Tablets Are (Probably) Superfluous

by Paul Sherman on February 2, 2010 · 11 comments

in Design, Hardware, Product Management

I really thought I’d be able to resist bloviating about the iPad. But then I read this tweet from Jared Spool:

Is nobody else talking about the iPad’s interesting facet? It brings the gap between phone & computer manufacturers closer together.

It got pushed to his Facebook as an update, where I flippantly responded:

And that’s a good thing why?? :-)

Graciously, Jared ignored my dumbass comment and persisted, writing this:

Seriously, I think there’s going to be some really interesting synthesis here. Nokia, LG, and Motorola really haven’t done anything scaled up before. The laptop & netbook players haven’t gone this small.

The competition will be interesting. Of course, there will be a lot of crap produced. (It’s Sturgeon’s Law.) But, there will be some really interesting innovations.

All because Apple had the balls to try something nobody else had done before. I think that’s the most significant part of all this….

(And here’s a question: How will Google respond? After all, they have Android on the low end and Chromium on the high end, but neither will really talk to each other.)

His follow-up got me to thinking. I didn’t respond point-by-point to his last comments, but his points helped me to suddenly sharpen my thinking and spin out a scenario in which tablets aren’t the wave of the future, but phones will continue to be.

So below I present to you my reasoning for why and how tablets are at best a diversion, and the real innovation will continue to happen with handsets. Read on for yet another opinion on the future of computing.

I agree with what you’re saying J. But my thinking is that until we have a truly convertible handheld-slash-desktop (and mobile computing) solution, the gap will continue to be a chasm into which product after product will fall into.

Now I’m not the most visionary person in the world, but it seems to me that the big, latent, unmet needs are this:

  1. I need a mobile device that fits in my pocket, that allows me to do [pretty much what the iPhone, Android, and BB handsets do].
  2. I need a computing device that gives me my familiar input devices (read: keyboard and pointing device), gives me access to my apps and content, and provides a large enough viewing area so I can work productively.

Notice that I didn’t say “contains my apps and content.” That was intentional. It doesn’t take a tech visionary to see that both our apps AND our content are migrating to the cloud.

Anecdotally, I can affirm that I am mighty tired of “curating” the content on my hard disks. I’d rather that stuff just lives in, is accessible from, and gets backed up in the cloud. And I WILL pay money for that. So, long story long, you’re right, the iPad comes close. But I think the real opportunity is this:

  1. My phone-like mobile device does it’s thing while I’m mobile.
  2. When I need to sit somewhere and work, I dock it. Then it pushes (at the VERY least) 1280×800 to an LCD, and automagically connects to my keyboard and mouse, to my suite of apps (wherever they may live – Office Live, Google Apps, whatever), and to my content. (And of course it brings up all my social interfaces.)

Obviously, handsets don’t have the horsepower to do this…yet. But they will. It’s clear that current PC architectures have massively oversolved for the computing horsepower problem, and if you’ve read any Clayton Christensen you know this is a scenario that’s ripe for disruption by a “good enough” solution that addresses the market’s new value dimensions.

Netbooks are an ongoing attempt to serve these new dimensions of value, but they’re constrained by having to run either bloated legacy OS’s or not-ready-for-primetime Linux distros. Plus, they don’t serve as  phones very well. Imagine holding one up to your ear… it’s like Maxwell Smart with a shoe to his head.

And you probably noticed I didn’t address the “how do I work productively when I’m mobile?” scenario. I’ll grant you that. But it’s certainly not an impossibility…I can envision a netbook form factor device with a big-@ss slot for receiving – you guessed it – my mobile phone-slash-computing engine.

So, to sum up:

  1. You’re right, things are getting interesting, and
  2. If product makers can make the phone the bearer of CPU horsepower, connectivity, and OS, then everything else becomes a terminal that the phone docks to or slides into.

And I’m adding here that this last point is what makes tablets superfluous.

Thoughts?

Tagged as: bloviation, iPad, iPhone

  • Neil Ganey

    I agree with you. Some thoughts…

    Portability is a big issue and the iPad just doesn't meet the need. People have become way too accustomed with carrying a phone-sized device, one that men and women can easily carry on their person. While the iPad could fit into some purses, it definitely doesn't fit into all. Also, what of the male user? How do they tote it? It's not going to be a candidate for a belt clip. So, that means toting a bag or occupying a hand.

    With that in mind, I think that as more products like this come out, users will (potentially) begin opening their minds to new types of interaction. Frankly, as much as I like the physical keyboard, it is constraining the amount of size reduction that can be done to a device, while still retaining the “typing” experience. Now, as kids who can quickly input information on touchscreens or by using 10-key on phones grow up, the standard input devices on “systems” may well change.

    On a side note, it seems like a number of people have jumped to conclusions about what the iPad will be able to do. While the device cannot do a number of these things, it does reveal a few interesting things.

    First, users expect Apple to meet/exceed their expectations, though not always on the first try. For evidence, see the first few generations of the iPod.
    Second, the users believe that Apple hears what they say and is responsive.
    Third, this all makes things for the iPad product manager very simple because he now has a ready-made requirements document and justifications.

    • http://www.usabilityblog.com/ pjsherman

      Great observations, Neil. Especially about the physical vs. virtual keyboard, and the potential tipping point being driven by the texting masses.

      Anecdotally, I've found that if I stop worrying so much while typing on the iPhone and just go fast, the correction algorithm catches and fixes almost all my errors. But if I try to type slowly and deliberately, I actually commit more errors.

