I’m Afraid an Apple Tablet Would Be Stupid
This week, Apple gave us minor hardware upgrades, while a little company made a linux tablet. This might leave you wishing for an Apple tablet, but that could be a stupid thing to ask for.
I mean, really, ask yourselves this: How would you use such a thing differently than a laptop? Tablets have typically been great in note taking environments as giant, battery-constrained, heavy digital notepads in the field for pro writers and medical types or soldiers or construction workers.
But for consumers, the most obvious path is the appliance route, making it a simple web browsing machine, with some basic mail and media playback. Things netbooks and laptops can handle and have been handling. I admit, a netbook type tablet is the right form factor for enjoying media casually, away from a desk or livingroom. It fits between — actually — a TV and a Notebook, and is more portable than either. That makes it ideal for reading certain media like electronic magazines (when they’re available) and TV shows, movies, and other video clips in portable places. What does this mean?
It means that a tablet is the perfect machine…for reading websites and movies on the toilet. And yeah, um, my laptop can do that already.
Let’s talk about the UI a bit more. If the machine has a pop up keyboard, like an iPhone, you can also assume it may have a pen, like all recent tablet prototypes and models have. Either, or both.
But both of those ideas kind of suck for people raised on true keyboards.
I was raised on a QWERTY and I’ve almost failed penmanship and aced typing class. And the trend is that more people focus on typing than cursive. And as far as using the pop up keyboard occasionally, I can use these fine. Very quickly in fact. But the majority of the world hates these too and typing all day on one of these could be maddening, even at a greater size, no matter how fluent you might get. Do you place it on the table every time you type so you can use it like a full sized keyboard? Or do you hold it in two hands, like and iPhone, and try to peck away, even though reaching across the layout of the QWERTY would be much harder on a bigger device with a bigger key set? None of the typing logistics really matter if this is mostly a media consumption device. But the net appliance theory doesn’t really work for me.
The cost of such a nice screen and the surrounding hardware is going to be at, oh, I’d guess $US500, if not $US700 more with Apple tax. That’s too much money for a machine that can’t run all the OS X apps out there on the desktop version, too much for what’s basically a giant ipod touch. It’s also more than a regular old hackintosh’d Dell netbook.
So it has to be a laptop variant, with all the power of an full OS X laptop to make a difference to me. There are two ways this can be done. The old way is to take OS X and slap on those UI components we talked about, the pen and soft keyboard, as well as some OCR software for translating your chicken scratch into text. That’s what Microsoft did, and well, how many Tablet PC users do you know? Not many, I bet!
The new way to make a tablet? Well, I have no idea what the new tablet UI is. And neither does anyone in computing. It’s going to come down to how the UI works and I can’t even imagine what it would be like.
If Apple is going to make a tablet, they’re not going to slap on some UI extensions, they’re going to figure out a way to really use the form factor and make it a remarkable useful and significantly different device that justifies the loss of the efficient hard keyboard and cost of the touchscreen while being competitive in price somehow with the subsidised mini-tablets that fit in your pocket, the iPhones. But somehow, I doubt there’s a paradigm shift here waiting to be unlocked, because again, the tablet isn’t just an old idea, its an ancient idea.
The aspirational design for the tablet is pretty straight forward, and has been around, depending on your definition, since the 1960s or WW2 or the late 1800s, depending on which patents you look at. Or longer if you consider the stone tablet. The idea has been there, and has been flawed when translated to our digital world and weird and not much beyond basically what I called it earlier: an oversized, battery constrained, expensive digital version of a paper notebook. But, with internet video. Not so great!
- Next Post: iMac Air Hockey »
- « Previous Post: Lightning Review: Watchmen The Complete Motion Comic Blu-ray
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Sorry Blam, you’ve taken a very confined, boring and straight forward view of what a true touchscreen Tablet PC could be.
For a technology writer, that’s a pretty big faux pax!
I am desperate for a touchscreen tablet PC, for many different reasons than you’ve listed there.
And I’ll try and explain what I think a real Tablet PC could be about, one without a keyboard, or mouse, or the need for them.
