I had the opportunity to play around with a Xoom last week, and it got me excited for what will undoubtedly be an exploding market. Tablets prior to the iPad were largely based around productivity and giving a complete desktop/laptop experience in a slightly different form factor. The iPad’s very iPhone-like features made clear that many people are interested in tablets largely as consumption devices. The Xoom is the first of many Android Honeycomb-based devices, and it brings an interesting blend of desktop features to that phone-like tablet experience. It’s a very cool device. But I’m not buying one.
I see tablets as potentially fulfilling at least four primary purposes with many other specialized uses:
Communication is made easier by the tactile feel of browsing the web with the touch of a finger and responding to emails with an intuitive UI. Video calls are a reality for families and businesses alike and the technology will only continue to improve and become more affordable.
Art has so much potential when artists can interact with amazing technology, but it’s just not there yet. Although many artists have made excellent works using iPads and other tablets, there is just no comparison between a Cintiq and an iPad. I am excited to see what can be created when tablets reach even the sensitivity of a present-day Intuos, and I wouldn’t hesitate to spend more than what tablets cost right now for that kind of experience.
Productivity is also limited on tablets at this point. Sure, you can work on simple spreadsheets and even type on a word processor, but I don’t think many people would trade in a netbook or notebook and use a tablet to write the next great novel. Although there are always Bluetooth keyboards, they’re rarely convenient and definitely don’t help battery life.
Entertainment is impossible to ignore with a device that largely appears to be just a screen. Games and movies can be immersive but portable, personal but shareable. With HDMI ports and wireless video transfer, the entertainment of a tablet can be displayed on a larger screen to enjoy with friends (or to bask in the glory of your latest TV purchase alone).
Specialized Uses are easily found with new devices. Tablets can be excellent for presentations to small groups or for doctors to chart patient information (and imagine that tying in with an app like Google Body to allow doctors to give patients a clearer explanation of a particular health concern). They can be used as tools for communicating with those who have impairments. And they can certainly be used for thousands of purposes I haven’t even considered.
But tablets aren’t there yet. Of the fundamental four features (C.A.P.E.), tablets like the iPad and Xoom are off to a good start with communication and entertainment but have a long way to go with art and productivity. Because of this, I’ve decided to hold off for now. I think it will be a while before I’m satisfied with a tablet for artistic use, but productivity should come along quickly.
At this point, I have my eye on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer–an Android tablet that can function largely as a Xoom but which has an optional keyboard/trackpad dock that it can mount into to act as a simple netbook and double the battery life from 8 hours to 16 hours. Asus makes some excellent products, so I hope the Transformer does not disappoint. Although most tablets aren’t sold tied to a cellular contract, their use of mobile operating systems makes it clear that they will evolve at an exceedingly fast pace as smartphones have in the past few years. Hopefully buying a tablet in a few weeks would get me through a couple of years before the next one; with any luck, the art side of tablets will have improved by then.