Tablets on the Way. Ipads to replace laptops? Newspapers? Another Revolution

[stephendare]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/arts/04iht-design4.html

LONDON — You don’t need a crystal ball, seer stone, scrying pool or any other spooky stuff to guess what one of the most talked-about design projects of 2010 will be. The tech blogs have been buzzing about it for months. It’s the iSlate, iTablet, iProd, Magic Slate, or whatever else Apple finally decides to call its new tablet computer.

We’ve been here before: three years ago, to be exact. The drill was the same. Months of frenzied blogging culminated in ecstatic cheers on Jan. 9, 2007, when Apple’s co-founder, Steve Jobs, brandished a prototype iPhone before an adoring audience of Apple nuts at a convention in San Francisco.

What’s happened since? Not only has Apple sold tens of millions of iPhones, it has pulled off a stunningly successful exercise in design democracy whereby thousands of D.I.Y. designers have developed applications, or programs, for them. Some 100,000 “apps” have been invented, and more than two billion downloaded from Apple’s App Store. What’s almost more impressive is that Apple has achieved this despite its own history — and instincts — as the consummate corporate control freak.

Mr. Jobs is expected to show off the iSlate (as we’ll call it, if only because that’s the latest rumor) in San Francisco later this month. If the bloggers are right, it will hit the stores in March. At the risk of party-pooping, we should note that not every new Apple product has been a hit. Remember the Newton PDA? Or the G4 Cube computer? But if the iSlate is another of the company’s successes, it promises to have as much impact as the iPhone, if not more.

It’s that tantalizing possibility of “more” that puts it on the top of the design agenda for 2010. There are other contenders, despite the recession. The automotive industry will discover whether its investment in electric cars has paid off when the Nissan LEAF and other zero-emissions vehicles go on sale. Vitra, the Swiss furniture group, will experiment with new ways of designing the home in the VitraHaus, a model modern house built by the architects Herzog & de Meuron at Vitra’s headquarters in Weil am Rhein, Germany. And a proposal to help consumers monitor their environmental impact by introducing a global system of identifying the carbon and water footprints of products and their packaging is to be discussed at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.

Even so, the iSlate is particularly interesting, not only because of that promise of “more,” but because it sums up so much of what’s happening in design now.

The iSlate would probably be successful simply by dint of being Apple’s first tablet computer. Ever since the non-profit organization One Laptop Per Child showed how cute a small version of the laptop could be when it unveiled the first prototype of its XO machine in 2005, tablet computers have been one of the fastest growing areas of the computer market. That wasn’t OLPC’s intention. Fuseproject, the San Francisco design group that develops its hardware, reduced the computer’s size in the hope of making it cheap enough for developing countries to buy for their schools. Spawning a profitable new product category for the I.T. industry wasn’t part of the idealistic agenda.

Accidental though it was, consumers have leapt at the chance to buy computers that are not only smaller than laptops, but lighter and cheaper too. Apple may be a late entrant to the market, but there is no reason to believe that its designers won’t be able to replicate their past success at battling against the laws of physics to produce a tablet that’s sleeker, lighter and generally hotter than anyone else’s, so much so that people will be willing to pay more for it.

The outcome of that battle will be even more important when it comes to the “more” element of the iSlate. Like many new digital devices, it will combine several products in one. An extreme example is the iPhone. It fulfills the functions of dozens of products including a watch, diary, alarm clock, barometer, satellite navigation system, Internet browser, dictionary, DVD player and MP3 player as well as a phone, and that’s before we come on to those 100,000 apps. The iSlate will do lots of that stuff too, as well as basic computing. Critically it will also act as an electronic reader, like Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.

Many people like their e-readers (not least because they save them from having to haul around books, newspapers and magazines) but I’ve yet to meet anyone who loves them. That’s the key. If a really great e-reader appeared, the market would explode. The e-reader is waiting for a killer product, just as the MP3 player was before Apple’s iPod. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player, it made such a sexy one that many more people wanted to buy it. That’s what it is promising to do again.

If it comes through, demand for electronic books, newspapers and magazines should soar. This will create an exciting design challenge for their publishers to develop seductive ways of presenting their content on e-readers. In theory, e-newspapers could combine the convenience of the printed product with the dynamism of their Web sites. And e-magazines should be more visually compelling with higher resolution images than their Web versions. As well as helping publishers to tackle the thorny problem of how to make money from the Internet, it could enable them to create dazzling new e-media.

That’s why an important element of the iSlate will be another contemporary design essential — a great service design concept. For the iPod, that’s the iTunes music store, and for the iPhone, the App Store. The iSlate’s equivalent will be a fun, simple system with which we can download e-content.

