Granted. Although I still feel tablets are a little overpriced, I now have a better idea of the role they would play. You still keep you laptop for your main computing work. The tablet is for browsing the internet and other light duty work. It also is nice that you can allow guests in your home to use a tablet rather than your home computer with all your business/tax/bank info on it.
I am not a software developer and don’t know much about Apple’s app submission process. That said, there’s an absolutely insane amount of apps (and games) out there, including some very nice ones developed by very small teams. I remember the “there’s an app for that” catchphrase back when this was all getting started. So opening up/simplifying development has surely contributed to the rise of the iPhone/ iPad, right?
I have a number of friends who are engineers at Apple. They are each very adept at shutting the hell up.
I think it’s a shame that the major manufacturers (as far as I know) don’t make a tablet that comes with a keyboard/trackpad that can clip on to the tablet and transform it into a netbook. It seems like it would add a lot of functionality for little cost, and it could prevent a lot of people from having to buy a tablet and a laptop. I saw one computer that did this, but it was from a small manufacturer, and I think it only ran Linux.
Unless you’re one of the tens of millions of people who don’t do main computing work, in which case a small, light, kind of sexy tablet could well fulfill all of your computing needs.
I’m a software developer, and except for my compiler, everything I do would run wonderfully on a tablet.
ahem You might want to check out this offering from Asus…
I have one of these for my iPad. It rocks. There are several manufacturers making their own versions. My iPad isn’t capable of doing all the things a laptop can do, but it does the things I need it to do just fine. In fact, I’m typing this post on said keyboard while at work. If I needed to, I could stream a movie from Netflix, watch any of the dozen or so films I’ve ripped and saved in my iPad, play games, answer emails, etc.
In fact, unless I’m actually doing CAD work with Vectorworks or need to do paperwork for a show, I don’t even bother with my laptop anymore.
I think you’re mistaken about this. My problem with pre-ipad tablets was that all of them wasted too much hardware space and weight making just the sort of thing you’re talking about possible.
The ipad is successful more because of design breakthroughs than tech breakthroughs. Apple realized tablets sucked because they were as heavy and expensive as laptops, and had the same type of features-creep that laptops did. They designed a product with as few hardware features as they could get away with, in order to save space and weight on their product. It’s not some new fancy schmancy processor or battery that allows the ipad to weigh 2-point-something pounds, its the way it’s put together.
I basically only use my laptop at work. At home, I barely have to use by laptop any more - all I do is surf the web, watch youtube and play games, and you don’t need a laptop for that. And I can bring the iPad to a cafe and hang out there - my laptop is too heavy to lug, and has too little battery life to last very long playing video.
… well, I did need a laptop for Portal, but that’s what my 5 year old laptop is for. Still runs pretty good due to the discrete video card, although the screen is yellowing and the speakers are a little busted. I haven’t upgraded because kilobucks for a machine is just not worth it just to play some fancy computer game.
One thing that a lot of people don’t think about re the higher end touchpads is the high tech, high strength glass used for the screen and for structural integrity. A touchpad would not (IMO) be rugged enough to handle normal, everyday rough and tumble handling without this glass.
so, if my math is correct after using it for 1% of one month (~7.4 hours), you sold the iPad with 26% of the battery charge from the first time you charged it up? Huh… :dubious:
Not to hijack the thread but am curious if tablets like my kindle fire are generally more liable than laptop computers.
The OP’s question is based on a false premise. Technological breakthroughs were not the game changer. Windows tablets were released in 2002 but they were clunky products because Microsoft didn’t build an operating system and applications that were optimized for tablets.
Apple/Jobs understood that you have to rethink the whole computing experience and rebuild it from the ground up for tablets. Plus they had a track record of successfully delivering other breakthrough products: iPod, iPhone, etc. So when Apple announced the iPad people couldn’t wait to try one. Lo and behold, they turned out to be well designed products.
Now Microsoft is playing catchup with its Windows 8, Metro interface. Naturally they are getting it backwards and putting applications optimized for a touchscreen on the desktop. :smack:
(This is coming from someone who likes neither Apple or Microsoft but has been stuck with Microsoft since before Windows 3.1 because of his job.)
Huh, would you really want to do your job on a tablet?
I’m not a software developer but I use a PC extensively for my daily work. There are a lot of things I do just fine on a touchscreen interface but I would not want to do all day on a touch screen interface. For example I can type very well on a touchscreen, I would not willingly choose to do my entire day’s typing on a touchscreen. Spreadsheet manipulation is not something I’d do willingly on a touchscreen for any longer than I have to, any sort of presentation or design software I might be willing to do minor edits on a touchscreen, but I would not be interested in working full time with a touch interface.
Keyboards are scientifically superior from an ergonomic perspective than tablets, especially keyboards specifically designed to be ergonomic. Mice are intrinsically superior at very fine selecting than is the human finger (which is why we’re a lot better selecting a specific cell in a spreadsheet with a mouse pointer than our finger.)
For a software engineer I just find it baffling you’d want to do your job on a tablet. What sort of software engineering do you do? I’ve always done hobbyist type things since the days of FORTRAN/COBOL, and most modern development environments that I know are in wide industry usage are in themselves very resource intensive, use lots of memory/CPU power, and have very cluttered interfaces that leave little room on a tiny, cramped 10" tablet screen.
