Tablets: An Elusive Revolution

When iPad was first introduced in 2010, I was little bit skeptical, I was asking do I need one? Well many people were asking the same question. I was used to familiar with the idea of tablet since early 2000 when Microsoft first introduced the idea. I was not too excited about the product and like other people I was not very convinced. Things have changed so much now, millions of tablets are sold in every month. Some tablet enthusiast even believe that tablet is the next way to go. Tablet will eventually replace mobile phone, pc and what not. You name it they will replace it with tablet. Apparently tablet is in the driving sit of post-pc revolution. Surprisingly my position has not changed since then. I still don't know why I need a tablet.

Truthfully, I am not in a position to spend any money for any fancy gadget. Definitely 'need' is a big word for my spending. Unlike many people 'need' is not the new word for 'desire' for me. So, I have to carefully justify the need before decide to purchase. Sure, for people like me the word tablet has a very little use (if any). Apart from all that I feel like tablet is probably not the right way to go. I know big people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs used to believe tablet is the future of the industry; somehow the whole tablet thing never been able to convince me.

Smartphone was a big step forward from whatever we used to have. Smartphone redefined the use of the cell phone that we used to have. What could be most use of tablets: book reading, browsing, media consumption. Well specifically, tablet is a media consumption device! Aha. so that is the use of tablet! I see the use of tablet as a media consumption device. But my imagination stops right there. I cannot take it any further! Even though tablets are becoming ubiquitous. Some guy is India use his tablet to change the education system, aircraft industry is planning of use iPad as a real-time flight simulator, fire fighters are using it for live layouts. Even I have no trouble imagining tablets as a widespread ad-hoc mobile network that have the potential to replace wired network of today and torrent over that really possesses the possibility of replacing the internet of today. But remember all these can equally be done with a smartphone and they both share a serious problem: input!

The input is simple not convenience. Touch is an interesting way of input but it is not convenient. Technically touch is a mechanical way communication. Being a mechanical way of communication it has high degree of error, hence we are never gonna achieve a touch sensitive device with arbitrary precision. If your device is limited by input, theoretically is limited by output as well. Well that's theory but practically there is no limitation; the biggest problem is smartphones are more convenient (let alone its ancestor pc).

The second problem is no matter how powerful your tablet is there would always be a same powerful smartphone and high powered pc. So the only advantage it offers is its little bigger screen. If a smart phone can come up with bigger screen the requirement for tablet is diminished. When I say bigger screen I mean to say bigger projection of the screen. My point is: a device with only advantage of having bigger screen with whatever display cannot sustain the evolution where more convenient devices compete with it. (I am assuming tablet is not gonna replace pc anytime soon, if you are not convinced why you don't know pc at all) 

The only advantage tablets have over smartphones is in content consumption which is primarily because of bigger screen size. I have no problem imagining a device that solves the problem. Well devices with multiple convenient screen can easily solve the problem. I am sure there would be more innovative way of solving this problem. Well smartphone would be a narrow name for it then; it would be less phone and more of something new then, but not surely not tablets as we know them today.

When a new sustainable technology emerged it would enable countless new technologies to bolster its echo system. Tablets have no such things; everything it has is borrowed from either smartphone or pc. It does not give us anything new. Therefore my bet is tablet would not rule too long. Sure it is a successful business product of today; it is a killer product but it not a technology of future.