Tablet Fever
So everyone has been up in arms for the last month or three about what Apple will announce today (Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2010.) The big rumor is that it’s a tablet. At this point enough people are saying it that I feel reasonable about having hope that’s what it’ll be.
What do I want to do with a tablet?
OmniGraffle comes to mind, except with more natural gestures and ways to draw things, mindmap, etc. I’d love to be able to use it as not only a way to annotate, paint, freeform doodle etc. but also as a way to quickly make some polished looking Graffle-type drawings. Pertinent to what I do is the ability to make signal flow diagrams between A/V components. That would be awesome.
Besides the usual — web surfing, book reading, movie watching, etc.
What technology or features do I hope it’ll have?
As much as I’m getting used to the software keyboard on the iPhone, I could live with a soft keyboard when I didn’t have any other options, but would greatly prefer using a USB or bluetooth keyboard. So I hope that’s possible.
If I had to wish for ‘innovative new ways of interacting’ with the thing, I would look at the proximity sensors Apple just got a patent for. If you could flick your hand through the air above the ‘page’ of an eBook, or to scroll down a pdf file, I think that’d be pretty cool. I can imagine a whole bunch of other gestures that could be used to navigate documents, and with more resolution and real estate, it probably makes it easier to do more technical stuff like rotate things, etc.
I was a fan of the handwriting recognition in the Newton. I’d love to see that come back but be even better. Maybe even learn my chicken scratch penmanship. Voice recognition would be nice but Apple’s got nothing on Dragon and they know it. They’d have to do a lot of improving before I would be interested in voice commands.
I’d like it to have two cameras, as some have mentioned. One to look at me and one to look at other things. But if I had to choose one, it’d be the one to look at me so I could videoconference. Worst case, I could always flip it over if I wanted to snap a photo of something. It couldn’t be any harder than trying to take a self-portrait with the default Camera.app on the iPhone…
I’d like it to have an accessible Disk Mode, though I’m not holding my breath.
Multitasking would be nice, the ability to switch between app windows, minimize and maximize them, etc.
I’d like to see the main menu page’s real estate used wisely, and perhaps give users some sort of ‘nested folders’ metaphor…
Flash would be lovely but I 100% doubt that’d happen. Until the web evolves to embrace other more open standards, face it, that’s what we’ve got right now.
Is it worth it?
I am a big fan of innovative technologies. I have had Apple stuff since I was six years old, starting with an Apple ][e with Robot Odyssey and later a Mac LC with Color MacCheese. So I’ll be the first to admit I’m biased. It’s what I like and what I know.
My prediction is, as long as the device is $1000 or less, I’ll feel that it’d be worth getting one.
However, owning another device that would require its own data subscription strikes me as ugh. My work phone supports tethering and I can hook my laptop up to it and surf the web. Case closed. I still cannot tether my laptop to my iPhone. I’d want to be able do this same thing with a tablet. I’ve got my phone on me most of the time anyway. So I’m torn as to whether I’d want to get yet another monthly subscription to support another device with a cell modem built in.
My Concerns
Apple has been growing steadily across the board: Music, movies, apps. All DRM’d, licensed content bottlenecked through the iTunes store. Now the rumors are that they’d be adding books, magazines, newspapers, etc. So, even more stuff that’d be locked down, non-portable, DRM’d. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
If this is just a device that is a ‘bigger iPhone’ rather than a ‘smaller MacBook’ then you are starting from a different set of expectations. I guess I’m wondering how easy it will be to collaborate – not just with others, but between your own devices. My thinking is that Apple will say, ‘you have iDisk! Look to the cloud!’ etc. and push that as the way to move stuff around.