First, and foremost, is web browsing. Does a laptop do the job? Sure, but it could do it better.
So much web browsing could be finger navigable, catching up on your daily blogs, and going through the RSS feeds, reading webcomics, watching youtube – 80% of the web is used without the need for text input, so the onscreen keyboard only needs to be basic.
But now, we get onto the where the evolution of the tablet needs to go.
The biggest thing I want is built in IR and RF remote functions. Kind of like an uber Logitech Harmony, so that I can walk around my house with my tablet, and think “I really want to watch TV now, and just… do it. Or, I’m not at the optimal temperature, let’s adjust the air-con. Adjusting you’re stereo to spit out whatever… with a bit of fairly basic house modding you could even control the lights.
Then, we could stream media across the network to it, and watch movies, or with the appropriate set-up, we could decide to watch the movie on the TV, and flick it across there. Barely missing a beat.
I see the touch screen tablet as a home automation device, and a central point of control and communication that you can take with you, rather than be tethered to a desk. At least within your home and/or office.
Now I guess a laptop “could” do this, but a tablet without any excess weight could do it a whooooole lot better.
Ideally for me it wouldn’t be an Apple product, but I gotta say, that if Apple did release this kind of device, I would snap it up in a second.
You could not have more squarely missed the mark. With two hands, multitouch and accelerated graphics you don’t have to type letters. You could pick words.. this is hard to explain unless you have seen what I’m talking about, but essentially the keyboard is overlayed on the display and is just a means of you quickly navigating through a universe of words to pick to right one. Its actually quite easy, with the various degrees of control you have- direction, speed, etc to select among thousands of choices quicker than you could type them.
But anyways- there are 2 devices here. First is a 7″ iphone equivalent with good battery life, maybe running Atom, but probably running RISC (ARM) using a stripped down OSX. Ipod touch but bigger- this would be very useful for all browsing/media applications. Lets face it- you don’t want to watch video on your iPod touch- the screen is too small, and transcoding everything is bitch. I also end up wishing I had something like this around.
For a real tablet to be successful, it needs to be 10-12″ and a normal keyboard but reversible for when you want to use it as a tablet. Just imagine an X200t but less ugly, smoother, thinner, etc. This must run real OSX and will probably need to cost as much as the MacBook air- around $1000 street price. If this was done slickly, with good note taking/handwriting support, I would snap this up.
I agree, that is a narrow-minded and some what pessimistic view, especially considering Apple has mentioned on a couple of occasions that it is investigated similar form factors (Though Apple has always maintained it doesn’t see a place for cheap Netbook products)
Assuming the product has enough power, I would also like to point out other possible uses where a tablet would have an advantage over a regular interface. When using programs such as Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, or zbrush a tablet form is far easier and more natural to use. Obviously with products like the Wacom tablets they use special pressure sensitive pens, but I think for sketching ideas on the go, or quick concept art or modifications i would absolutely love a product like this!!! I am sure there are many other applications that would benefit from a multi-touch tablet over a regular interface, and making something portable is always a good idea. I would also snap one up! =P
I predict you will eat your words one day Blam. =)
Yes, I’m afraid old Brian is kind of missing the point. Firstly, tablets have mostly been made nasty so far, and those that surface always tend to follow various conventions set forth by previous manufacturers, that may – or may not be the best way to do things. Why do they do that? Because that’s the way it’s done, and the majority of pc manufacturers never risk trying to break the mold. That’s exactly what Apple does, and does very well.
Ask yourself this: If Apple were to release a tablet, do you honestly think it is going to be like anything you are expecting, based off of your experiences with previous tablets?
Of course not.
Assume it has a pen?? What??? Cast your memory back to WWDC07, why wasn’t there a pen on the iPhone? Because they suck, that’s why. The screens you need to use to accept stylus input are soft and breakable, and are nowhere near as smooth to accept input as the iPhone’s touch interface. I honestly could not have imagined a better touch interface when I first saw it – hey, remember all the Christian extremist nuts that were telling you it was satan’s phone or whatever?
