What Tablets PC's Need

    Apple currently owns the majority of the Tablet market. In the Keynote launching the Ipad2 Steve Jobs criticized Tablet competitors for being overpriced and not having enough software. Although I’m somewhat impressed with some of the things that the Ipad can do, I feel Apple has seriously limited themselves and are shooting for the small picture. PC’s are doing a process of trial and error and it’s an arduous one that deals with hit and miss strategy. In the end, I feel that the PC’s strategy will win out.

First of all, the Ipad is not self sufficient. It needs to be synced to your computer in order to get new information into it, to upgrade the operating system, and pretty much everything else. It’s not a stand alone device.

Suppose the first laptops were released for the first time today. If you were told that it needed to be synced to a desktop in order for the Laptop to work and update properly... I’m sure your reaction would be much like mine. Why would you need another computer to get your computer to work properly? Is the manufacturer not confident in their own product?

I’m sure Apple has its own sales pitch when it comes to this issue, but whatever they have to say about it is all irrelevant. I’m sure it has something to do with preventing theft of some sort... but itunes simply doesn’t prevent theft in the long run. And even if itunes were effective at preventing illegal activity, what people do with their own property is none of any ones business, most especially the manufacturers.

So ultimately as long as a tablet needs to sync to another device, it will forever be completely incompetent as a device and as a product trying to fit consumer needs.

Second, the Ipad 2 may have a dual core processor, but when compared to laptops, the device is still very pathetic. I’m sure this issue will change within a few years but I still don’t feel comfortable spending so much for so little processing power and memory. I don’t get the hardware I’m paying for. Fanboys may proclaim that the Ipad is quick and up with the times, but that’s only because apple only has to work with their own apps and has strict restrictions on app developers to make apps that make the ipad look speedy and full of memory. Let’s take the Ipad’s garage band app for an example. Though it’s a fun program, you’re strictly restricted to eight tracks because the ipad lacks the capacity to process any more.

The Ipad also lacks a USB plug and even if it did there would be no interface to get the information to transfer from a flash drive and even if it did go that far, there would be no guarantee that the information in the flash drive, would be compatible with the Iphone Operating System (IOS). And as far as I’m concerned, compatibility is everything.

Third, let’s focus on software. With the Ipad, you can only retrieve software from the app store, unless you jail break the device... Apple likes to boast about how many apps currently exist for the Ipad. I feel this is misguided and completely missing the point. You still can’t install Star Craft One or Two on it and have it work properly. For that matter, all of the software that you’re used to working with doesn’t work on the tablet.

And there are plenty of other operating systems hard at work in making themselves comfortable as tablet interfaces. Windows 8 is rumored to have the ability to make its interface tablet friendly, as soon as it’s released. The good thing about this is that if these rumors are true you’ll be able to place Windows right onto a tablet and get any software that has ever been made for a PC and get it to work on your tablet.

Picture this. Suppose you have a Tablet PC supported by Windows 8 and you’re now installing Adobe Photoshop. The installation is finishes. You open Photoshop for the first time on your tablet. Windows 8 now instantly recognizes you’re opening software that was intended to operate on a PC and that you’re opening it on a tablet. So what does it do? It instantly directs you to Adobe’s website where you can download a software update that will get it to instantly recognize tablet gestures rather than PC mouse and keyboard gestures and generally make the program tablet friendly.

I don’t see how, but some might claim this would be an inconvenience. Some might say that they could just purchase an Ipad, hop onto its app store and download an app like “Brushes” and have it work instantly on the tablet without needing to do some software update.

In response, I say “Fair enough”. But no one can honestly look me in the eye and tell me “Brushes” is a competent competitor with Adobe Photoshop. The interface is far less advanced and lacks all the necessary functions to call it anything close to comparable when compared to Photoshop. And much the same could be said about all the Ipad apps. All of them shy in comparison to the order of magnitude that modern PC programs have in terms of usefulness and diversity.

