At the release of the iPad and right around the announcement of the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I created an image of what I would want in a tablet. I saw many people using iPads for games and Amazon Kindles for e-books, but neither of these devices were really targeted for content creation or manipulation. What I pictured in my head was something that would be extremely versatile for content creation as well as content consumption.
My requirements for the ideal tablet were:
1) Two screens in a clamshell (book style) layout.
2) Stylus
3) Expandable memory (SD card or similar)
4) HDMI (in some form)
5) USB (in some form, must charge via USB)
My requirements differ from your normal tablet mainly because reading on tablets is a bit of a pain due to the widescreen aspect of your non-iPad tablet. Basically, I want to be able to hold my tablet like a book and have 2 pages I can have up to read at any given time. I also want a stylus for note taking and diagram drawing (useful for my job). Expandable memory, HDMI out and USB are pretty self explanatory.
I then stumbled across a concept from Microsoft called "Courier". This tablet concept was pretty much everything I was looking for in a tablet (although since it was a concept, storage and ports weren't defined). The Courier UI was incredibly smooth and efficient. It had some fantastic multitasking, inter-app sharing and data handling capabilities I had never before seen in a tablet and it was fantastic. I along with many other people fell in love with the Courier concept, but alas, it was doomed. On April 29, 2010, Microsoft announced that they had no plans to develop the device.
Recently, CNET posted a wonderful look at why exactly Microsoft decided to ax this project which brought back the heartbreak of the project's cancellation to light. In short, J. Allard's design group lacked some clarity on the importance of apps (as the article states, no dedicated e-mail application was a big issue with Bill Gates) in the operating system. On one side, the all inclusive style operating system has everything wonderfully tied together. The other side of the coin had the environment closed off to the development masses.
Now, we have a huge selection of single screen tablets. A few dual screen tablet ideas have surfaced, many based on Windows, but have since been pushed back or cancelled because Windows 8 is Microsoft's tablet strategy going forward. Sony has a new dual screen tablet device being released soon, based around Android 3.x (Honeycomb), but the form factor is a bit odd and the screens somewhat smaller from what I can tell from images. I have yet to get my hands on that one, but it doesn't seem like it would fit my vision.
There are really three main tablets that fit what I view to be bar setting options. The first (and currently most popular Android tablet currently) is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer. This is a tablet that has the option to dock with a keyboard with built in external battery, essentially transforming it into an Android laptop. The next is the Asus Eee Pad Slider, which is a tablet that has a slide out keyboard for easier text entry. The last, and possibly most impressive is the Asus PadFone, essentially a tablet "dock" if you will, where the phone can be attached to the tablet skeleton. I would assume the tablet add on would have additional storage and battery that Asus has really pushed.
As you can tell, Asus is really pushing the envelope with their tablet strategy. Motorola has done something interesting with their Atrix phone line, with the multimedia and laptop docks, but they're nowhere near the innovation that Asus has managed. I'm keeping my eyes on these guys, but I would imagine that with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), we'll start seeing plenty other options of the "Screen Scaling" variety. Besides, Google's innovation with Motorola's hardware design expertise (see the ultra thin Motorola Droid RAZR superphone for example) that we'll see some really interesting items come out of that camp. Don't count Asus or Samsung out either, though.
You can bet one of these three players will come out with something incredibly innovative that puts everyone back into catch-up mode and I predict it will be unveiled in 2012.
Until then always remember
It is the Geeks that will inherit the Earth
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