5 ms·

I don't think price is what keeps people from buying tablets, since a decent one can be had for $200. I think what keeps certain people, and I would say this is

by DGCA 14y ago

I don't think price is what keeps people from buying tablets, since a decent one can be had for $200. I think what keeps certain people, and I would say this is a large number, from buying tablets is that they don't see a need for one. Tablets aren't meant to do the same tasks as a desktop/laptop that is why they won't replace them.

ricardobeat 14y ago
Wow, took a whole 5 minutes until we got to the tablet vs desktop debate.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  As a tablet owner who had high expectations when buying one, I - to my dismay - found out that it's mostly useless. I mean, it's a great device for consuming news and playing games, but other than that it hardly has any practical / creative application that a PC wouldn't do better. I understand that it's a new and young technology, but it hurts me to see that something that could be much more, goes in the direction of wasting people's time with games and apps that Do Only One Thing, But Do Them Poory. That's why what I would like to see is a debate about how to make tablets more practical; how those big, handheld, multitouch screens can be used for making the world a better place.
  - marshray 14y ago
    My experience is similar to yours. What would you do to make tablets better?
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      It strikes me that the logical next step would be to have a tablet screen that can attach to a second tablet on a hinge that is shaped more like a keyboard. The second display could then easily alternate between being a traditional computer keyboard to being an instrument panel, large trackpad or anything else you want. Improved haptic feedback will make this experience much better of course.
      - marshray 14y ago
        I have a friend who tried a tablet with the two-screens-on-a-hinge setup you describe. She found it unusable. I have a docking keyboard for my Samsung 10.1. I find it unusable. Worse than a netbook. The keyboard is crappy and the screen is right at my fingertips, so it's impossible to use with good posture.
        TeMPOraL 14y ago
        Asus Transformer TF300T is perfectly usable with keyboard docked; it looks and feels like a good netbook then.
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      I'm not sure yet; this thought that something is seriously wrong occured to me very recently and I didn't have free time to pursue it yet. As for what would I do is first of all, to explore the problem more, which is what I plan to do soon. Anyway, some initial thoughts I had: - consuming is still broken on tablets, at least on Android ones. Most of the apps out there are written for smartphones, and do not make use of neither screen space, nor the multitouch capabilities [0]. There are few exceptions, including third third party clients for Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, and also official GMail and Calendar app. And maybe maps. Pretty much everything else is still made for phones. - tablets could be used as an additional input devices; the big advantage of them over typical input hardware is an reconfigurable interface[1] and ability to handle more finger operations. In particular, I have some drawings of an helper interface for 3D software in my notebook. The idea is to use tablet as an additional interface for zooming, panning and rotating the scene in a similar manner people use "spaceballs" for. I plan to test this idea soon, so I'll post it to HN alongside with all lessons learned in the process. - I think that some ideas from Bret Victor's "Magic Ink"[2] about context-sensual data graphics could be explored more on tablets. Also exploring data that is in graphical form strikes me as something tablets could be much better for than mouse and keyboard. - tablets are nice to carry around (as opposed to laptops), so I see some hope that as the physical environment around us gets more and more computerized, a tablet device may become the most convenient way to interact with it when you need a bigger screen than a smartphone can provide. That's pretty much it; for now it's just me and the feeling that "surely a hand-held, big, multi-touch enabled screen with Wi-Fi and lots of processing power must have some better uses than playing Angry Birds and browsing Reddit". [0] - I know, phones have multitouch as well, but with small screens, there's not really much place to make those touches comfortably. [1] - that, on the other hand has a drawback of hindering the ability to learn to use them intuitively if we start reconfiguring those interfaces too much, but I guess it's just a tradeoff. [2] - http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
      - ricardobeat 14y ago
        From my past experiences I don't think an Android tablet is even comparable to an iPad unless it's one of the latest models.

by DGCA 14y ago

ricardobeat 14y ago

Wow, took a whole 5 minutes until we got to the tablet vs desktop debate.

TeMPOraL 14y ago
As a tablet owner who had high expectations when buying one, I - to my dismay - found out that it's mostly useless. I mean, it's a great device for consuming news and playing games, but other than that it hardly has any practical / creative application that a PC wouldn't do better. I understand that it's a new and young technology, but it hurts me to see that something that could be much more, goes in the direction of wasting people's time with games and apps that Do Only One Thing, But Do Them Poory. That's why what I would like to see is a debate about how to make tablets more practical; how those big, handheld, multitouch screens can be used for making the world a better place.
- marshray 14y ago
  My experience is similar to yours. What would you do to make tablets better?
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    It strikes me that the logical next step would be to have a tablet screen that can attach to a second tablet on a hinge that is shaped more like a keyboard. The second display could then easily alternate between being a traditional computer keyboard to being an instrument panel, large trackpad or anything else you want. Improved haptic feedback will make this experience much better of course.
    - marshray 14y ago
      I have a friend who tried a tablet with the two-screens-on-a-hinge setup you describe. She found it unusable. I have a docking keyboard for my Samsung 10.1. I find it unusable. Worse than a netbook. The keyboard is crappy and the screen is right at my fingertips, so it's impossible to use with good posture.
      - TeMPOraL 14y ago
        Asus Transformer TF300T is perfectly usable with keyboard docked; it looks and feels like a good netbook then.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    I'm not sure yet; this thought that something is seriously wrong occured to me very recently and I didn't have free time to pursue it yet. As for what would I do is first of all, to explore the problem more, which is what I plan to do soon. Anyway, some initial thoughts I had: - consuming is still broken on tablets, at least on Android ones. Most of the apps out there are written for smartphones, and do not make use of neither screen space, nor the multitouch capabilities [0]. There are few exceptions, including third third party clients for Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, and also official GMail and Calendar app. And maybe maps. Pretty much everything else is still made for phones. - tablets could be used as an additional input devices; the big advantage of them over typical input hardware is an reconfigurable interface[1] and ability to handle more finger operations. In particular, I have some drawings of an helper interface for 3D software in my notebook. The idea is to use tablet as an additional interface for zooming, panning and rotating the scene in a similar manner people use "spaceballs" for. I plan to test this idea soon, so I'll post it to HN alongside with all lessons learned in the process. - I think that some ideas from Bret Victor's "Magic Ink"[2] about context-sensual data graphics could be explored more on tablets. Also exploring data that is in graphical form strikes me as something tablets could be much better for than mouse and keyboard. - tablets are nice to carry around (as opposed to laptops), so I see some hope that as the physical environment around us gets more and more computerized, a tablet device may become the most convenient way to interact with it when you need a bigger screen than a smartphone can provide. That's pretty much it; for now it's just me and the feeling that "surely a hand-held, big, multi-touch enabled screen with Wi-Fi and lots of processing power must have some better uses than playing Angry Birds and browsing Reddit". [0] - I know, phones have multitouch as well, but with small screens, there's not really much place to make those touches comfortably. [1] - that, on the other hand has a drawback of hindering the ability to learn to use them intuitively if we start reconfiguring those interfaces too much, but I guess it's just a tradeoff. [2] - http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
    - ricardobeat 14y ago
      From my past experiences I don't think an Android tablet is even comparable to an iPad unless it's one of the latest models.