Tablets have been around for awhile, but have obviously taken off with the Ipad and other similar devices.
My question is…what happened? I know Apple made a really good one, but what were the major breakthroughs that have allowed companies to make tiny, thin, touch based computers? What has been invented that allowed the creation of these devices now instead of 2002 or so?
Batteries, displays, and storage devices. It’s not that the electronics like the CPU and device interfaces haven’t improved along the way, but the batteries had to be lighter, the displays had to be thinner and consume less power, and the persistent memory devices had to become reliable.
I think it’s just sufficient miniaturization and maturity of technology. Circa 2002, a tablet had to use general-purpose x86 CPU, which consumed some tens of watts. LCDs in that era used a type of fluorescent lamp as the backlight, which made them bulkier and more power hungry. The same general trend applies to the rest of the hardware as well. Now, you basically have a laptop-sized device, consuming many tens of watts, and requiring a laptop-sized battery to get any use out of it.
Now, tablets use ARM CPUs which consume about a watt (these weren’t really powerful enough in 2002). LCDs have more efficient and compact LED backlights. Etc., and now the whole thing consumes a handful of watts, and the battery can weight a few ounces instead of pounds.
When Apple introduced the iPhone, RIM (the Blackberry guys) thought that it was impossible:
I’m sure that the availability of WiFi and 3G/4G wireless hasn’t hurt either. A tablet is of limited use without the network infrastructure to let it interact.
Capacitance instead of resistive touch screen that allows much lighter touch.
Faster processors to interpret gesturing input.
Plus flash drives and solid state memory as opposed to floppy/optical/platter-based drives
In 2003 I bought HP’s tc 1100 and based on that experience I’d say it was a blending of several things – agreed, technological miniaturization and pricing did pave the way but also there was a changing mindset on how to use the tablet without a pen (to use say Visio for diagrams was pretty cool but anything else was slower than mouse) that caused people to rethink user interface paradigm that was mouse pointer centric. Also, HP’s tablet was using Microsoft XP for Tablet but it was nothing special and it was painfully slow as Microsoft simply didn’t go for tablet-specific operating system. Another thing that also helped was a degree at which Wi-Fi became ubiquitous as connection to any network (LAN or Internet).
Now, all tablets are no-pen interaction, simple straightforward user interface, very lean operating system shell and updates via Wi-Fi.
So Apple was able to develop in total secrecy? How do they manage that? How big is the team in charge of this kind of development.
Fascinating.
the smartphone along with Apple’s unique ability to convince people that they need something.
Besides the improved power consumption of the ARM chips was the realization that a tablet did not need to be a general purpose laptop with a touch screen. The ipad is less powerful that a cheap laptop that cost 1/3 less. The early tablet computers were laptops with out a keyboard. The ipad is a big phone instead of a small computer. And people are happy with something that lets them browse the web look at their email watch videos.
Why don’t you threadshit somewhere else?
He does have a point. Marketing has been a factor. Without volume these devices would be extremely expensive.
I agree. When I first saw the Ipad I thought, “That’s stupid. It does less than my laptop and costs more.” But suddenly they were everywhere and very soon the tablet became a “how did we get along without them” type item.
You learn to be secretive in this kind of environment. People I know who have gone to work for Apple vanish from view, and Apple never seems to make presentations at the kind of conferences I go to.
They are not the only one. If you see a paper from Intel, it is about a completed and shipped product or about a method that didn’t actually work. But that is still far more open than Apple.
This. ever since the iPod, people have been lining up to buy their latest and greatest. I find it hard to believe that there was some great pent-up demand for tablets; instead it was the latest cool device from Apple which everyone had to have. like my co-worker’s teenage daughter telling him she wanted an iPad; when he asked what she planned to do with it, she didn’t know. She just wanted one.
me, I bought one and it sat idle 99% of the time.
Can I have it?
Not really joking, actually. 
sold it a month after I got it, sorry.
Average consumer doesn’t need a device that does as much as your laptop.
They need/want a device that does X key things - and when the item is designed extremely well (as most Apple products are), and coupled with effective marketing and a certain “sexiness” of new product that others are buying also, you end up with good sales.
Don’t think in terms of “tablet” vs “laptop” and think the way a consumer would - it’s a small/portable computing device.
Apple clearly did a great job on the design (as they usually do) and it performs the primary functions a typical consumer wants/needs (email, facebook, web).
