Why Tablet PCs will succeed
August 29, 2002
Microsoft's been promoting its Tablet PCs for about a year now. Despite all the claims, they're more evolutionary than revolutionary, of course. But that's the not the surprising thing about them. The surprising thing about Tablet PCs is that they're going to succeed.
First, the basics: They're laptop computers, most of them. Just like you're already used to using. Due to a combination of cowardice and conservativism, every single design I've seen for a commercial Tablet PC is using the "convertible" design where the standard notebook design can be inverted (perverted?) by swiveling the screen 180 degrees and folding it back over the keyboard, covering it up and yielding a standalone screen that's then viewed in portrait orientation instead of landscape. Ideally, they'd have super-light keyboardless versions of these, true digital slates to write on. But for now we'll probably have to settle for transformable units in relatively standard configurations.
And they run pretty much standard desktop software. They use a version of Windows XP, with some bits and pieces tacked on to handle handwriting. The only distinct app that ships with them that you can't get on an XP laptop right now is a program called Journal, which emulates a standard legal pad, complete with thin rules dividing up lines on the page.
Why, then, will these tablets succeed, despite commanding a several hundred dollar premium over standard laptops? Because they address the fundamental flaws in the user experience of current computers. Although it's somewhat mitigated by the recent ubiquity of laptops, today's computers reveal all too blatantly their history as personal computers. Desktop PCs require you to turn and face away from anyone you're having a conversation with, and orient yourself to the screen you're working on. Tangles of cables and cords wire your input devices to that screen which is monopolizing your eye contact. And while laptops at least let you nominally face a person you're having a conversation with, they just won't play nice in any work setting, where they just become smaller, less comfortable desktops.
The human factors are very telling. Think back to the highest-level meetings you've had in your career. Whatever major decision-maker or principal who was the Big Presence in the meeting almost certainly didn't have a laptop with him in the conference room. If anything, he (yes, sadly, it was probably a he) had a standard legal pad and a big fat fancy pen. Maybe the legal pad was in a leather binder. The poor pasty lackey to his side, or maybe at the end of the table, had the laptop with the supporting data and relevant background information. The only, rare, exceptions to these arrangments are in extremely technical disciplines.
This dynamic has been established for a number of reasons. That the old suit probably didn't know how to work a computer was undoubtedly high on the list. And he certainly wanted to impress upon those present that he was such an authority that he could command a tech lackey to handle "that computer stuff", of course. But the key thing was body language. A legal pad doesn't interfere in a meeting. It doesn't prevent a glower or glare or raised eyebrow the way that these human reactions are hidden when a person is turned to face a monitor or when shielded behind even the most svelte PowerBook screen.
Resting against the edge of a conference table, balanced on the knee of a crossed leg, tossed towards the middle of the table for emphasis, or slowly pushed across the table in a conciliatory gesture of resignation, that legal pad is a prop. It's a symbol so powerful as to have become cliché.
And the Tablet PC is the first computer to recognize this essential bit of business playacting. Microsoft has for years been making hardware that recognizes human factors in a way that the Macintosh has, frustratingly, been amazingly unaware of. Mapping page navigation to a scroll wheel makes infinitely more sense than having a user target a tiny scroll button. Most bits of GUI widgetry probably ought to be represented in hardware, as well, if only to mitigate the Fitts of apoplexy induced by the high cost that current user interfaces exact for even the simplest of errors. Pressure-sensitive touch input is a pretty good step towards a more forgiving interaction between users and machines.
The rest is all fine, of course. It runs Office and Internet Explorer and all the crap you're already doing. But Tablet PCs do a much more capable job of recognizing the Wi-Fi enabled, pervasively connected future. There's an implicit assumption that these machines, or their descendents, will be used in social situations, in contexts where the only peers and networking that matter have to do with the humans that surround you.
