Tablets - toys or tools?

[Aidoneus]

Right now, I use my iPad for probably 95% of my web browsing, and more of less 100% of my video consumption (in the mobile sense, so TV notwithstanding). I've retyped CVs, used it for data entry, and even made a presentation entirely on the device. So in that sense, it's a tool.

However, the iPad (and it's competitors) don't exist in a vacuum. It doesn't allow me to do anything I couldn't do with even a mid-strength laptop (or a low-end netbook if HD video playback is excluded)*, and as the OP is posting on the forum, I think it's a fair wager you have a computer of some kind. So in that sense, tablets are a toy.

*except browsing the web without my glasses on, which is a joy I cannot put a price on. Seriously. If that was all the iPad let me do, I wouldn't feel cheated out of $500.

 

[portlandatheist]

I have an iPad and its pure toy, I toy I love, but totally worthless as a replacement to a laptop or desktop computer as far as getting anything worthwhile accomplished.

 

[not daSkeptic]

I'm not certain why Apple elected to offer a device which was less capable than it easily could have been.

Because they are targeting a specific niche. They already have more capable devices. The iPad is not meant to replace those.

 

[not daSkeptic]

I have an iPad and its pure toy, I toy I love, but totally worthless as a replacement to a laptop or desktop computer as far as getting anything worthwhile accomplished.

Who said it was supposed to replace anything? Worthwhile according to who?

 

[Bikewer]

Years ago, when OMNI magazine was still publishing, they were in the habit of doing reader polls as to future technology. Working on the notion that a sufficiently large cross-section of the population would have some pithy insight...
At any rate, they asked (in the early 90s) what the readership would like to see in a personal computer.
The device they described by consensus was very much like the iPad.

Of course, on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", they described it as "a really big iPhone without the phone..."
I've got an iPod, and it's great fun. I use it as a music player, reader, drawing tool, etc.
It'd be better bigger.... But I can't afford bigger at present.
As a drawing tool I think an iPad would be really cool. But 600 bucks buys a lot of paper....

 

[leon_heller]

I was thinking of buying an iPad when they first came out, but got a Dell Streak Android tablet instead, as it fits in my pocket, has more features than the iPad, and was cheaper.

I'm very pleased with it. It doesn't replace my laptop, but it enables me to check emails, use the web, and look after the various Yahoo groups I run, while I am traveling, and the GPS and Google Maps helps me find my way around and locate restaurants and places of interest. Something else I like about it is being able to lie on my back in bed and use it when I wake up in the middle of the night (I suffer from insomnia). I also use it for making phone calls, although it isn't quite as convenient as a mobile phone - it's a bit awkward holding it against my ear. The 5" display is a nice compromise, enabling it to be put in a pocket whilst making it easy to see web pages without having to scroll the display sideways.

 

[quadraginta]

Because they are targeting a specific niche. They already have more capable devices. The iPad is not meant to replace those.

Who said it was supposed to replace anything? Worthwhile according to who?

Thanks for saving me all that typing.

Apple may have more capable devices, but if they had more capable tablet PCs when they rolled out the iPad that's news to me.

I don't know for sure if we are actually disagreeing about anything significant. My point has been that the iPad is not a true tablet PC and you seem to be saying "You're wrong, it isn't a true tablet PC."

My only issue is that conversations about "tablets" now inevitably conflate iPad-like devices with full-function tablet PCs. This was not an issue before the iPad. Of course, before the iPad the issue was that most people had no idea what a tablet PC was to begin with. Now they just have the wrong idea, instead.

I suppose that's progress ... sorta.

 

[quadraginta]

Years ago, when OMNI magazine was still publishing, they were in the habit of doing reader polls as to future technology. Working on the notion that a sufficiently large cross-section of the population would have some pithy insight...
At any rate, they asked (in the early 90s) what the readership would like to see in a personal computer.
The device they described by consensus was very much like the iPad.

Of course, on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", they described it as "a really big iPhone without the phone..."
I've got an iPod, and it's great fun. I use it as a music player, reader, drawing tool, etc.
It'd be better bigger.... But I can't afford bigger at present.
As a drawing tool I think an iPad would be really cool. But 600 bucks buys a lot of paper....

I got a subscription to OMNI when it started up, because I had one to Analog at the time, and figured if Ben Bova was willing to quit to go run a start-up it might be worth looking at.

I am also reminded of Byte magazine from the same era, and Jerry Pournelle's mantra of the future, "One desk, at least one CPU.". We seem to be on the verge of, "One pocket, at least one CPU.".

 

[Nerd]

Both.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

I know someone who uses his iPad mostly for web, email, and music while on the go, and he just installed a Kindle app on it today because he plans on buying many books for it. I can see where it also would be good for these things while laying in bed, as it's lighter and easier to hold when laying on your back (I've tried doing this with my laptop, and it isn't easy).

Now I'm wondering if a Comic Book Reader can be installed on it (for eComics)?

 

[Ferguson]

The Marvel app is awesome for comics, you can do page-by-page, or panel-by-panel which is really cool.
There's also a DC app but I haven't tried it.

