2010 Year of Tablet PC

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Permalink Reply by Brian Russo on January 28, 2010 at 8:41pm

Yeah looks like a giant ipod touch.

Tablets have been around for a while; I think they're neat but skeptical they'll take off. I just don't really see people walking around with tablets and at home I don't see a huge difference over netbooks (which are cheaper), and small laptops (which do much more). The 3G iPad is around $800 I believe when it comes out in April and still has an IPS screen that isn't really readable in sunlight. I don't foresee lots of people dropping $800 on what is essentially a smartphone that's too big to pocket and can't make calls?

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Permalink Reply by Russ Ogi on February 1, 2010 at 9:51am

The real benefit to a Tablet PC is for those who have a need to do a lot of had written work or art. A contractor who needs to do a sketch of a job site can do that on a tablet and transmit wirelessly with other forms back to the office. He can find out before leaving the job site if he missed anything. Compare that to doing a paper sketch, driving back to the office and possibly realizing at that point he needs to return to the job site to do more sketches. With the time and money saved, the Tablet PC easily makes up for itself in a couple of months or less.

Similar would apply to the medical, archeological and architectural fields. Artists have turned to graphics tablets for years. Any artist who uses a graphics tablet will tell you that it takes a while to get the hang of drawing in one place while looking in another and for that reason it doesn't replace pen and paper. Tablet PC's change that. You draw where you see.

If you've never uesd a Tablet PC for artwork, it's a world of difference. I did storyboards and concept sketches for an animation using my Tablet. It saved a ton of time digitizing, organizing and making changes to hand drawn images.

The disappointing part about the iPad release is that they focused on mundane uses for it. I agree, browing pictures, reading e-books etc are probably not good reasons to buy an oversized iPhone. It didn't show whether or not the iPad could handle the applications that Tablet PC users really need.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Russo on February 2, 2010 at 5:06pm

Yeah I have winmo tablets at work for that sort of thing that we deploy out. Similarly I have a friend who's a graphic artist and has one of those wacom tablet display things. They're pretty cool.

But those are niche markets and tablets have been doing fine in that sector for the past decade.

Personally I just bought the new motorola android and it does everything I want. Solid email, messaging, web browsing, etc. I see absolutely no reason to purchase an iPad and only know 1 person that wants one - and I have a lot of mac-happy friends. The general consensus is that it's disappointing and they don't know what they'd use it for.

So while I see a continuing explosion of smart phones - I see very little use for tablets outside of established niches. The bottom line is this - you can't carry them around with you all day. So that means they replace home computers.. but they're not as capable and I think even your average consumer has some understanding of that. And even then.. why buy one over a laptop?

This is a fundamental problem with techy people. No matter how "neat" your service or product is - if it does not have a use it does not matter. A lot of us don't get that.

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Permalink Reply by Russ Ogi on February 4, 2010 at 9:26am

Sadly, a lot of people tend to go with trends. I agree, cool technology for the sake of cool technology is a waste. I had high hopes for the iPad. I'm primarily a PC user for the general cost and flexibility but I've worked extensively on Mac's and I know they have solid hardware (just pricey with gimmicks). I know they're people yelling blasphemy in both Mac and PC camps right now.

I have yet to see the work side of the iPad.

The Tablet PC has its place but since I haven't had time to do a lot of artwork lately, it's become a little less relevant. The majority of my note taking and mobile computing are now done on my smartphone. In fact that when it was time to upgrade, the first thing I thought of was upgrading was my smartphone.

I still see a place for Tablet PC's for the average user. Maybe not everyone and maybe not yet. I don't think the average computer user would make full use of the capability or, as you pointed out, even the understanding.

BTW, as a heavy smartphone user, how has the Android operating system been and how does it compare to other mobile OS'?



Brian Russo said:

Yeah I have winmo tablets at work for that sort of thing that we deploy out. Similarly I have a friend who's a graphic artist and has one of those wacom tablet display things. They're pretty cool.

But those are niche markets and tablets have been doing fine in that sector for the past decade.

Personally I just bought the new motorola android and it does everything I want. Solid email, messaging, web browsing, etc. I see absolutely no reason to purchase an iPad and only know 1 person that wants one - and I have a lot of mac-happy friends. The general consensus is that it's disappointing and they don't know what they'd use it for.

So while I see a continuing explosion of smart phones - I see very little use for tablets outside of established niches. The bottom line is this - you can't carry them around with you all day. So that means they replace home computers.. but they're not as capable and I think even your average consumer has some understanding of that. And even then.. why buy one over a laptop?

This is a fundamental problem with techy people. No matter how "neat" your service or product is - if it does not have a use it does not matter. A lot of us don't get that.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Russo on February 5, 2010 at 12:49am

I don't foresee mainstream (read: large enterprise/government) business adoption of the iPad simply due to the fact that most are still heavily invested in Microsoft. Certainly I imagine it will be popular amongst certain "boutique" companies; especially those that want to appear trendy; but it doesn't seem very functional for business compared to.. a laptop.

With business it always comes down to integration. And Apple's business integration/footprint is basically nil (unless there's some sector out there I'm completely unaware of).

I foresee (and have said at work) that in time I see winmo pda devices dying off and basically replaced by smartphones. Right now it's not really viable because we have certain requirements such as ruggedization; but I think it's simply a matter of time before you see business ready smartphone/pda devices. Realistically the distinction between a pda and a smartphone is negligible anyway - since smartphones come with wifi/BT/GPS/etc they're just as connected. It's more of a focus on usage case than anything.

I agree there is some usage of tablets for average joes; but as I said - I'm really skeptical on tablets taking over mainstream desktop/laptops; and I don't see a large niche between regular desktop/laptops and smartphones. I know about 20-30 high schoolers that I see on a regular (2-3x a month) basis and they're ALL about phones.

I have not heavily used the iPhone, but I have a similar power-user friend that is all about the iPhone and his assessment of my android is that it's basically a side-grade. Different, but not really better or worse. Casual users of the iPhone seem to have a similar reaction to the interface and capabilities.

As far as blackberries go, I'd say blackberries do retain a slight edge for pure messaging - but that's partly due to the ergonomics of the physical devices themselves. As far as OS goes I think android is ahead of the curve. BB has better enterprise integration; but a lot of that comes down to existing users - new users may be a different story. Android blows blackberry away in terms of ease of use, features, apps, browsing, etc. It's like blackberry may be like 10% better at messaging but Android is an order of magnitude better at just about everything else. So unless you're a business user that is basically glued to their blackberry and constantly sending emails/texts; I wouldn't recommend a blackberry at this point. Browsing the web on the blackberry made me want to hurt small animals; but on android it's more like using a really teensy laptop - in a good way.

Symbian is basically non-existent in the US. I haven't used the latest Winmo so I can't comment (I've heard it's a lot better) - but really I consider this a dying OS. In the US I foresee Android and iPhone duking it out with blackberry retaining a niche enterprise market focused on business-important features.

Aside, my favourite features of android are.. the notification system, the openness of the platform (I've only installed android market apps, but knowing I have the power is a good thing, e.g. iphone/google voice debacle), browsing, general UI look/feel is very intuitive. Everything seems to flow and work as you expect it to. When you click something or long-press, etc - it does what you think it should do. I seldom find myself wondering how I 'get to' something as I frequently did on my blackberry. It's a similarly great UX to iphone basically.

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