Apple does a very good job at breaking molds – and actually does a good job at making us think about why we need the mold in the first place. I for one could not have imagined such an extensible operating environment, especially with the kind of openness that it delivers – I mean, what phone could you surf an appstore on the train home from work, download a recipe application, decide not to cook, and then yellowpages a pizza and order it to be delivered before you open the door of your home. Almost nothing could do that before the iPhone. Now, I know there are a bunch of people out there who say something like “oh but the blah blah blah model xyz-1000 could do all of that, you just had to do (insert long and boring instructions set here that the average person could not probably do and definitely wouldn’t be bothered doing)”.
So what do we think a tablet would have? Well, convention tells us it will be this heavy arse brick with a flip screen and a rubbish processor, with shocking battery life and will break the first second you drop it. Possibly with a screen that will mysteriously stop working one day and a touch screen that will show wear marks on your frequently used areas. Oh and don’t forget the fact that it’s the same operating system as a desktop machine, only with a few inclusions.
Ok, so that’s what we’ve had so far from pc manufacturers – what would an Apple device have?
Being Apple, immediately expect it to look very pretty. You can pretty much guarantee it’s going to at the very least have a Core 2 Duo processor. It will probably have pretty decent battery life. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’ll have between 5 and 7 hours. Expect it to have a good graphics card on board – at least to the point of being much better than the current netbook offerings. Don’t expect a cd or dvd drive, and be prepared for the possibility that it probably will only have 1 usb port, and no integrated mic or camera, or ethernet port. Certainly expect no physical keyboard or trackpad, and pretty much drop the concept you may have in your mind about it running the regular version of os x.
Now I’ll really have a guess and say it will probably have it’s very own special operating system. Reports say Apple has been recruiting game developers left right and centre, and there have been many talks with game manufacturers lately. I have a feeling Apple are gearing up to make a device that succeeds as a true useable portable gaming device. I have no idea how they’d pull that off, but very real reports are indicating that they certainly are gearing up to release some type of console type device, and my suspicions are that there aren’t two devices being released, only one. Again, no idea how they’d build game controls into a tablet, but this is apple, and we know they’d find a way. I would expect the tablet to be brilliant for the internet, and have it’s own section in the app store. I also think it won’t just be some orphan gaming platform like the psp, I think it will be capable of playing actual current equivalents of popular pc titles, and actually being capable of joining into something like a lan gaming environment.
I think what we’re about to witness is a complete revolution in the tablet pc industry, and an entirely new way of mobile gaming. Again, this is all speculation and my own opinion, but I’m getting pretty good at picking Apple things nowadays :) So think Tablet OS, a very groovy STYLUS FREE interface, a great web experience, and pretty much a swiss army tool device capable of being adapted to almost any personal or business situation through the use of the app store and thousands of developers all eagerly coding away on increasingly exciting applications for it. Imagine probably 3 models, all of similar build and varying price, and imagine immediately wanting one as soon as they announce it. Think iPhone on steroids.
Of course, I could be completely wrong and it could be a disasterous piece of crap that you wouldn’t want to give to your worst enemy – but lets be serious, a lot has changed at Apple from the days of Gil Amelio. In the Apple dark days, Gil said, “Apple is a sinking ship, and it’s my job to point it in the right direction.”. Confusing comment? It was confusing times.
And I’m not always right with my Apple predictions, so I don’t completely rule out the possibility of the tablet sucking – after all, I can recall sitting in the audience listening to Steve announce the Intel transition at WWDC05, and thinking, “Wow! How did I miss this!”, despite everyone I spoke to after it telling me they knew it was happening for a while. Though, saying that, I did know that Apple were developing Mac OS X to run on the x86 platform side by side from day 1 – heck, I still have a copy of the Rhapsody DRM – a prototype copy of Mac OS X pre-10.0 on x86 that used Mach Unix as it’s underlying component – I just thought they stopped at 10.2 Jaguar on the x86, because it was the last version I heard they were making for the x86. Turned out it was all a big trick! They so clever.
Hey, wait till you hear what I think they’re going to do with 10.7 :)
Cheers all, feel free to let me know what you think.