Tablet PCs have been around for quite a while but have been mostly ignored.
I’m sure you remember years ago seeing people pecking away at giant monitor-sized slates with pens and looking largely like they were busy drawing diagrams of world domination. However, I’m sure you also remember thinking they looked like idiots as their frustration manifested itself in the form of yelling obscenities or hitting and throwing things into a wall.
With the recent and ubiquitous desire by every cell phone user in the world for touch-centric devices, though, manufacturers have begun to realize now would be the perfect time to reintroduce the world to tablets and done that they have.
By and large, the problem with the tablets of yore was they almost all ran some tweaked version of Windows that was supposedly “streamlined” for a stylus-based interface.
Luckily, smartphones run sophisticated enough operating systems that their moderately simplified interfaces can be easily adapted to touch-based tablets.
As proven by the iPhone, a touch-based operating system that doesn’t cause the user to go postal is possible and from the competition brought on by Apple’s dominance in the smartphone market, Google’s Android was born, which is not only a capable mobile platform but also an extensible system for more sophisticated devices.
The revelation that such user interfaces are possible and that competition of such software will easily bring about increasingly better products has given manufacturers the impetus to start up some more aggressive plans for the near future.
The biggest player of the rumor mill lately has been Apple, which has dominated headlines with gossip involving an iPhone-ish tablet device.
The source of these rumors was an “off-the-record” meeting of the New York Times where Executive Editor Bill Keller discussed the future of journalism on mobile platforms and devices and happened to drop this little nugget of gold: “the impending Apple slate.”
Well, it’s not necessarily much of a “breaking news” sort of tidbit, but it was more of an issue of all the questions that Keller’s statement brought up. For instance, is the NYT involved with Apple’s tablet? Is Keller just a fan of Apple rumors? What else does this fellow know about the tablet?
Rumors say the company is in talks with media companies for e-book and magazine content in an effort to “redefine print.” More rumors from a Gizmodo source involve a larger iPhone-type device that is “small enough to carry in a handbag but too big to fit in a pocket.”
Following the next best thing to an Apple solution has found several companies turning to Android for their tablet OS needs.
This includes MTube using Android in their upcoming MID/tablet/netbook device, NEC working on an Android-based mobile device “as capable as a personal computer” aimed at business professionals, and Dell with their Streak MID. Each one is suited for a different application (i.e. media viewing, business consumers, general mobile computing respectively), which simply highlights the versatility of the Android platform.
There’s also the newest kid on the block: Windows 7. At the launch event, Steve Ballmer covered a myriad of topics about Windows 7: a highlight including touch interfaces and a Kindle app that probably has Barnes & Noble’s sweating.
Speaking of which, these tablet devices will undoubtedly be competing with overlapping market shares of e-reader (and heavy smartphone) users. They have to be competitive in price, usability, connectivity, versatility and general product value.
At certain points of comparison, netbooks may even become more desirable than tablets to some consumers, especially when price is considered. These manufacturers and OS developers are going to have to hit the tablet niche right where it needs it, otherwise tablets will once more fall to the wayside in lieu of significantly more established and robust products.
