taboo elder iteration of the same device known as a "tablet pc" at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Thousands gathered to ~oogle~ and ~ah~ at the various concept designs, with lots of emphasis on Imaging-turned-PC manufacturer HP, flaunting what appeared to be probably the only stable device Ballmer could dig up to run Windows 7 without a potential embarassing moment. Dell taunted back with their 5 inch slate "concept", a much smaller competitor in the slate race, though considerably beefier than the anticipated smartphone of disappointment. Then, there's Jobs, out teasing the world with trademark and patent registration, branding "iSlate" under a faux company name with holdings belonging to the parent Apple.
The Tablet PC as a concept which now mockingly fits into the same category for me as
the "wearable computer" made it's first widely accepted debut in the late 90's
and earlier part of the last decade. Hoping for consumer adoption, we ended up selling a majority of these devices to a niche market of offices and small-to-medium businesses (with a few government entities) specializing in field services. The device acts as no more than an interface to OneNote or as a bulkier, less useful customer signature implement, only without a tactical barcode reader of the equally outdated but still somewhat useful PDA. Tablet screens weren't as touch responsive as we had hoped for, the poorly designed matte LCD's easily damaged and much like their laptop cousins of that era, notorious for heat-related motherboard failure. In simpler terms, with warranty repair wait times and out of warranty costs associated a little later down the road, these things were worthless. So other than technological advances with OLED shiny screens, figuring how to fit everything onboard less the heat issues and some slick rebranding to sound like a magnetic child's toy of the 80's, what's the real difference?
Back to consumer adoption.
Just before the turn of the century there existed an ominous fear on the horizon in the hearts of man, with the unknown web 1.0, and the "dot com crash" symbolance seeming to echo everyone's utter disappointment with the way that we all actually survived the purported doomsday Y2K bug.
(---Which is okay, some of us are still sticking to our plans in case of a zombie
apocalypse in 2012.)
Enter tablets stage left. While pagers were losing popularity, cell phones still hadn't hit mainstream enough to scare the home phone industry. The closest thing we had to a smartphone was a PDA with dial-up internet capabilities. Flat screen plasmas were still in the $10,000 range. Most consumers were scared to buy anything related to technology and most businesses only ended up with it because they didn't know any better. In theory it was efficient and people could share handwritten notes electronically without the mess of carrying around a 10 lb scanner or a 40 lb all-in-one scan/copy/fax station. As efficient as handwriting everything as opposted to typing can get, right?
Nevermind the thought of hardware failure rate or accidentally puncturing a screen. Most still contained physical keyboards which when folded up like a laptop would protect itself, but the flip-and-turn design would eventually show easy wear on the hinges and fragile wires. Businesses would later look at them as just "a bad deal" all around.
Fastforward 10 years to the present.
Technology has reached the point of functionality with wireless. Today we have a market rich with ~pocket executives~ and scores of consumers who can't unplug 5 minutes to quit posting status updates. We are ruled with the touch-driven human interface, dying to get our hands on the vanguard of whatever new mobile device that's out this month, with emphasis on the most overpriced couture of Apple-branded flauntery. It's time to reintroduce the same product with slightly improved technology and almost the same level of limited real-world functionality.
Let's face it. Apple's iteration of slate was designed as a crossover between an embarassingly expensive e-book reader with an iPhone screen on 'roids. There's no graceful way of holding it. As a chick I hate carrying a purse and often times jettisen the bag for a thin leather jacket with pockets. If I can't fit what I need in two small pockets without looking like a marsupial (ID, cards, cash a phone and some very basic makeup implements), I don't want it.
For awhile I tried carrying around my netbook in my purse, and it just didn't fly. If not for weight, for sheer bulk.
The way I see it is this: Apple succeeds with a small niche market in media design and "fashion computing", with a larger market in the cell phone and music distribution industries. The slate isn't designed for playback, nor the convenience of pocket
tweeting, such as this embarassing device. It's not made for full scale media production, and I'm almost certain it's not going to have as many pressure points per inch as the Cintiq for professional visual design. As an e-book reader, it's not going to match the price and portability of other products, even if they have exclusive deals with publishers that rock the foundations of Amazon and a product base rivaling the size of their own iTunes library. It's too physically big for the Nintendo and Sony dominated niche market of pocket gamers and the screen size will be overkill for the disappointing resolution and video processing limitations that would only drive prices high enough to make mobile games unenjoyable.
Not to mention, it's an ergonomic nightmare.
...And it's definitely not 'me'-sized.
Things that are 'me'-sized:
Things that are 'me'-sized:
- Honda cars (easy to work on)
- Laptop keyboards
- My G1
- My Hello Kitty pajamas
- Mini bottle of Viva la Juicy
- My Wacom Bamboo tablet, which cost me under $100, that I use occasionally with my ~not-so-hardcore anymore~ lust for graphic design.
out the possibility that the Apple-branded "slate" will be an even bigger success than
the iPhone in the viral useless app-driven market. I just know that if I used a slate-like
multitouch apparatus, it would be for something practical... like, sole purpose
would be dedicated to emulating a smaller and less satisfying cocktail table version of Galaga.
I think I'll pay a quarter and play the one down at Burger King on lunch.
... I hear they're soon to be serving beer as well.
