Tablet frenzy

Today the iPad has gone on sale for pre-orders. I know a BGR’er who is definitely tempted, and I hope I can dissuade him a little.. at least long enough to wait for the second gen version to come out.

Tablet computing is an interesting area that has not yet had its day. Its been on the side lines for a long time and never cracked the main stream. Largely due to the technical challenges with making this type of hardware, but also due to the total lack of vision in the field. If anyone can break that its Apple, and from what we have all seen the iPad will be a great success. But I think there are going to be much better platforms that will leave the iPad standing.

Apple and the iPad

Lets cut to the chase on the iPad. Its a large size iPod touch / iPhone. Is there anything wrong with that? Not at all… expect a tablet computer needs to be much more then just a glorified PDA.

What we want in a tablet is a powerful computer (that is much easier than it has ever been) combined with touch and gesture based interfaces making the thing a joy to use, but still giving you enough grunt to do something good.

When the iPad was revealed I was a little underwhelmed. Sure its good enough, but that is where it stops..good enough. An affordable tablet represents a new age in computing, a fundamental shift in how we use computers and “good enough” probably won’t cut it.

Absolute app store power corrupts

The real problem with the iPad is Apple itself. Their insistence on taking the app store concept to a tablet is a bad one. While you can get away with very limited choices on a phone where Apple wield all the power is “OK”; a tablet is your computer.. you want to do what YOU want, not what they tell you.

The whole point of any computer is for you to customise it into what you want, and a tablet is even more personal then the average computer. Apple is coming under criticism of their ethics and standards for what they say is an isn’t allowed in THEIR devices.

Gizmodo this week had a great article on censorship on the iPad, and what it means to all is us, and the freedom of the press.

Imagine iPad get their way and start selling news papers through the iPad, how long before that is a major money earner? Not long! Now imagine that paper wants to write a bad article on Apple? Could they pull the paper for sale through the app store? yes they could! Should they have that power?

Never touch the first gen

Rule one with new tech: Never buy the first gen hardware. Rule two: NEVER BUY FIRST GEN HARDWARE! You will be screwed over badly, just suck it up and wait. With rumours of the 4G iPhone on the horizon, and its ability to finally run more than one app at a time will come to the iPad 2G in no time at all.. wait for it.

Gizmodo also had a great article on iPad pricing if you are mad enough to get one.

What are the other options?

There is one that I really want: The Microsoft Courier

What I like:

• Multiple screens
• Finger and pen input
• The notebook style. Means it can be kept closed and the screen are protected.

What I don’t want: Being restricted to an app store! I know the idea is great for a lot of people, just not for me. I would like to see them go more with the Android style where Google have their own app store, but other people can run their own as well. An open market is the only way you will have competitive and interesting applications.

Will this device ever actually exist? It’s hard to say. Microsoft might be able to pull it off, but it would be hard. But I think this is definitely the future for this platform.

Anything else

This year there are a lot of tablets coming:

Android
As I just mentioned the Android platform is already establishing itself on mobile phones. It was designed to work on these light weight machines and a tablet would be easy for it to be implemented on with an established set of applications.

There are already manufactures working on getting Android into the market, its won’t be long.

Joo Joo
There is another kid on the block that is gearing up to ship. “Joo Joo” has been in development for a long time under the more well known name of “Crunchpad”.

It already had a troubled past when a few months ago the it seems the teams working on the pad split and caused the name change. There is still a good chance this will never actually make it onto the market because the intellectual property on this device is still being worked out. But if it does get sorted then this might be a good one to look at.

Others
These are the ones I am hearing most about, I am sure there are plenty of others being developed. This is going to be a big growth area for the next few years, and will probably take the place of Netbooks as the current darling of the computer world.