On Giz, Engadget, and countless other tech sites, I've been seeing more and more updates on the rumors of an Apple Tablet. And as they report on this, many people are wondering, "Why doesn't Apple just make a tablet already?" Logically, it would make sense. Apple is trying to cater to the media niche with their dumbed-down, aesthetic, clean, easy to use OS with all their iSuite (Final Cut Pro, Garageband, etc.). Nearly every professional graphics artist will swear by Macs over anything else. And said graphics artists love using pen tablets. Adding in the latest craze with touch screens (especially because of Apple's iPhone/iTouch), and it's almost insane that Apple hasn't already jumped into the tablet computer market.
But in my opinion, what Apple is doing right now is waiting and developing more. And frankly, that's a good thing. I don't think the tablet ideal has yet reached its fruition, and ostensibly, neither does Apple. There is a problem right now with tablet laptops. It's apparent with nearly every tablet laptop that's out in the market currently.
The really weak point in tablet computers is the keyboard problem. When Apple made the iPhone sans keyboard, a lot of people objected (and rightly so; the software keyboard is horrible). But if Apple had made the iPhone with a physical keyboard, a lot of people would still object. The problem lies in the fact that with a touchscreen, the computer has completely separated the pointer input and the keyboard input. With a touchscreen, the physical keyboard is suddenly made useless. It could be argued that Apple removed the keyboard for aesthetic purposes, but that's the issue.
On the other hand, the problem with software keyboards lies in the fact that they're completely gimmicked, uncomfortable, and error-prone. Especially with a single large screen. If the keyboard is placed on the screen, then how is the user going to type? His wrists will be parallel to what he's looking at. Imagine hunching over your lap, wrists bent at a 90º while you're struggling to look behind your hands which cover up the screen. That's not exactly the most user-friendly experience ever.
The other problem is that, frankly, the modern OS is not designed for a touchscreen. Even if Apple creates some sort of hybridized version of OS X and iPhone OS, the iPhone OS brings too many shortcomings coupled with the touchscreen. A modern OS, like Windows or Mac OS X, gives both pointer input and keyboard input, and the two are strung together for the user without having to switch between inputs much. (Incidentally, that's why I prefer touchpads to computer mice) Bring in a touchscreen to replace the mouse, and suddenly, the user needs to move from screen to keyboard (if physical); or worse, he needs to switch between pointer input and typing on the screen (if software). The iPhone OS brought us closer to a 'decently capable' touch interface with tons of icons, as-little-as-possible keyboard usage, and multi-touch functions and gestures that helped to remove the need for more buttons; however, it's definitely not where touchscreen OSes need to be in order to become the most user friendly interfaces as they possibly can.
In my opinion, the only way tablets will ever replace the normal laptop computer would be if the keyboard became obsolete. But right now, there's no way to efficiently type without using the keyboard. Speech recognition will never become any more useful than it currently is, even with major overhauls and improvements.
I'm sure Apple's hard at work figuring out how to mitigate these issues, but until they do, I don't expect them to release a tablet product.
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I personally love using the iPod touch's touch/keyboard interface. It's very easy, and even fun to use.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, why are you saying speech recognition will never get better than it is right now?
For most people I've talked to, the keyboard is the bane of their existence. Even with the iPhone's autocorrect feature, the buttons are small and packed densely enough that typos occur nearly every sentence. If that wasn't bad enough, the keyboard itself covers about half the screen
ReplyDeleteSpeech recognition is bound to improve; however, I don't think that it will become more useful to the majority of people. The only group of people that have benefit from using speech recog features are those with physical disabilities, but the problems associated with it (such as the security problems in saying your passwords out loud ;) make speech recognition non-feasible for most consumers.