Honestly, if it means an extra ten minutes for a software update and maybe a few manual configurations to get industry standard programs -- programs I’m already familiar with,  and get them to work on a tablet, then I’d be completely ready and willing to deal with the extra time and the small bit of manual labour to get it to work picture perfect for me.

    Apple is saying that they have more software for their tablet... and to me, Apple seems to be counting their eggs before they hatch. Apple seems to be the cocky and overly-excited Hair. Microsoft, in the end, has always been the persistent and consistent tortuous on the race track. If a tablet comes out and it has a place to slide in a CD/DVD, a USB, and is compatible with every type of software worth having, every game worth buying, and doesn’t just rely on an app store, and won’t run into compatibility issues, then that device will have far more versatility. Not only would that device be able to do everything an Ipad can, but it will also be able to do anything that a home computer can.
    What I don’t get is how Apple boasts how the Ipad is “like holding the Internet in your hands,” and they stressed this argument quite a bit in the initial launch. I’d like to point out that the Ipad is not compatible with the Internet in that it can’t run flash, and current Android phones (smaller devices with less memory and processing power) can do that with quite a bit of simplicity. So... how is it that the Ipad is like holding the Internet in your hands... if you can’t do everything on the Internet that you might want to do?

When they first launched the Ipad, one of the first web pages Steve Jobs launches shows a “cannot load flash” icon on the screen. He was looking at the New York Times website.... not much of a sales pitch if you ask me.

Having the Internet in your hands is quite an amazing experience. I admit that. But... why can’t you have the Internet and a computer in your hands? Why would it be an either or situation? Isn’t limiting the product just a way of going backwards instead of forwards? Steve Jobs even stresses that he considers this a “Post PC Device”.... and I think this line of reasoning is misguided. I do feel it’s smart to shoot for a post PC interface. But if what the world currently has isn’t broken, then why try to fix it?  

    Currently PC software greatly outnumbers any amount of apps the Ipad has in its app store. If a tablet comes out with all the PC software ever made with an additional launch with its own app store then Apple will have plenty to lose. It won’t have the ability to boast that it has the most software. It can’t boast that it has much of anything at that point. It’ll just be a small device, with a few apps, and terrible hardware that’s packaged to look nice.

What Steve Jobs stressed by saying that the Ipad is a post PC device is that it’s a smaller device that revolutionizes modern computing making it far more personal and more simplistic. This is a great goal. Shoot for that. But the moment a company abandons the current industry standard (when that standard is a huge market share) you’re basically digging a grave for your product. It may work in the short term, but not in the long term.

These Ipad apps may be “an order of magnitude more complex” when compared to software for the Iphone and Ipod touch... but PC software is an order of magnitude better than anything on the Ipad. And if PC software can be brought to tablets with very little effort for the consumer, then it’s safe to say Apple loses all its bragging rights and its market share. The tablet that comes out with that extra bit of versatility will give consumers the assurance that they don’t need to buy all new programs to do their daily computing. They can work with the programs they’ve already invested in and already become accustomed to.

Although there are legal issues dealing with Bittorrents and generalized programs like Bearshare, Limewire, Frostwire, and etc. people are not going to abandon the ability to use them. As long as a mobile device lacks the capacity to use programs like this and the software they’re able to download, there will be a lot of people that will not want that mobile device.

Currently the only devices that seem to do anything remotely like what I’m describing is the Android phones and the Xoom tablet. But although I’m somewhat fond of the Android Operating System, I feel it has a very long ways to go.

So as a recap, this is what a tablet PC needs in order to be taken more seriously. It needs to be shooting to be a Post PC device, but it can’t ignore PC computing, because that’s exactly what computing currently is. It needs to work with what people currently know and then drift into the post PC era. A tablet needs to be a self sufficient device that does not need to sync with anything to operate properly. The device needs hardware power and at the very least some USB ports. It needs to be compatible with PC software as well as have its own sizeable app store. We cannot abandon the usefulness of modern computing in order to make the post PC device.