 

[Cuddles]

I'm not certain why Apple elected to offer a device which was less capable than it easily could have been.

Same reason they did it with the iPhone - they know they can get people to buy it twice. The first iPhone was a complete piece of crap that was lacking features other phones had had for years. People bought it anyway. A short while later, they released a new version with most of those features added back in (Wow, 3G! Just like that £10 phone I had 5 years before the iPhone was ever heard of!), and everyone went out and bought that as well. Current iPhones are, as far as I can see, actually quite good, but they deliberately didn't start them off like that as an obvious marketing ploy.

So is the iPad really not a tablet PC? Or is it just a deliberately crippled one that will soon have a much better version released to make everyone buy it all over again?

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

The Marvel app is awesome for comics, you can do page-by-page, or panel-by-panel which is really cool.
There's also a DC app but I haven't tried it.

Does it work for cbr or cbz format? Or is there a separate app available that'll act as a cbr reader. Most readers of 'scanned' comics have them in cbr or cbz format and were dismayed when Marvel decided not to use those formats (they went pdf didn't they?).

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Same reason they did it with the iPhone - they know they can get people to buy it twice. The first iPhone was a complete piece of crap that was lacking features other phones had had for years. People bought it anyway. A short while later, they released a new version with most of those features added back in (Wow, 3G! Just like that £10 phone I had 5 years before the iPhone was ever heard of!), and everyone went out and bought that as well. Current iPhones are, as far as I can see, actually quite good, but they deliberately didn't start them off like that as an obvious marketing ploy.

So is the iPad really not a tablet PC? Or is it just a deliberately crippled one that will soon have a much better version released to make everyone buy it all over again?

A very fine point, well made.

 

[fls]

I was approaching this discussion in the sense of "toy" as opposed to a standard laptop PC, because I don't think there is much question that the iPad is not the equivalent of a laptop.

Right. It's obviously much better than a laptop if what you need is a tablet-type device. There was obviously an un-filled niche which a laptop did not satisfy and an iPad did. It would make sense to me to call it a 'toy' if it only pretended to fill that niche well, but filled it poorly instead. Or, I suppose, if that niche consisted only of entertainment type functions. But neither of those things seems to be the case. And of course, the iPad is not the only, or the first, device available to fill that niche, only the most popular. Popularity may be what draws the 'toy' epithet, since that seems to a recurring theme generally (Sagan wasn't a serious scientist because he was popular, for example).

In a more general sense I'd have to say that "toy" as an epithet means little to me either. It all depends on what you're doing with it. I don't think that the iPad would have performed sufficiently well to satisfy me as a replacement for a laptop. The Motion tablet served flawlessly in that respect, while also providing all of the additional utility which a tablet format offers. As an adjunct to a laptop perhaps an iPad might have filled some of the jobs that tablet provided, but not with the same access to every piece of software that was available to run under XP Pro. I even had AutoCad loaded, (although admittedly it was a pretty constrained environment for it.)

I don't doubt that for more money you can get devices that fill more than one niche. One could similarly argue that it is pointless to buy an e-book reader when there are much more expensive devices available to serve as e-book reader and tablet or e-book reader and laptop, without the inconvenience of applications written for a different operating system. But I personally like that I don't have to pay for functionality that isn't useful to me. And I have to deal with different operating systems regardless as I have a PC desktop but Mac laptops (if I borrow from my family). The word processing app I use on my iPad doesn't have all the macros in Word on my PC, but I rarely (if ever) use them anyway. And if I find I need that function, well, there's probably an app for that.

I think it's reasonable to recognize that there are functions a tablet fills that a laptop does not, and vice versa.

I understand the point you are making, but it is bounded by the constraints of application. When I see "tablet" used in a sense which assumes the comparisons to and limitations of iPad-like devices I think the comparison to be dangerously flawed, because by comparison to what a full-fledged tablet can offer there are certainly many toylike qualities to an iPad. I understand that not all uses an iPad can be put to reflect that, but I still find that the mis-used comparisons can be misleading. To me the iPad and similar offering constitute a very limited subset of what tablets really can be, and have already been for more than a few years.

I hope I explained that properly. I don't know if I articulated it very well.



To me the iPad exists in an ill-defined region somewhere between internet capable phones and book readers, and full function PCs. I think I would probably have a much higher opinion of it if it had been offered with something more closely resembling a useful OS and more peripheral connectivity. But then, if it had it would have been a "real" tablet PC. As similar offerings develop those capabilities they will, too.

I also wish that the iPad had more peripheral connectivity, depending upon what I would have to lose to get it (I'm guessing not much, though). It doesn't bother me that the hole it fills was ill-defined - that doesn't lead me to presume that it was an artificial hole created by marketing. It also doesn't bother me that it doesn't do laptop stuff that is not useful to me. Like I said in my first post, if you need laptop stuff, then it doesn't serve. And I think it is useful to distinguish between tablet functions and laptop functions (rather than expecting the "tablet" label to refer to both).

ETA: "Tablet PC" seems to distinguish the devices you are referring to. And like you said, this should be a boon to them. If there is a big hole that Apple is not filling by not providing PC functions with the iPad, they are already there with their products.

