When I think of the word tablet, I think of
chocolate. Somehow tablet doesn't equate itself very well with
computers.
It also seems to me that consumers won't be too interested
either, despite Microsoft's big push for a Tablet PC
version of Windows XP. You've got to ask yourself this
first: What does a tablet PC offer that hasn't either already been
tried - or that you can't do on your existing computer with a
graphics pad?
Microsoft wants everyone to go out and buy one of these new
tablet PCs, which are supposedly the "great new thing." I wonder,
because I seem to recall another company offering the same thing
several years ago.
Yes, our friend Big Blue offered its IBM ThinkPad in a "tablet"
version for a while. Nice idea, but the never caught on. They had a
model where you could write directly on the screen, and also a
model that looked like a standard laptop, but you could flip the
screen down to use it as a tablet. These weren't too popular, and
IBM scrapped the idea.
Plus, software was a problem. Oh, they worked okay with Windows
3.1... but try and upgrade and you were stuck with some broken
functionality.
What would you be doing on a tablet PC anyway? Maybe a little
writing, perhaps some drawing. But why go out and buy a new PC to
do that? You can do both of these things with a graphics pad, and
if you're using OS X 10.2 on a Mac, you've already got built
in handwriting recognition.
This type of thing seems to be all the rage these days - at
least, that's what the computer manufacturers want you to think.
Sony already offers a PC where you can fold the screen down and
draw directly on it. I have yet to hear of someone buying one of
these (although, if you did buy one, I'd be curious to know what
you think of it).
It seems that other companies are offering tablet functionality
whether consumers want it or not.
Should, and will, Apple go along with them? Apple has a history
of waiting for its users to be running around complaining about
something that they don't offer before they actually do offer it -
CD burners, Combo drives on the PowerBook G4, and the 17" iMac
(eMac) are recent examples.
If Apple does decide to make a tablet PowerBook, it will
probably wait to see how other companies are doing at selling their
stock and what features they are including. Is this a critical
thing for Apple to get involved with before it misses the boat
again, like it did with built-in CD-RW drives? I believe that it is
not. Tablet computers are a nice idea, sure, but right now it's
hard to say whether or not they will catch on, and Apple shouldn't
be entering markets where it isn't completely sure that it can sell
machines and compete successfully.
Do consumers really want tablet PC's? That's a question only
sales figures can answer.
In the meantime, I'm off to get my tablet of chocolate.