Every IT person I’ve ever known also multitasks his machine like a mofo, usually having 10 websites (25% work related, 75% stuff like RockPaperShotgun or YouTube) loaded with streaming content running at all times, on top of 4-8 legitimate work tools running, on top of whatever email application their company uses and etc. If there’s anyone I’ve ever seen who pushes their machines in ways that would blow a tablet up it’s software engineers. Other types of engineers likewise use very resource intensive software (CAD software for example.)
Not to mention if you debug anything that is resource intensive your tablet would have immense problems (populating large data structures just as something that immediately comes to mind.) Not to mention on top of all that every IT shop I’m aware of mentions “multiple monitor setups” as one of the “benefits” of working there, since developers tend to like having multiple monitors. A tablet goes totally against that paradigm.
Anyway, I don’t doubt you might personally think a tablet would be fine to do your job on, but based on my layman’s knowledge of your field and my personal acquaintance with people in the field it goes against everything I’ve ever heard/seen.
In 2002 tablet hardware wasn’t quite there and tablet software wasn’t quite there.
By the time the iPad came out, tablet hardware probably had been around for 1-2 years but hadn’t been exploited properly. Apple exploited the hardware to its fullest with software that appealed to a wide user base.
One of the big problems with the tablet paradigm, and why no one could figure out how to use a tablet is historically manufacturers had two ideas.
The first idea was to basically make a tablet exactly like a PC but with a stylus input. This basically was a low-powered, difficult to operate PC.
The other idea was that people would want tablets to basically replace their “notebooks.” Meaning it’s what they’d use to take notes, do sketches, mockups, things like that. Sort of a replacement for real notebooks and white boards. This idea had several problems. One of the big ones is white boards are still popular because they are just plain convenient and better in a lot of ways than any electronic option. Another problem with tablets as a replacement for the notebook/sketchbook is the software has never really been created. Even the current generation of tablets have some software out there that half-heartedly tries, but it just isn’t that great.
I’m not convinced the hardware is actually there yet for a stylus-based input device to be able to do notetaking and sketching as accurately as a real pad in the form of a tablet computer. There are people using stylus inputs professionally in graphic design and etc, but from what I can tell a lot of them are still using standalone tablet interface devices plugged into a regular computer. (Wacom is a big manufacturer of these.) These cost anywhere from $300 or so for the low end of the professional quality up to $1k+ for the best out there. Even the low end are more than 50% of the retail price of the iPad, and they don’t actually rely on the same type of technology that touchscreen tablets do so it’s questionable as to how far away we are from capacitive touchscreen tablet computers with pen-precision equivalent to a $1,000 Wacom stylus/pad set up.
I think the last problem with the “tablet computer as notepad” idea is the market just isn’t nearly as big for this as it is for a general purpose tablet. Some hardcore notepad users will probably be very happy some day when a truly great handheld electronic device replaces pencil/pen and paper, but they are a niche market.
Apple didn’t try to make a tablet form-factor computer or a notepad replacement, instead they just looked at how popular smartphones were and realized a tablet could just be a bigger, better version of that: a handy, simple, multifunctional personal electronics device. That’s where the actual money was/is, and that’s why tablets going back at least 15 years mostly failed.
Even with a less clunky OS, tablet style PCs in say, the early 2000s or even the 1990s would never succeed on the level of the current batch of tablets, simply because the demand for the full PC experience on a tablet just doesn’t exist in numbers sufficient to sell the devices.
I am a software developer Martin, and I have no idea what** bashere **is talking about. I can’t imagine what how a software developer wouldn’t want a keyboard unless we’re out on the fringe of what would be considered a developer. And the compiler comment is more mysterious. Using a compiler only requires a point and click, unless he’s referring to an entire development studio.
Maybe he’ll come back and explain.
I think you make a lot of valid points, but my understanding is that Apple started working on a tablet first, and then realised “hey, this interface would work great on that phone idea we’ve been thinking about”. So the tablet went on the back burner while they got the iPhone to market. Their idea of what a tablet should be like was already a least partially there, although no doubt some of the features of the UI emerged during the iPhone’s development rather than being inherited from the tablet.
I apologize for this slight hijack, but in “2001 A Space Odyssey” there’s a device called the “news pad” (in the novel) and as shown in the movie version they almost nailed the tablet. When you compare this to other computer predictions of that time (1969) it’s quite remarkable.
Star Trekhad digital pads in 1966…
I dunno. I bought an HP Touchpad when they went on super-mega-clearance and picked up an HP Bluetooth keyboard for it as well. It’s a neat keyboard, very light and thin. I took it with on a week long vacation this winter and everyone thought it was super cool how I could flip the tablet to stand in its pad, pull out the keyboard and have a “mini desktop”. And it sure beat tapping on the glass for a solid week. But I never use it at home and never take it with for short trips. You could argue that it’s not the same since my keyboard is separate but I think it shows that people (me anyway) don’t really need/want it for 95% of their tablet use so it becomes just an added cost and one more thing to break without much consumer pay-off.
