Tablet computers have never really taken off, but if rumors are correct, 2010 will be the Year of the Tablet. Jeff Bertolucci of PC World raises a good question, though: do consumers want these things? Here’s an excerpt:
Conceptually, a tablet device is appealing: An 8- or 10-inch LCD color display with touch input — essentially a netbook screen minus the rest of the computer. A tablet could resolve many of the ergonomic limitations of today’s smartphone, namely the small display that limits its usefulness as a Web browser and media player.
But given the saturation of mobile phones and laptop computers, particularly in the consumer market, is there a place for the tablet? Assuming that a slate computer would work best in the home – not many of us would want to lug a 10-inch tablet around all day – what benefits would it provide to the average user?
The question of consumer desire doesn’t completely sum up the problem of tablets, however. The more complete question is about need. If the tablet does end up being real, Apple won’t have to work hard to make consumers want it. Almost everything they produce is snapped up by their customers without much thought. The problem they’ll have is making a tablet people look at and realized they need it. In other words, what would a tablet add to Apple’s current lineup? What would a tablet offer above a laptop or iPhone?
A tablet would theoretically fit into Apple’s product family somewhere between the iPod touch and the MacBook — where a netbook would be, if Apple made one.
The thing is, I’m not convinced people need anything in that category. The iPhone can easily perform the tasks most people use netbooks for today. No one in their right mind buys a netbook to run Photoshop, and no one expects their iPhone to crunch a bunch of PSDs. An Apple tablet would have to offer something unique, and do it in a better way than the iPhone and the MacBook.
The answer to that problem may be all about the OS Apple chooses to power the device. A tablet running something close to Mac OS X could be positioned as a very portable Macintosh — basically, a very easy way to use OS X apps on the go. Selling a tablet as a oversized iPod touch could take advantage of the ever-growing App Store, but wouldn’t be as flexible as a device running Mac OS X.
Maybe the strongest option would be a hybrid between the Mac and iPhone OS. I imagine this as a device running Mac OS X, but also having the ability to run apps purchased from the App Store in some type of environment like OS X’s Dashboard. That way, the tablet is both the most portable Mac and the largest iPod touch on the market.
That’s something I’d want — and it would fill the one gap I see in Apple’s offerings.