How do you suppose that advancement is to be funded?
“Touch” interfaces are actually quite poor, ergonomically (I put “touch” in quotes because in most cases you cannot operate them by touch alone, unlike many traditional physical interfaces. Touch interfaces would be better named “look and touch.”) How many times do you see people posting things like “I’d copy the link and paste it here, but I’m using a tablet/phone”? I.e. it’s too much hassle to do things like that on a touch screen.
The one big advantage, of course, is that touch screens save space by combining the input device and the output device into one. Where compact device size is very important, as with “take anywhere” devices such as phones, the limitations of a touch screen are quite acceptable. As others have said, tablets are a bit too big to carry with you all the time, so the compromise breaks down. At the “occasionally portable” level, you might as well use a laptop.
I actually thought that was pretty much a solved problem now:
Copying of a single word that appears in most apps is just a case of long-press, then select Copy
Copying a selection of text is as above, but with a little bit of dragging of selection handles in the middle
Copying the URL of the current browser page is either long-press in the address bar, or if there is no address bar, it’s built into the app’s menu
None of that is harder than it is with a mouse on a desktop computer (in fact the first case - copying a single word - is easier)
By selling widgets of course. I just don’t like the expectation that advancement must always happen on schedule every two years and that if the latest version of a widget isn’t EXCITING AND NEW AND IMPROVED! it has somehow become irrelevant and not worth buying. It can’t go on forever, though I’m not sure what will eventually end it.
Tablets have a use, but people who want them already have them, and they last for a long time (until the battery makes them unusable, typically).
Smartphones get more attention because :
- most people need a mobile phone anyway;
- teens and young adults don’t need a bigger screen;
- people can show them off in public as a status symbol;
- people end up switching phones every 2-3 years at most, either because of silly new features, contract terms, tired batteries, or growing software making their current phone sluggish;
- mobile providers have an incentive in selling you a new phone in monthly slices;
- device makers can keep announcing silly features like thinness, more metal, more glass, a disappearing headphone jack, face recognition, etc. and (in Apple’s case at least) it becomes front page news.
Wife and I bought an iPad around 2011/2012. Liked it so much we upgraded to an iPad Pro a couple of years ago: bigger screen, longer battery life. On a continuum with portability at one end and capability at the other, the iPad occupies the large gap between the smartphone and the laptop (with a desktop being farther out than the laptop). I carry my smartphone around on ordinary days, but for casual web browsing or reading emails or playing games at home on the couch, the iPad is great. Unlike a laptop, it boots up NOW, i.e. as soon as you press the button. It’s also good for travel: while most folks on the plane are watching movies on a tiny screen (either their phone or their seatback entertainment system), I’m watching on a 13" screen.
For slightly more capability (and less portability), we also have a MS Surface Pro. With a real mechanical keyboard you can do more/faster typing, and you can also do extensive editing in the usual Windows-based PC programs. It accepts a Bluetooth mouse, but the touch screen is a fantastic addition (relative to conventional laptops) that means you aren’t absolutely dependent on the mouse; you can zoom, scroll, and select directly on the screen. It’s also more compact than typical laptop PCs, being only slightly thicker than the iPad; Either/both fit nicely in a backpack for air travel.
Actually, they’re great until you can’t upgrade the OS or iOS anymore, then all your apps start requiring the upgrade or stop working completely.
I have 3 ipads (I just sold a 4th) of which only one is still running current apps. The other 2 are basically web browser/media players for my kids.
I’ve had an iPad mini for four or five years, and I use it every day. It’s wifi only. It’s how I read news, books and magazines. It’s also the primary way I use Facebook and Facetime. If it fails, I will replace it; it occupies what has become an important niche for me.
I’ll echo what Mangetout said: anyone who thinks copying and pasting on a touch device is difficult has simply not taken the time to learn a couple of simple steps.
I received a refurbished Fire for Christmas last year. Thanks to all the Amazon bloatware (most of which I never use), there’s not much else I can do with it except Kindle, a couple of games, and NPR.
I can thank it for reinforcing that I’m truly a tactile reader who needs to go to a library.
OTOH I enjoy playing Candy Crush on it more than on my phone.
I agree with Joey P and others about why they’re no longer talked about as much, but they certainly have their utility.
In my workplace, the IT department has banned accessing web-based mail (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) on office computers. While everyone has a smart phone, the reality is that people have lives and need to address non-work stuff sometimes from the office, and it can be really cumbersome to type multi-paragraph emails on a phone. I’d guess that somewhere between 25%-50% of employees here—including me—have some sort of tablet at their desk for personal internet use. I’ve got mine connected to a wireless mini-keyboard with an integrated mouse pad, and I’m able to conduct most of my personal business on it with ease.
Microsoft’s surface pro is great. I think a lot of people lump that in as a laptop. I guess that line is fairly blurred.
I see tablets—specifically iPads—everywhere. A few of them are being carried by individuals for personal use, but the vast majority I see are being used by businesses, specifically for point-of-sale transactions, for demonstrations, as public catalogues, for conference sign-ins, by business folks in meetings to take notes, and refer to documents, etc. A tablet can be better than both a smartphone or a portable computer for a lot of these purposes.
Most people who carry around a tablet are already carrying a bag of some kind anyway. Carrying a laptop—even if it fits in the same bag—is not as convenient. Laptops are still quite bulky and heavy and a pain to pull out, open, and start up, in a way that a tablet is not.
My only tablet is a Kindle Fire, which as stated above by another poster, is practically useless except as an e-reader. I’d love to have an iPad, but the one I want is still too expensive.