  • http://twitter.com/dszuc Daniel Szuc

    The iPad will open up new interactions and moments (that may enhance what the iphone, netbook and desktop cannot provide). As the SDK develops, developers now have the opportunity to develop into this context.

    As I flew over the USA yesterday and connected to the inflight Wifi using a mix of my desktop and ipod touch – there was a number of tasks that could have been better facilitated through the iPad. So the moments/context where the iPad will work into, is of interest to me

    • neilganey

      Daniel, I think that you bring up a good point, but I wonder about the occurrence of those moments/contexts and whether those are frequent/long enough to drive a whole new device class. The fact is that you were able to get by with your two devices. If you had one, would you just bring an iPad with you on travel or would you bring all three devices, selectively using each as the moment dictated?

  • tombrinck

    When I got my iPhone, I was quite surprised that it ended up replacing at least half the time I spent on my computer (outside of work, of course). This was a result of the increased mobility, the instant-on aspect, simplification of the UI (and reduction of “management” tasks), and the fact that there were more useful and convenient apps available for it.

    I expect if I had a good tablet, such as the iPad, a similar phenomenon would occur. The iPhone still isn't great for a number of things that can use a bigger screen, but I expect an iPad will allow me to abandon my computer for another 90% of my computer tasks, except for work of course, since my work involves heavy Photoshop and reasonably heavy word processing. (Of course, that's not true of everyone's work, and I also dream someday of a good tablet for my design work, which I believe can be much better than a mouse-keyboard combination…someday.)

    I would prefer using a good tablet for web browsing, email, eBook reading (a new task), large-screen gaming, mobile movie viewing (which I do more than in the living room), and probably some other tasks. For example, in my mornings, like today, I read the news online and my email, and would be happier with a tablet than my laptop. The laptop wouldn't even come out. In addition, for a lot of travel, like a 3-day weekend trip or an international trip, I would not even bother to bring my laptop, but would find a tablet a handy tool.

    • neilganey

      With the iPhone and other devices, the promise seemed to be the ability to perform a set of tasks above and beyond the capability of the average phone, while not detracting from the portability. Notebooks are just not portable enough for carrying everyplace. With the iPad, though, you can't just clip it to your belt or slip it in your pocket. So, you have to either carry a bag with you everywhere or occupy a hand to carry it. We had cell phones like that at one time…

      Separately, you see the value of the iPad as high enough to warrant spending another $500+ (above the cost of your notebook and phone) to get a device that would be for scenario-dependent use?

      • http://www.usabilityblog.com/ pjsherman

        Great comments Tom, Dano, and Neil. Much appreciated. Incidentally, and I SWEAR I didn't see this before writing this post, Engadget has a link to a Youtube video showing a Citrix researcher working on a full KVM setup that's connected to his handset. It's called the Citrix Nirvana (and I *want* one).

        Here's the link:

        http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/citrix-nirva…

  • neilganey

    Daniel, I think that you bring up a good point, but I wonder about the occurrence of those moments/contexts and whether those are frequent/long enough to drive a whole new device class. The fact is that you were able to get by with your two devices. If you had one, would you just bring an iPad with you on travel or would you bring all three devices, selectively using each as the moment dictated?

  • http://simplytom.com/ Tom Brinck

    When I got my iPhone, I was quite surprised that it ended up replacing at least half the time I spent on my computer (outside of work, of course). This was a result of the increased mobility, the instant-on aspect, simplification of the UI (and reduction of “management” tasks), and the fact that there were more useful and convenient apps available for it.

    I expect if I had a good tablet, such as the iPad, a similar phenomenon would occur. The iPhone still isn't great for a number of things that can use a bigger screen, but I expect an iPad will allow me to abandon my computer for another 90% of my computer tasks, except for work of course, since my work involves heavy Photoshop and reasonably heavy word processing. (Of course, that's not true of everyone's work, and I also dream someday of a good tablet for my design work, which I believe can be much better than a mouse-keyboard combination…someday.)

    I would prefer using a good tablet for web browsing, email, eBook reading (a new task), large-screen gaming, mobile movie viewing (which I do more than in the living room), and probably some other tasks. For example, in my mornings, like today, I read the news online and my email, and would be happier with a tablet than my laptop. The laptop wouldn't even come out. In addition, for a lot of travel, like a 3-day weekend trip or an international trip, I would not even bother to bring my laptop, but would find a tablet a handy tool.

  • neilganey

    With the iPhone and other devices, the promise seemed to be the ability to perform a set of tasks above and beyond the capability of the average phone, while not detracting from the portability. Notebooks are just not portable enough for carrying everyplace. With the iPad, though, you can't just clip it to your belt or slip it in your pocket. So, you have to either carry a bag with you everywhere or occupy a hand to carry it. We had cell phones like that at one time…

    Separately, you see the value of the iPad as high enough to warrant spending another $500+ (above the cost of your notebook and phone) to get a device that would be for scenario-dependent use?

  • http://www.usabilityblog.com/ pjsherman

    Great comments Tom, Dano, and Neil. Much appreciated. Incidentally, and I SWEAR I didn't see this before writing this post, Engadget has a link to a Youtube video showing a Citrix researcher working on a full KVM setup that's connected to his handset. It's called the Citrix Nirvana (and I *want* one).

    Here's the link:

    http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/02/citrix-nirva…

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