Another liberation of pervasive computing is from the tyranny of the pen and pad. Jotting down notes is still the simplest, quickest method of shaping an idea in its crudest stages, or of documenting a conversation as it happens. And some people still tend to shape at least certain categories of thought on plain old pen and paper, even if they are otherwise extremely wired and technical users. Like, for example, me. Though these paper notes can't be quickly searched, easily categorized and stored, or neatly edited, they succeed because they are not overburdened by interface and allow instantaneous sharing of the information they contain.
Apple's made nods towards this reality, of course. The cheerful guy at the Apple Store who demoed the iMac for us made sure to pivot the screen (with the requisite extended fingertip) to show how you could "share your work with your friends". But I sit on the sofa next to my friends, or at a table with my co-workers. We face each other, not our common object of admiration. Granted, if I watched more TV, that might be a more frequent arrangement. But didn't we go around shouting from the caboose of the ClueTrain that The Web Isn't TV?
In short, Tablet PCs, or their eventual heirs in the hardware realm, will succeed because they accommodate the human factors of collaboration better than any previous iteration of computer hardware. They won't replace desktop PCs or laptops, of course, because sometimes people do need to work on their own, focused on the task at hand. But now we'll also have the option of using a computer in social settings like a Starbucks or a conference room or during a lecture in a classroom without having to compromise our participation in the event.
Coming up: Why weblogs are the killer app for Tablet PCs, and why Microsoft can't, but should, admit that fact.
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Well you sold me. I want a Tablet PC.
Have you read "Start Up", the story of GO Corporation by Jerry Kaplan? They used very similar arguments to get their funding, right down to throwing a legal pad in the middle of the table as a demo.
I used to work in pen computing and GRiD's Convertible was very similar to the Table PCs (a face up display on a laptop), but it was just too ahead of its time. I'm curious to see if this paradigm will actually take hold this time around.
After a few people started to draw/point things on my laptop with pens and leaving ink-scratches on the screen, I started lusting after these Fujitsu B Series laptops with touch-screen and a stylus. They have been in the market for a few years now, but the prices are still a bit high for the hardware. Fujitsu also has a WinCE based tablet.
I do see and agree with most of the arguments for tablet form, but overwhelmingly disagree with the ones currently available. The ones those anchors carry on C|Net TV even look hokie. I tried one for a few hours and it was clunky and heavier than a legal pad.
Aside for reporters who can benefit from an internet enabled tablet-PC (you can email your piece on time from where ever you are), units priced right will sell like hot cakes in college campuses. It's like everyone and their mother are now taking class notes in a laptop. (I shouldn't complain. I did that most of my college life.)
I personally can't get past the keyboard factor. I need to be able to type, albeit at only 50 or so words per minute, because my handwriting is way too slow for my brain. Especially after I drink a Sobe.
And I agree that if it is to be used as a tablet, that it has to emulate the same form and weight factors, which is hard to do, even with electronic paper and paper batteries.
A lot of time is spent here calling attention to props and play-acting, but I have to wonder exactly how big the Big Cheese market is. I also have a feeling most people at corporate meetings using laptops today are using them precisely to hide! They allow people to bypass boredom and get other stuff done while devoting only half their attention to the Big Cheese who's saying the same thing he said last week. Meanwhile, the Big Cheese, if he's as techno-phobic as this article suggests, thinks everyone is taking notes.
I think the price will have to come down to under $500 before they really take off. Before that, people just won't be able to justify abandoning their desktops (which are just fine for email and web browsing) for it.
Thanks for the info, Lilly. I've been meaning to read "Start Up" for ages, I'll be sure to wishlist it now. I'm not surprised that someone thought of these glaring deficiencies in current platforms before.
There have been, of course, many attempts to get this market before. But I think the difference now is that applications matter a lot less since we're all using browser-based apps or Office, and those two platforms have good Tablet support.
The keyboard argument's a red herring, I think. Bluetooth keyboards and mice (including Microsoft's own, of course) are en route for the same pre-Christmas timeframe as the tablet. Want a keyboard? Then use one.
