Still just a touch out of reach.. but closing fast…
Quietly, several high-tech companies are lining up to deliver versions of these keyboard-free, touch-screen portable machines in the next few months. Industry watchers have their eye on Apple in particular to sell such a device by early next year.
Tablets have been around in various forms for two decades, thus far delivering little other than memorable failure. Nonetheless, the new batch of devices has gripped the imagination of tech executives, bloggers and gadget hounds, who are projecting their wildest dreams onto these literal blank slates.
In these visions, tablets will save the newspaper and book publishing industries, present another way to watch television and movies, play video games, and offer a visually rich way to enjoy the Web and the expanding world of mobile applications.
Why this matters: UI/UX design planners I know love gesture device concepts because it means whole new UI design and experience paradigms = more fun problems to solve. The problem is that often tablets are only answering part of the question, or in worse cases are an answer to a question users aren’t asking for. Maybe it will actually take Apple and a holistic vision to push these mainstream? How big is the market space between a smartphone and a small portable laptop?
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