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Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

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Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#71

Post by dankoss »

spuz wrote: post #54
dictum wrote: post #24

My love affair with the tablet isn't over: I love how it lets me browse the web, read books and magazines, and watch videos in bed after a long day. That's probably how most people use their tablets — secondary devices, mainly for entertainment. After a working day, I don't want to use a PC, and the tablet lets me use the web and other media comfortably, but I wouldn't try to actually use it for work beyond initially…

In order to argue the author's point you would also need to be carrying around a 5" phone. He is pointing out the trend of more people using their phones for what they used to use their tablets for. I'd be interested to know if you have a 5" phone and whether or not you think it replaces the features of your tablet in any way.

I think phablets may replace small tablets, but the real question is whether large tablets will replace laptops/desktops. That's where the growth market is for tablets if the software becomes powerful enough.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#72

Post by loudmax »

coldtea wrote: post #58
loudmax wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Linux user and very much addicted to the CLI. For any kind of work, a tablet isn't really right for me. I'm getting by okay with two laptops at the office: An MBP that weighs at least 7 lbs and a 2.2 lb ThinkPad. All my work stuff is on my MBP which stays on my desk. I take my ThinkPad to meetings, and if I need to reference something off the MBP I simply ssh into it. That would be a pain without a keyboard. So…

If you're addicted to the CLI why the MBP? A MBA would serve you just as well, and be lighter.

Legacy, mainly. You're right, I'd be just as happy with an MBA or my ThinkPad and a bunch of server space. As a CLI user, that's an easy trade-off. I suspect it's slightly more difficult for GUI users to make the transition because applications are usually written with the expectation of running on a local machine. As the GUI moves to the web it will become irrelevant.

I really liked the desktop/phone combo in the movie Her. The main character buys an "Operating System" that sort of takes over his desktop at home and at work and also his phone. I don't know that it's something we'd want to call an OS the way Windows or Linux is an OS, but there's a lot of sense to a user interface that follows you on whatever device you happen to be using.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#73

Post by sethhochberg »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #50

I rarely use the keyboard on my laptop. The laptop is part of a larger setup that involves a larger external monitor (with the laptop screen being the secondary display) and a wireless keyboard and mouse. I would love it if the laptop was just a tablet "docked" to connect to the monitor and keyboard/mouse. Then I could easily undock the tablet and use it as a tablet when I wanted to. But then plug it back in for a mo…

Interestingly enough, you've pretty much described Microsoft's Surface / Surface Pro. I think, debacle about the x86 vs ARM (Win RT) confusion aside, they're onto something with the form factor and expandability.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#74

Post by icebraining »

mjt0229 wrote: post #7

I never really got tablets - too big to be portable and crippled by the lack of usable input devices. My 11" Macbook Air is just about as portable as an iPad, but is way easier to use, not just for streaming, but even for coding, etc. Of course, I've been wrong about things before and I'm not really a typical consumer user, but I just can't imagine a future for tablets with phones getting as good as they are, and sma…

iPads are particularly big tablets; your Air certainly isn't as portable as my Nexus 7. I can carry it on my pocket (which means I take it everywhere), take it out on the train for reading or watching a video without losing the details of the picture, do a quick SSH to a server without needing to sit at a table or scroll endlessly, etc.

They don't replace my laptop, but for my family members, a tablet per person plus a single home desktop is enough to replace a laptop per person.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#77

Post by Grue3 »

This is a product, the demand for which was singlehandedly created by one company. Before Apple, nobody wanted a tablet. And nobody needed a tablet. But Apple-fans would have bought anything if Steve Jobs said so. And then other people thought they wanted one too. It's much like De Boers and diamonds. Fortunately, tech fads pass rather quickly.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#79

Post by dmd »

falcolas wrote: post #64
spuz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to argue the author's point you would also need to be carrying around a 5" phone. He is pointing out the trend of more people using their phones for what they used to use their tablets for. I'd be interested to know if you have a 5" phone and whether or not you think it replaces the features of your tablet in any way.

Speaking for myself, no, my smartphone does not replace my tablet. The amount of screen realestate lost when going from 11" to 5" is just too much. It makes reading hard (particularly with less than perfect eyesight), movies too small, and all of the real time communication that comes with a phone is vying for my attention all the time. Now then, if I could make calls over a bluetooth headset connected to my iPad, I'…

> Now then, if I could make calls over a bluetooth headset connected to my iPad, I'd drop my phone in a heartbeat...

What's stopping you? I do this from Hangouts (which can make calls, at least in the US.)

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#80

Post by r00fus »

angryasian wrote: post #38

This is just a rehashing of the netbook. As phones get bigger and/or something else replaces the need of casual consumption in a different or more appealing form factor, we'll say bye to the tablet as well.

The original (OLPC-derived) netbook was a thing of beauty.

Once Microsoft and Intel got their claws into it, it became a cheap PC with poor inputs that didn't do anything well (by design - an ARM/Linux netbook threatened the WinTel dominance of the day).

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