Okay Geek Farm
t3ch Editorial: What the Apple Tablet Could Mean for the Future
Ricardo Trejo 
Today is the day. We're literally hours away from what analysts and "experts" have been clamoring over for months: Apple's iSlate, iBook, iTablet - whatever it's called - announcement.
If it's what people are expecting then would you go out and buy one? I mean, what would a tablet be used for anyway? With Kindles, Smart Phones, Netbooks, and Desktops, what void could an over glorified tablet fill? Personally, I believe this new wave of tablet/slate hardware is a means to take content away from the usual access points, websites and the like, and make it available via direct feed to the consumer. For example, on the iPhone there is the USA Today app; You can either access their site on the Safari browser, or you can just connect directly to the content via the app, which is optimized for the phone itself and only contains the information pertinent to your interest without any unnecessary flash. Engadget recently launched their app, which I use way more often than their physical online website. Why? Well, when I go to their site I feel bombarded with so much material that I easily lose interest, whereas on the app I can navigate effortlessly through what I care about and still enjoy all the features like videos, comments, and galleries. Pandora's music player is another story of this type of direct feed; Why wait for the site to load and figure out its clunky UI when you can just open the app up on your iPhone, or iPod touch, and have the player up and running in seconds.
;)
vs. ;)
It's all about a direct connection between you and the content without the need of a browser to connect you two together.
;)
vs. ;)
The iSlate, or whatever it ends up being called, would do this for those who want this accessibility on a notebook level instead of the smaller- screen- sized phone tier. And with this type of device rivaling notebooks why would someone go out and buy a laptop or netbook that's just been doing the same ol' thing for years? Why buy a portable computer when you could get all that goodness with a sleeker device that also sports the Apple brand (commercialized thinking)? And with many companiies moving their services onto the cloud, it's easy to see that a notebook just wouldn't be a viable option for many when all they would need is a means to get in touch with the internet - and as pointed out in the previous sentence, why get a netbook when you could have an Apple product?
For me the internet has become a "click a button, get to your destination" sorta place now. Though, as a writer I try to take as many untaken paths as I can find, but when visiting the usual suspects I end up just treading in the same waters - if you read my Favicon Bookmark guide then you already know that.
The tablets, not just Apple's, making their way down the pipeline this year can make way for a new method to accessing the information, media, and content we connect to daily. Sure, at the moment the limitations of a tablet is solely the manner of user input; Typing on a virtual keyboard just isn't as intuitive as physical keys sitting right in front of you (which is why I'm looking forward to seeing Microsoft's Courier input system in action). But I don't believe the tablet is meant to be seen as an alternative to today's modern typewriter. The tablet, the way I see it, is a means to consume, not to produce - which is why it will succeed. The iPhone has been an example of that.
You can't do very much productive work on the Jesus Phone, but it does offer you enough leeway to be able to write here and there: write emails, texts, IM's, and most importantly, Tweets. And once you get used to a touch enabled keyboard you can write paragraphs within seconds with the help of the auto-spelling feature. If this wasn't a model for success then we wouldn't have copycats like the Droid and Nexus One.
Regardless, Steve Job's tablet could be the next step in internet usage and accessibility. What it would do is what Jimmy Fallon mentioned when he talked to Josh Topolsky about Apple's ability to make shiny buttons that do exactly what they say they do, against Android's PC/Windows-esque feel, which many older folks may have only experienced in the past up until now. Even the younger crowd who isn't as tech savvy as some of the nerds I know appreciate the web 2.0 style of simplicity and the "it works as advertised" mindset that Apple puts out. Imagine a whole new generation of computer users brought into the world of the internet all because of a device that dumbed everything down for anyone to use.
The dreamy, fabled, legendary, fairy tale Apple tablet that everyone has pictured in their minds 'til now may very well become the device that pairs up the internet to users without the need of a "computer". Bill Gates may have put a PC in every home, but Steve Jobs may be the person who makes the PC irrelevant. I totally understand why Jobs feels this is his life work.