There is, of course, another increasingly important area of design where Apple has fared less well — sustainability. Will it do better with the iSlate? Hopefully we’ll find out soon.

[stephendare]

apparently the new tablets are going to cost around 400 bucks.

Laptops are expected to get as cheap as calculators did.

I remember in 1978, my Lil Mama had a burning need for a 'full service' calculator.  (it had a small reciept printer attached to it, and apparently could do something with sine and co sine functions (although none of us ever ventured into this forbidden territory).  It also had some advanced 'memory' functions (Dabbling in the smokey theological territory of these so called 'memory functions' marked the beginning of my Lil Mama's lifelong struggle against demons in everyday household items that would find its fullest expression in her legendary battles with the legions who controlled microwave ovens and VCR Players)

Anyways, it was a texas instruments calculator (pretty groovy hi tech brand at the time) and it cost her 138 dollars.  

In today's post Bush dollars, that would be enough to mortgage a house in Arlington.

Armed with the Texas Instruments Advanced Full Service Calculator, my Lil Mama was a goddess amongst Pentecostal women for almost four years.  These days the same calculator would qualify as a Steampunk artifact with a good bronzing.

In a recent discussion with a local industry guy, the price of Laptops is expected to drop to about 200 in March.

I wonder how much it costs to have a laptop bronzed?

[stephendare]

The Balrog of 1970s era 'full service calculators

[JaxNative68]

some old horse came a hoppin' through our alley

[Bostech]

So what this means laptops and computers will break twice as fast.
Every time price drops,quality drops too.

And as for Apple?
You know joke they say,Its easier for Steve Jobs to replace kidney then to replace battery in Iphone.

[braeburn]

Dammit! I came up with the idea to make a "touch" screen boardgame thingy for your table one night while in my cups. And now look what Apple has figgered out

[jandar]

Tablets have been out for over 10 years, they still haven't taken off.

[Bostech]

Yes they are,Bill Gates is using one.

[JaxNative68]

bill gates is using one doesn't equal taking off

[stephendare]

There were limitations in the tablets that kept them from taking off, jaxnative.

The new ones are in color and work a lot like an iphone.

[JaxNative68]

I still won't say they are taking off until I see as many of them as I do Blackberries and iPhones in use on the streets.  Don't get me wrong, I think they are a great idea and wish to check one out as soon as possible.  Maybe one day you will see people hanging out in bars and cafes checking out and interacting with the MJ site on one.

[jandar]

There were limitations in the tablets that kept them from taking off, jaxnative.

The new ones are in color and work a lot like an iphone.

I had a touchscreen tablet with slide out keyboard running windows 98 10 years ago. (I could even play Unreal and Quake/Quake2)
They are a niche product.

Once Smart Phones get a pull out screen (not that far away) say goodbye to anything resembling a tablet. Laptops are about to start coming with a second pull out screen, it wont be too long for the phones.

[Bostech]

There were limitations in the tablets that kept them from taking off, jaxnative.

The new ones are in color and work a lot like an iphone.

I had a touchscreen tablet with slide out keyboard running windows 98 10 years ago. (I could even play Unreal and Quake/Quake2)
They are a niche product.

Once Smart Phones get a pull out screen (not that far away) say goodbye to anything resembling a tablet. Laptops are about to start coming with a second pull out screen, it wont be too long for the phones.

Tablets are fancy laptops.Most laptops especially back in 98 days didnt have descent graphic card or even descent processor to play games.Even today is hard to find a laptop that will let you play most games and usually they cost arm and leg.
Tablet is about convenience for Internet,email and some porn.

Islate will be only for select group of people,but as far as Apple is concerned it is just another way to make some money and attract non-Mac people to Apple.
Google will be next with tablet and their OS.

[Bostech]

another faggy device from an already faggy company.  I hope it fails miserably and somehow bankrupts Apple.

*crosses fingers*

As much Apple is stuck up company you have to admit they changed music and cell phone industry.
Without Iphone we would be stuck if another lame V3 Razr phone that uses lame browser for Internet that none is using and tons of other features that look terrible and are hard to use on regular phone.
And your wireless company decides what phone you should use.
Now things have changed and phone companies decide what wireless carriers they want to use.
Verizon would still keep all of their phones locked and  would charge you $9.99 to add ringtone to a phone,$29.99 to transfer your data and $49.99 for plastic case.

[Reaper man]

As much Apple is stuck up company you have to admit they changed music and cell phone industry.
Without Iphone we would be stuck if another lame V3 Razr phone that uses lame browser for Internet that none is using and tons of other features that look terrible and are hard to use on regular phone.

I doubt it.  I'm certain that if apple didn't exist, someone else would have thought of the same things, but better.