI feature over the past couple of decades has been driven by awareness of what the user is passively observing, typically deduced by where a pointer is positioned. Again, this might change, but it's going to take a long time for conventions that have become as intuitive as handwriting to die, and I don't think the alternative UIs being developed for smartphones today are even close to refined enough for that job yet once you scale them up to tablet-size devices and applications. I can certainly see tablet-style devices with custom UIs quickly becoming widely used in many niche areas where the flexibility has value, such as shop floor or industrial applications. And I'm sure there will always be an enthusiast segment of the market that values the flexibility they offer, though perhaps tempered in this case by the current closed/tightly-controlled software ecosystems that have been associated with these devices by the big players so far. However, I think there is a long way to go before a general purpose device that is expensive enough to include components for everything but still only does one thing at once will beat out dedicated and cost-effective GPS satnavs, e-book readers, digital photo frames, wrist watches, and so on. I'm not saying it can't or won't happen, just that I don't think we're there yet, and until we are, companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM are highly vulnerable not so much to competition from each other but to competition from specialist firms whose specialist devices do one thing, but better and at a lower price.
- rbarooah 16y ago
  I think you're overlooking the idea that tablets only have to be better at one or two things in order for people to adopt them. Once you have one, the additional functions don't have to be objectively better in order to displace single function devices because they have two unassailable advantages - zero additional hardware cost, and zero mass. For example - just being able to browser, keep up with light email, and read ebooks is enough for me to carry my iPad in a lot of situations. I used to carry a backpack full of books and a laptop to get the same functionality. Once I'm carrying the iPad, the fact that it can become a music keyboard for another $5 is just a bonus. I was never going to buy and carry a small portable keyboard. Likewise the GPS and maps. I wouldn't have bought and carried an independent device for that. For specialists, dedicated devices will better for some time to come, but for most people that doesn't matter - the tablet is enabling activities that were simply not practical before. As far as UI conventions go, most non-geeks just aren't very good with the desktop metaphor anyway. Sure there are experts and for programmers or digital content creators by profession it pays to become one, but most people just aren't. My 87 year old father (who's last computer was analog!) was able to take my iPad out of my hands and operate the browser without me even telling him what the device was let alone explaining UI metaphors. I think the key is that tablets can work in situations where netbooks etc. simply can't, and they can make functionality ubiquitous where a collection of special purpose devices would be too much overhead. And then it's not going to take long for them to evolve to outpace the development of independent specialist hardware because all those separate makers don't stand a chance of putting the same level of resources into the development. And for all the things that need custom sensors, why not simply have them be extensions of a tablet? Take something really specialized - e.g. a metal detector. Why not make that into just a Bluetooth sensor that communicated with an iPhone? Setting could be adjusted on the touch screen, but more importantly the phone could log the output, put it on the map with GPS, and upload it to the cloud. All this extra capability, and the sensor could probably be lower cost than a standalone device. So once tablets enter the equation, previously devices can become cheaper and more capable. We aren't going to see tablets fall to standalone devices, altough other hardware isn't necessarily going away either.
  - Silhouette 16y ago

Silhouette 16y ago

Apparently we'll just have to have a civilised discussion in light grey. ;-) I would certainly agree that mobile devices with networking capabilities are a big step forward in general. What I think remains to be seen is whether tablet-style devices like the iPad and Galaxy Tab can carve out a sustainable niche fast enough to survive in a notoriously fickle market. For leisure use, they seem to have fundamental weaknesses like very short battery lives and being difficult to read in sunlight. No doubt with time these will improve, but for now they reduce the applicability of tablet-style devices, and notably leave them vulnerable to competition from Kindle-style e-book readers in a major segment of the market. For serious work, I think the lack of a real keyboard is a major disadvantage compared to netbook-style devices. It's going to be a long time before some sort of physical feedback screen is anything like as comfortable and efficient for sustained typing as even a cheap-and-nasty keyboard already is today. Speaking of controls, while touch-based UIs could become the norm and stylus-type pointing devices might take over from mice for precision work, I don't think I'll hold my breath. Portable mice are widely used with laptops, simply because even the best built-in trackpads are relatively clumsy controls. Also, many a useful UI feature over the past couple of decades has been driven by awareness of what the user is passively observing, typically deduced by where a pointer is positioned. Again, this might change, but it's going to take a long time for conventions that have become as intuitive as handwriting to die, and I don't think the alternative UIs being developed for smartphones today are even close to refined enough for that job yet once you scale them up to tablet-size devices and applications. I can certainly see tablet-style devices with custom UIs quickly becoming widely used in many niche areas where the flexibility has value, such as shop floor or industrial applications. And I'm sure there will always be an enthusiast segment of the market that values the flexibility they offer, though perhaps tempered in this case by the current closed/tightly-controlled software ecosystems that have been associated with these devices by the big players so far. However, I think there is a long way to go before a general purpose device that is expensive enough to include components for everything but still only does one thing at once will beat out dedicated and cost-effective GPS satnavs, e-book readers, digital photo frames, wrist watches, and so on. I'm not saying it can't or won't happen, just that I don't think we're there yet, and until we are, companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft and RIM are highly vulnerable not so much to competition from each other but to competition from specialist firms whose specialist devices do one thing, but better and at a lower price.

rbarooah 16y ago
I think you're overlooking the idea that tablets only have to be better at one or two things in order for people to adopt them. Once you have one, the additional functions don't have to be objectively better in order to displace single function devices because they have two unassailable advantages - zero additional hardware cost, and zero mass. For example - just being able to browser, keep up with light email, and read ebooks is enough for me to carry my iPad in a lot of situations. I used to carry a backpack full of books and a laptop to get the same functionality. Once I'm carrying the iPad, the fact that it can become a music keyboard for another $5 is just a bonus. I was never going to buy and carry a small portable keyboard. Likewise the GPS and maps. I wouldn't have bought and carried an independent device for that. For specialists, dedicated devices will better for some time to come, but for most people that doesn't matter - the tablet is enabling activities that were simply not practical before. As far as UI conventions go, most non-geeks just aren't very good with the desktop metaphor anyway. Sure there are experts and for programmers or digital content creators by profession it pays to become one, but most people just aren't. My 87 year old father (who's last computer was analog!) was able to take my iPad out of my hands and operate the browser without me even telling him what the device was let alone explaining UI metaphors. I think the key is that tablets can work in situations where netbooks etc. simply can't, and they can make functionality ubiquitous where a collection of special purpose devices would be too much overhead. And then it's not going to take long for them to evolve to outpace the development of independent specialist hardware because all those separate makers don't stand a chance of putting the same level of resources into the development. And for all the things that need custom sensors, why not simply have them be extensions of a tablet? Take something really specialized - e.g. a metal detector. Why not make that into just a Bluetooth sensor that communicated with an iPhone? Setting could be adjusted on the touch screen, but more importantly the phone could log the output, put it on the map with GPS, and upload it to the cloud. All this extra capability, and the sensor could probably be lower cost than a standalone device. So once tablets enter the equation, previously devices can become cheaper and more capable. We aren't going to see tablets fall to standalone devices, altough other hardware isn't necessarily going away either.
- Silhouette 16y ago