Industries are adopting them at an increasing rate. Mine business is using them in the field for paperwork and esignatures while with the client. Certainly restaurants seem to be using them for servers to put in orders right at the table and even to process payments.
Just because they’re not flashy doesn’t mean they’re not working their way into life in the background.
A significant part of the market for selling those widgets is people who already have one, and can be persuaded to upgrade. It’s the same reason that Intel keeps making more powerful processors and Microsoft keeps bringing out new versions of Windows and Office - without innovation and product improvement (even if it is illusory), the market is not sufficient to sustain the people making the product.
Nobody wanted to let go of Windows XP and a lot of folks just wanted Microsoft to stop making new versions of Windows and stay there forever. What would actually happen is that the income stream would dwindle, and the supplier would fail - and then even the ‘static’ version of the product would fall out of support. it’s Improve Or Die.
It may be that tablets’ real niche is in business. Lots and lots of mobile workers have one issued by their employer that they use with work-specific apps. I do, as do the many of the other specialties I interact with at work.
The ever-larger phones are IMO a mistake. We tried the “phablet” a couple years ago and it mostly flopped. Too big to carry without a purse. Which killed it for at least 50% of the market. So now they’re slowly marching into phablet space again, but this time 1/4" at a time until they encounter pushback.
I suspect the next iteration is something like Google Glass as the display system and the “phone” is simply the brains and the keyboard, but not the display. Though it’ll remain a touchscreen.
I also think the utility of tablets to an individual depends real heavily on your daily life. Drive to/from work and have space for an office at home with a desktop or deskbound laptop? Be a couch potato when not working? Who needs a tablet?
Ride the train to/from work, fly for work a bunch, spend your free time out of the house in cafes & such? A phone is inconveniently small and a laptop is inconveniently large. A tablet is ideal. Extra so if you’re a woman. Typically you’re already carrying a bag that may well hold a tablet, but a laptop is too big for that.
At our local beach or park I see a lot of people sitting there reading from a tablet. If I see a phone they’re talking on it or taking pictures with it.
If somebody is arguing that “A tablet with no physical keyboard makes a hard-to-use substitute for a laptop” my answer to that is “No shit, Sherlock. That use case was marketing hype, not reality.” I argue instead “For use cases that are mostly reading and clicking and you’re not trying to walk while doing so, tablets kick ass over phones *and *laptops.”
I’m typing this on my aging Surface 2 with magnetically attached keyboard. It accompanies me on work trips and on anything involving a waiting room. It follows me around the house so I’m not stuck in my home office chained to the desk where the deskbound laptop sits. That “laptop” doesn’t really like to sit in laps; it’s too top & front heavy. Plus overall heavy, despite being bleeding edge light when bought. The Surface sits there nicely and stably.
I 'Dope with it, I read & compose short emails, read library books, magazine, watch the occasional vid, shop on Amazon, etc. Every one of those tasks can be accomplished on my phone but is more difficult (often much more difficult) on the small form factor. Every one of those tasks can be done on the laptop, but it’s heavy & clunky by comparison. And mostly stuck in my office when I want to be elsewhere.
YMMV. IMO I’d really miss my Surface if it disappeared. I’d get something else similar promptly. Because neither my phone, nor my laptop, nor my company-issue iPad fill the same niche.
Wesley Clark, I mostly agree with you about tablets being a poor compromise, that’s too big to put in a pocket but not as powerful as a full computer. But I will say that my mom has one, and it was a great fit for her. She needs something that can do e-mail and occasional (text-based) web browsing, but a full computer is more complicated than she wanted or needed.
What I’m really waiting for is a giant-sized tablet that you can mount on a wall and use like a whiteboard. Yes, there are smartboards on the market, but they all suck, and can’t be used like a whiteboard (mostly, they just end up being used to project a computer’s screen). If Google or someone could come up with something like that that actually worked, they could sell a lot of them.
If your (any your) only experience with tablets is Kindle Fire you haven’t owned a tablet yet. You’ve owned an Amazon buying terminal.
Those are not the same thing.
The other cripples and “e-readers” are similar. You *can *use it for other things by pushing and shoving past their continuous efforts to sell you crap from their walled garden. But it’s a struggle. A struggle they try very hard to make you give up on.
Just say “No” to walled garden buying terminals.
I would like that too - I suspect there might be some reluctance on the part of the manufacturers to make something like that as it would risk cutting the legs out from under some of their large touchscreen ‘creative’ machines that are targeted at arty types with deep pockets.
I love my iPad mini. (Cuteness alert: a four-year-old of my acquaintance laughed when she heard it referred to as a mini. “That’s not Minnie Mouse, that’s a tablet,” she said.) I bought it three or four years ago, and I have probably used it every day since then. I use it to read news and websites, check email, occasionally watch videos, listen to music and podcasts. For me the size is perfect. It easily fits into my workbag if I need to take it somewhere, though for the most part it stays home.
But I suppose I am the perfect customer for such a product. I don’t have a smartphone and don’t want one. My iPad and laptop meet all my tech needs.
My Mom uses a Kindle Fire for probably 80% of her screen time. It does Facebook, wikipedia, email, music, books and so on. She also has a Kindle Paperwhite for reading. She really only uses her laptop for WoW. She’s older and her hands are very arthritic so she hates fussing with her laptop. She just bought a new Fire for $50 on Sunday (the 8" version). It’s nice enough and it does what she needs. The price is … kind of miraculous, actually.
And I agree that tablets are everywhere in commercial use, these days. It’s not that they’ve flopped, it’s that they’ve become so ubiquitous that people like the OP have stopped noticing them.