Linda

 

[quadraginta]

Same reason they did it with the iPhone - they know they can get people to buy it twice. The first iPhone was a complete piece of crap that was lacking features other phones had had for years. People bought it anyway. A short while later, they released a new version with most of those features added back in (Wow, 3G! Just like that £10 phone I had 5 years before the iPhone was ever heard of!), and everyone went out and bought that as well. Current iPhones are, as far as I can see, actually quite good, but they deliberately didn't start them off like that as an obvious marketing ploy.

So is the iPad really not a tablet PC? Or is it just a deliberately crippled one that will soon have a much better version released to make everyone buy it all over again?

I wish this didn't sound so plausible.

 

[superfreddy]

I received an iPad as a gift. It's something I never would have considered buying, but now that I have it, you can't pry it out of my hands. It has replaced about 50% of my laptop usage.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

I received an iPad as a gift. It's something I never would have considered buying, but now that I have it, you can't pry it out of my hands. It has replaced about 50% of my laptop usage.

I never would have considered getting one either, but after the past two weeks of helping somebody else get his iPad all set up and figured out, I can definitely see how nice if could be to have one. It would make surfing the net and reading easier than a laptop while laying in bed (I like to read news and things before turning off the light), which is why I asked earlier if a ComicBook reader can be installed (one than reads cbr and cbz files)?

 

[Wowbagger]

As a software developer, I generally tend to scoff at the puny iPad, while using my mighty Toshiba Tablet PC: even though my Tablet is from 2007.

It's a lot like quadraginta's machine: Full blown laptop that converts into a tablet form factor.

But, I also have a Droid Incredible Smart Phone, so I can still be part of the modern gadget era.

 

[quadraginta]

Right. It's obviously much better than a laptop if what you need is a tablet-type device. There was obviously an un-filled niche which a laptop did not satisfy and an iPad did. It would make sense to me to call it a 'toy' if it only pretended to fill that niche well, but filled it poorly instead. Or, I suppose, if that niche consisted only of entertainment type functions. But neither of those things seems to be the case. And of course, the iPad is not the only, or the first, device available to fill that niche, only the most popular. Popularity may be what draws the 'toy' epithet, since that seems to a recurring theme generally (Sagan wasn't a serious scientist because he was popular, for example).



I don't doubt that for more money you can get devices that fill more than one niche. One could similarly argue that it is pointless to buy an e-book reader when there are much more expensive devices available to serve as e-book reader and tablet or e-book reader and laptop, without the inconvenience of applications written for a different operating system. But I personally like that I don't have to pay for functionality that isn't useful to me. And I have to deal with different operating systems regardless as I have a PC desktop but Mac laptops (if I borrow from my family). The word processing app I use on my iPad doesn't have all the macros in Word on my PC, but I rarely (if ever) use them anyway. And if I find I need that function, well, there's probably an app for that.

I think it's reasonable to recognize that there are functions a tablet fills that a laptop does not, and vice versa.



I also wish that the iPad had more peripheral connectivity, depending upon what I would have to lose to get it (I'm guessing not much, though). It doesn't bother me that the hole it fills was ill-defined - that doesn't lead me to presume that it was an artificial hole created by marketing. It also doesn't bother me that it doesn't do laptop stuff that is not useful to me. Like I said in my first post, if you need laptop stuff, then it doesn't serve. And I think it is useful to distinguish between tablet functions and laptop functions (rather than expecting the "tablet" label to refer to both).

ETA: "Tablet PC" seems to distinguish the devices you are referring to. And like you said, this should be a boon to them. If there is a big hole that Apple is not filling by not providing PC functions with the iPad, they are already there with their products.

Linda

I don't think our thoughts on this subject are really all that divergent. Like I said, I probably am not expressing myself well.

As far as functionality is concerned, to me it is more a matter of how much more it is going to cost. My feeling is that by the time the iPad made it to market the additional functionality wasn't going to be a significant expense. Perhaps I am wrong about that.

As far as merely wanting it I think that we all want as much functionality as we can manage without too dear a premium, especially in computing devices. When technology and price-point allow, few of us are going to choose the less capable of two otherwise equally well crafted devices simply because it offers less.

I want to reiterate that the term "toy" is confusing this discussion a bit. I recognize and appreciate that "toy" is an appellation which carries a great deal of baggage. I suffer gadget lust with the best of 'em and do not denigrate something simply on that basis. I fully understand that the term is dependent on the use something is put to and not any intrinsic quality.

My problem is that the pejorative quality of the term has become inappropriately attached to tablet format devices in general as a result of the cut-off-at-the-knees functionality of the iPad-like devices that are all most consumers have to judge by.

I understand (hope) that this is a temporary condition, but it still irks me.

The problem about the situation you mention in your ETA is that the full-featured devices which are available beyond that "hole" Apple is filling remain generally unknown to the bulk of the public. Apple didn't "fill a hole", they created one. In some ways this perpetuates the calumny that tablet format devices are "toys" simply by creating a popular impression that consumers can have a "tablet", but they still need a "real computer".