That the form factors are too big and heavy is inarguable. Along with the usual complaints about battery life. But those are the stuff of what I call the Fifteen Percents. The relentless press release onslaught of 15% improvements on any of these vectors is pretty much a given in the tech biz. So, to solve those concerns, just add time. Scoot over along the X axis.
The big cheese market, admittedly, is small and entrenched in pre-digital technologies. I didn't mean to suggest that those folks would buy Tablet PCs. Rather, I think people who meet with them, or want to become them, will gravitate towards Tablets and other nonintrusive form factors.
The price thing's a red herring, too. People pay a decided premium for laptops right now; There's no reason to think they won't pay a premium for the same laptop in a smaller form factor with more functions. Get it under $500? Buy one of those $200 desktop PCs and suffer the inadequacies of it.
I don't think laptops forced people to give up desktop computers, and I don't think PDAs did, either. So there's no reason to put that burden on Tablets. We'll see how it turns out. It probably won't be the first generation that succeeds, of course, but maybe the next one will.
I think Anil has nailed the TabletPC. TablePC is to GRiD as Palm is to Newton - it's coming of age - ready for adoption.
A few issues that are also important for a device like this: battery, and portability. I learned the value of they features first had using a product that could be see, from the users standpoint, as a pre-cursor to the TablePC.
A few years ago I picked up an IBM Z50, which looked and left like a really light and slim ThinkPad (see a photo). However, there were some major differences. First, it ran Windows CE (a crappy early version). While it looked much like a full-size laptop, from a software/power standpoint, it was more like a PalmPilot with a big screen and keyboard. This is what was so great about it. It booted instantly - they keyboard was a 95%-size ThinkPad keyboard (you could have written a novel on it) - and the software was simple (in a good way). Pocket Word was exactly what you needed for taking notes. Another key feature it had in common with it's cousin the PalmPilot, was that the batteries lasted forever - you could run for a good 12 hours, and since booted instantly (rather, it never really shut off), there was no choice between shutdown/hibernate/sleep, etc. - you just closed it when you were done.
What made the Z50 so handy for taking notes at meetings was that since the battery lasted so long, you didn't need to worry about any cords - and it was light enough, that you'd just carry it like a book. Compare that to my main computer now, a Dell Inspiron that ways at least 7 pounds (they do call it a 'desktop replacement' after all), which I pack up with cords-a-plenty and have to transport slung over my shoulder in a laptop-bag. You could toss the Z50 over your shoulder into the backseat of the car without worrying about it.
Using the Z50 (it has since died), I could get a feel for what portable computing would become. They key elements that were missing are falling into place already, including wireless access, and more power.
So, I'll need my TabletPC to:
"combination of cowardice and conservatism" -- yes, exactly.
My problems with the current incarnations of tablets -- first, why are they so expensive? You take a laptop -- preferably a slower one, tablets don't need to be faster than 500-700mhz. Drop the keyboard. Drop the optical drive. Add a touchscreen. How does this tack $1000 onto the price of the device?
Second -- tablets could be the first applications where "mini-OS's" could truly outshine the WinXP. I'd love to see a tablet with a full-featured browser (Opera?) running PalmOS or even WinCE.
It's too bad that most tablet designs are centered around a legal-pad size... how about a tablet the size of a DVD case?
Cowboy, I don't see any reason why we can't expect to see tablets the size of photographs, DVD-Cases, Legal Pads, or everything in between in the next few years. Those are all really second generation things. Get people accustomed to working on the tablet now with a slow transition from the laptop, then later start modulating the form and size of the tablets for different applications.
Wow, a new perspective on something that I have previously completely dismissed as a techo-fetishistic fad.
I think its the 'groupware' aspect of your argument that is most persuasive - I can see computing invading meetings so much faster than it currently can with Laptops and PDAs.