Why Have Tablets Flopped? Here Are Five Reasons | Hacker News Reader

Why Have Tablets Flopped? Here Are Five Reasons

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

10 pointsnewacc14 comments

I don't buy this article. I'm sitting on my tablet writing this. Handwriting recognition in Windows, in my experience, is anything /but/ mediocre: in fact it's really quite fantastic in Win7. It's the only reason I don't run Linux exclusively on this machine, the tablet support is just phenomenal.

The killer app is definitely OneNote. I /yearn/ for something in Linux that does everything OneNote does, but as of yet I'm disappointed. Full text searching of handwritten notes and handwriting to text conversion both work beautifully.

Why have tablets flopped? The concept just doesn't fit the way some people work. My school did a study (that I was a participant in) on tablet use, and gave a group of 20 students a tablet (Lenovo X60t, at the time) to use for an academic year. Probably half the group just stopped using the tablet aspect of the device, saying they just prefer working on paper. Some people just like organizing their work in notebooks and paper.

Also, the Lenovo X61t (what I have now) is built great. Lots of thought put into this device, and it's solid.

Tablets are mildly popular in my grad school classes. I would love to say "goodbye" to paper notebooks.

The main reason tablets never took off is that tablets are supposed to be a lot more convenient for on-the-go use than notebook computers, but in practice, they aren't. Their size and the fact that they can't be used one-handed means that you give up a lot of the functionality of a notebook for not much more convenience. Shrinking technology and improved touch-screen interfaces have alleviated that problem but actually narrowed the niche even further, because now tablets have to find a space between notebooks and iPhones.

Also, his "3. Input systems" should just say "3. Pens." Microsoft's opinion, which I would normally respect because they have done a lot of work to support tablets, be damned. Stylus-based input seems really awesome until you try it. Even as pointing-and-dragging devices, they're inconvenient. Take them out (with your other free hand), use them, put them back, and make sure you don't drop them down a grate. What a hassle.

I'm expecting, and kind of dreading, Apple proving me wrong and persuading me to part with $600.

I largely agree with your pen point, but I couldn't imagine (yes, I've tried) writing notes, for instance, without a pen. Perhaps, though, that's not really the best use of a tablet, which seems to be the premise that most tablets out there today are based upon.

I would settle for Inkwell using my finger. As an old Newton user who was very pleased with the recognition on my MP2100 and a MS tablet user (ended up getting RightPen because XP Tablet's recognition was not the "global" recognition system I was used to from my Newton days) I like using a stylus. OTOH, seeing how close iPhone gestures are to old Newton gestures I think it would not be a large jump for an iTablet to enable write-anywhere functionality via the multi-touch system and even enhance it slightly with the "multi" part in multi-touch.

narrowed the niche even further, because now tablets have to find a space between notebooks and iPhones

True, on the other hand there is an e-book reader niche that wasn't around a decade ago, which is ripe for the picking with the right kind of platform.

I'm expecting, and kind of dreading, Apple proving me wrong and persuading me to part with $600.

Tell me about it! In many ways I am "in the market" for a device that shall we say represents the idealised sum of all the iTablet rumours, but the price will be an issue - not so much in terms of cold hard cash, but at $600 it exceeds my comfort level for the cost of a device that I routinely carry around.

I still can't figure out the point of a Tablet. That should be the number one reason.

Laptops are an easily portable version of a Computer. Netbooks are really cheaps/simple versions of a Laptop.

A tablet is a ????? version of a computer that isn't covered by a laptop.

The form-factor of a laptop is still a kind of workstation, though it's a portable one. It's designed to absorb all of the user's attention. A tablet is more conducive to manipulating data while interacting. Many of the advantages of an ideal tablet should be the same as that of a clipboard.

    - Low time/effort overhead.

You don't have to sit to use it. You can be walking, stop for a moment to jot something down, then keep walking the next second. You don't have to wait for it to reboot or even come back from sleep.

    - Low attention overhead.

This partly results from the low time overhead. But computers and mobile devices are constantly asking for your attention. A clipboard is just waiting there for you to look stuff up. Low attention overhead enables better in-person interaction. (Ever notice how some meetings with laptops tend to degenerate into people sitting there next to each other IM-ing?)

There are also some advantages that a clipboard won't have. One could imagine a device without handwriting recognition, which only captures and indexes everything you write down. This would be valuable in itself. Add some time and location awareness, perhaps with some multimedia recording & manipulation ability, and this becomes an idea worker's fantasy tool. ("What was that great idea when I was discussing with Bob? Wasn't it in the afternoon the last time I was in Chicago at that contention center? We were talking about eggshells. Let me put in those search parameters!")

You could also sell these like hotcakes to teenagers & college students in coffee shops! (And get tons of $$$ from Facebook and MySpace in the process!)

I can imagine kicking back on the couch (or in bed) with a tablet, reading or doing flash cards or playing go on the internet. I don't do that with my laptop or my iPhone. I just haven't convinced myself to pay close to a thousand dollars for a computer dedicated to that purpose.

Laptops are perfect for the couch. Watching TV is easy; your laptop screen and TV are on the same plane so it is easy to go back and forth between the two. Laptops sit nicely on your lap (Think that is how they got there name), unless you have a thinkpad like mike that operates at 200 degrees.

Chasing another input device like a point would be a pane; Sticking your hands between the seat cushions for the remoe is bad enough. Now I would be chasing a tiny plastic pencil everywhere.

As a lefty, I always hated that the scrollbars were on the right when I was using a tablet.

No mention of Ergonomics!

Gorilla arm makes touchscreens completely unusable unless you're cradling the thing (no desks!), and anything much bigger than pocket-sized is going to be too heavy and awkward.

See: Why have Cell Phones Flopped?

Reason: Apple hasn't made one yet :)

That's pretty much what the article said...

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