As you may already have read, I recently posted a piece about why I think tablets are a fad. I've had time to contemplate and sit with this declaration for a week or so, and I do still think it's true: Tablets are a fad.
In my previous piece, I said that only Apple was getting it right. I did not mean to infer that Apple's iPad is the perfect tablet. Not by a long-shot. It's just the first tablet to get to the starting line. Or was that the Kindle? These two are the only serious contenders at present.
We have two really viable products with mass-market appeal, and then we have an infinite array of imitators, charlatans and "the one true Frodo to go into Mordor.... etc." type up-and-comers. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what any of these companies are trying to build: tablets will never be as important as any existing platforms. They'll never outsell desktop PCs. They'll never outsell servers. And most importantly, we will never see tablets outsell mobile phones.
I said before that tablets have no killer app. I still contend that reading is not a killer app, though it is a great use for tablets. They're perfect for use on the couch, plane and anywhere else a lap is unavailable. But can you see the public at large paying $400 to $1000 for a reading device? And are these devices even built to be reading devices? Or are they all just iPad imitators, and laptop-screens with ports? Mini iMacs with touch-screens. And most of them are too heavy to hold for a long reading session. Even the iPad fails at hand comfort.
In the end, the Kindle is the right way to do it: cheap, dirt simple, and perfectly suited to its use case scenario. How many glossy metal-and-plastic tablets can you use in bright sunlight? None but the Kindle.
Do any of the other devices have a battery that lasts for days? The Kindle does. I've seen obviously stolen Kindles on sale at the local flea market that were still on and showing the book their former owner was reading. The local sneak thieves don't even know how to turn the things off, nor how to charge them. They just stay on forever.
I see a future for tablets in the Kindle model. A color e-ink like device that was a dedicated Web browser and PDF viewer, and sold for $100 could become a killer device. But at $600 a pop, the iPad is destined to remain a niche device, when compared to the iPhone.
And despite the essentially narrow market into which Apple is able to sell the iPad (don't get me wrong, I'm sure they've sold and will continue to sell millions), all of the competitors: Android, RIM, HP, Intel, and the countless other tablet wannabes are all lining up behind Apple. The innovations taking place on their devices are primarily coming from the Web, not from their applications or form factors. As time goes on, we're seeing the obvious trend towards a services-based Internet economy, and these services are quickly filling in the gaps that are left open by dumb-terminals, and thus making Kindle-like tablets more useful.
Need your music to go with you? The answer used to be "buy an iPod." Soon it will be "sign up for these hot new services from Apple and Google that allow you to store your music in the cloud, and have it wherever you go! Need to write some code?Orion is coming! The Web is the essential platform, and it will fill the gaps left by a move to new devices. The tablets themselves are irrelevant.
Which gets right to the heart of this thing: tablets as they stand today are less about the Web and reading than they are about taking the user out of the file system and away from control of the device. Esentially, today's tablets are laptops without the keyboard, and without root-level file system access. There is a corollary to this in a definition of the term "app" that is used by a friend of mine. He defines an "app" as "A piece of software with DRM."
Do you really need an SD slot on your tablet? A USB port? Dual cores and a big chunk of RAM? Sure, that's all nice to have, but why add expansion ports and top-shelf capability to a device that is designed not to allow you to have full control over it? The abstraction of the tablet OS is about simplicity, so why plug 8 things into it? In the end, our tablets will just be browsers. Maybe they'll include an email client. But in the end, they're just windows into the Web. Windows to our data.
And that's why the Kindle is so awesome. I've never even used one for more than 5 minutes, but it's obvious at sight what this device gets right. You can read it outside. It has a keyboard. It's super light and thin. The battery lasts a long time. It's tailored to its use. The iPad, on the other hand, is mostly just a big iPhone. A neat new take on the laptop. It's not tailored to any one use, and that's what I don't like about it.
As a laptop replacement, it's meh. I still need a mouse and keyboard, and most importantly, the ability to work in a file system. There will be room, I think, for the hacker tablet: a device which allows you to do anything you want to it, and offers you root level access to a full Debian or Gentoo or what-have-you install of Linux. Something that knows its a toy for a geek. At present, you have to hack your Android tablet to turn it into something remotely similar to this. No root for you out of the box, Android user.
So, yes, tablets are a fad. If you want to see a truly awesome take on where tablets should be going, look at the Chumby. This little alarm-clock replacement is pure awesome. And it is an absolutely open platform. You get a root shell if you plug a keyboard into its lone USB port. Not that you can read a prompt on the tiny screen, but it's a nice touch.
The Chumby is not a tablet. But it is a really cool take on the touch-screen computing ideal. It's way out in left-field, while the rest of the iPad wannabes are all clustered around home plate. The Kindle is probably playing in-field somewhere. Short stop.
This brings it all back to my central point. Tablets need to get into two lines. One is behind the Kindle, the other off in a field, alone, away from the iPad. If your tablet is going to be a limited computer, with no root access and no file system control, then make it a Kindle. Push that abstraction all the way to the edge of the device. There's no point in abstracting control away from the user for simplicity's sake if you're going to clutter everything up with endless free "apps." If you are making a dumb terminal, go all the freakin' way.
On the flip side, if you're making a tablet for people to build things on top of, and one you want people to use as a laptop replacement, then ditch this half-way OS abstraction entirely. Give people devices they can easily mount on the wall, or on the side of a desk, in a car. Make them hyper adaptable and give the user full control. The power user who wants to replace their laptop wants root access and a normal file system available to them.
Because that's the goal here. Tablets are not desktop replacements. They're not laptop replacements. They're not even phone replacements. They're paper replacements. And, frankly, we've been trying to replace paper with computers for 60+ years now. How's that been working out?
Uhm.... It's been happening. Slowly. Over time. But we still use paper every day. The expunging of paper from a business is nearly impossible. At law firm, for example, paper in a single case can literally fill a room. Tablets are a great replacement for paper, there's no doubt. But the only way for them to replace paper is for billions of humans to change how they do their work. And for the millions of systems and processes they use to be changed, as well.
Finally, last nail in the tablet coffin: phones are essential. A phone is a tool useful on a daily basis to around 99% of the world's population. People in tribal villages in Africa use mobile phones to find the best prices for their grain. That's a huge market. Possibly the biggest technology market there will ever be in the world. That's not the case for tablets, which are currently just a nice thing to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment