Ben's Talk3G Blog

I could've sworn blind that by now almost every laptop rolling off of the production lines would have a SIM slot as standard. Like WiFi, 3G connectivity would become the norm, and new tariff structures from mobile operators would have made connectivity accessible to all.

That hasn't happened. Is it because people don't want or need a continuous Internet connection when they're mobile? No, I don't think that's true - if 3G were ubiquitous then we'd all just connect and make the most of. Are price pressures that harsh? Again, I don't think so - always-on wireless Internet had the potential to revolutionise the laptop.

Perhaps it's because of the damn iPhone. I'm serious! My iPhone is in my pocket with always-on Internet. It takes something particularly important to get me reaching for my laptop when I could just use my phone; often times I'll even spend longer doing something on my phone than I would have if I'd just gotten my laptop out, but the ease of just using the handheld often means the laptop stays in my bag doing not-a-lot. This doesn't hold true at home and work, but there's WiFi there anyway.

Then the iPad came along. Now, anything that's too much of a chore to do on the iPhone can easily be done on the iPad. For some travel I've stopped carrying my laptop altogether, safe in the knowledge that whatever I'm required to do can be done on the iPad - the extra time consumption not an issue when balanced against carrying a larger, heavier device that I may not need to use. Plus laptops are a nightmare to use in restaurants and bars, where the iPad is much more discrete and practical where there's not much space or anywhere to sit.

This begs a much larger question. What of the laptop, now the iPad has come? iOS 4.2 looks set to make the iPad into the tablet it always should have been, and as I'm demonstrating here, the keyboard on the iPad is more than sufficient for casual text entry. Hell I'm even getting up a fine speed, I just hope my spelling isn't too atrocious as I lean on auto correct.

Where the 3G laptop didn't make it, the 3G tablet will. The always-on Internet is coming, and it looks like it may all be thanks to Apple. Yet again.