It seems that one of the most popular things for tech reporters to do these days is pass on rumors and prognostications about what Apple might do with their possible tablet product. At the same time, a number of companies announced their slate/tablet options at CES a couple of weeks ago. The second most popular thing to write about is dilemma these devices have in finding a home between the laptop and the smartphone. I suspect I am pretty representative of most technology augmented workers these days as I have a laptop, iPhone and Kindle. The last thing I really care to do is carry another device. That means a tablet needs to replace at least one of these three.
The logical choice would be the Kindle, and that actually seems pretty likely to me and I can only hope that Amazon is smart enough to cut a deal with Apple and others to provide their Kindle software and store as on online service just like iTunes. Woe be to them if they let Apple iTune the book market and build their own store to do distribution. If the tablet makers could get Kindle like functionality native on the tablet, then add smart periodicals, and television capabilities, we would have a thin simple device for all media delivery. Well, only if you add iTunes and music, which I am sure they will do.
So what else could they add to make this device really interesting? How about a camera so we could use the tablet to do videoconferencing through Skype? How about building in a browser natively so we could use the tablet as an access device to the cloud? If they build a nice medium sized touch keyboard that slides up and down on the surface ala an iPhone, we could then access any hosted piece of software, and with as much out there these days, I could almost carry the tablet instead of my laptop in many cases. When I really stop and think about it, if I were to use Google Docs for my office productivity, I could do 80% of the work I normally do on the tablet. Which leads me to my next thought…
I think the impact the tablet/slate might make that no one seems t be talking about is to be a killer of installed software. I have long known that the concept of cloud computing would drive us to invest portable computers that were configured very differently because we would not need hard drives and local storage at the point we could run our applications Web-based, and store our files remotely. I suspect that the tablet may be the device that kills off locally installed software because we will want to carry that tablet in many cases and it will be built from the ground up to be a cloud based device.
A few other things I would like to see… Please put an SD card or the like in the device so we have an easy ability to add storage and have it be portable and standard with other devices. Please add some new touch controls. People have quickly adopted the use of two and three fingers on a glide pad, and the squeeze and shrink paradigms. Give us about ten more ways we can interface with applications so we can speed up the interaction. Give us an easy way to send files to other tablets by just setting them next to each other and doing some type of special signal to identify and send any file or piece of data. Please give us a seamless way to sync the tablet with our phone and laptop. Above all, please give it lots of battery time so we do not have to be charging it three times a day to keep it up and running.
Do all of this, and we will buy it. Do less than this, and we will have to wait for the second or third version when you do…
Scott Klososky
Scott@klososky.com