Ben's Talk3G Blog

Let me open by saying I'm writing this on my iPad.

I don't often write at any length on here. This, I believe, is more to do with my situation rather than the tablet itself. Right now I'm on the sofa, definitely tablet territory of the future, but most of the time I'm sat at a desk or table and in such scenarios the benefits of a tablet are deminished in the face of a sleek, modern, flash based laptop like the MacBook Air.

The tablet, then, frees us from the desk. But despite massive sales predictions for tablets in 2011, of which only Google's Honeycomb demonstration has thus far offered a glimpse of something consumers may actually find desirable besides the Apple iPad, there's a massive question mark over just how large the Market will be and just how tablets might fit in to our everyday lives - not to mention the extent to which they'll cannibalise the sales of the traditional computer in all its forms.

The Daily, Murdoch's stab at a newspaper for the still-unrealised tablet age (they're actually banking on analyst predictions of iPad sales for their hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars investment), is a perfect example to me of the tablet dream. That's where, a few years from now, everyone has a very thin, light tablet that is literally a digital slab primarily used for consumption. Everyone sat on the tube reading their choice of paper. Parks full of people reading the latest fiction sensation. Children on school busses flicking between Science textbooks and today's raft of stupidly hilarious amateur videos. it's a dream that's surprisingly easy to imagine given the furious rise of the smartphone that has finally taken hold.

Unlike smartphones, however, tablets don't fit into those storage areas that men and women tend to have upon their person. Namely pockets and handbags, respectively, or at least generally so... I've actually taken to carrying my iPad around, but I'm not sure it's going to catch on! Perhaps rollable or foldable solutions will overcome this hurdle.

I'm skirting the bigger issue, though. Facebook. Twitter. Blogs. Forums. Messenger. Email, and even SMS. Yes, you guessed it, we don't just want to consume consume consume anymore - we want to give, and keep on giving!

As I tap away, in landscape because portrait on the iPad is nih-on impossible, I'm hindered by no physical borders to the keys, and no feedback. I'm still picking up a fair pace, but auto-correct is being used heavily and, as you may notice, possibly to my detriment at times! Getting text into tablets HAS to be easier; and trust me, the landscape keyboard on the iPad is already very good.

Then there's the matter of working with other media and files, and getting them in and out. The iPad is very locked down, and Android tablets are unlikely to offer vast differences as complexity hinders user experience - a problem Windows 8 will likely run into on tablets (but we'll see in time). There's just so many barriers to creativity that even the slightest spark will likely send folk running for their computer.

And so I believe that the success of tablets is far, far from assured. Apple's iPad is something of a wonder in itself - a neat tie-in to the Apple ecosystem. Once the now considerable Apple market is saturated, growth could well flag, while competitors struggle to get started at all.

I just hope the tablet dream doesn't blow up in everyone's pretty little faces and become a colossal waste of time and money for everyone involved - bar Apple, who have had a hit product whatever happens down the line.