The keyboard is dead
The iPad and other tablets can never be more than secondary devices for consuming content, goes one argument. Content creators and power users will always need the facilities of a "proper" computer. I'm not so sure.
If we are indeed looking at a tablet era, or a post-PC era, or whatever you want to call it, we're only at the very beginning. The iPad was launched less than 16 months ago. iPhones have only been available in Australia for three years. That's only one business technology purchasing cycle.
In mid-2010 Apple boss Steve Jobs had plenty say about the post-PC era. Now I certainly don't wish to anoint Jobs as a grand visionary, but Apple does have a history of successfully colonising niches where others have failed. There were MP3 players before iPod. There were smartphones before iPhone – though that's still a contested space. There were tablets before iPad.
"When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks," Jobs told the D: All Things Digital conference. "But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this transformation is going to make some people uneasy."
Some alpha geeks get uneasy when you suggest that most people won't need or want a "proper" computer and the maintenance chores that go with it. Knowledge of how to tame those beasts is what sets them apart from mere mortals. They don't want their knowledge devalued.
But which features of a "proper" computer, really, are so vital?
It's certainly not the ability to be programmable. Only a tiny proportion of users develop software or do any customisation beyond their desktop wallpaper.
Most people use pre-built software tools to manipulate data. For that I'm seeing just three advantages to a "proper" computer. Processing power. Screen size. A keyboard.
Tablets will undoubtedly have less processing power than desktops for some time to come. Computation consumes energy and generates heat. Battery chemistry advances more slowly than processor chips, and heat dissipation requires cooling systems. This could become less important as higher-speed networks allow us to shove the intensive computation into the cloud.
The build-in screen becomes less important if tablets can use other nearby displays, such as the big monitors in your workspace or the TV in the living room. Besides, the pixel density of screens is improving, if not people's eyesight.
The keyboard seems to be the killer.
The QWERTY keyboard has lasted for 138 years and counting for two reasons.
One, written and typed text has been central to our lives. It's easily entered, manipulated, printed and stored. But we're hitting the point where audio and video are equally easy. No matter what form factor device you're looking at today, all the way down to smartphones, recording, trimming and playing back video is a built-in.
Why type a memo when you can record instructions to staff?
Why write an instruction manual when you can just show people?
Watching a video is slower than reading written text, yes. But a video file can be shunted off to the cloud for transcription and indexing – there's lots of research into video indexing right now.
Two, a keyboard is a grid of buttons, an inexpensive way of presenting a lot of interface options. The multi-touch display means displayed data can be now manipulated directly. For more precision than a fingertip offers, we have the stylus. Complex control panels can be presented and manipulated just like the "real" thing, from an audio mixing desk to a nuclear power station.
Gesture-recognition is out of the lab and into homes in devices like Microsoft's Kinect.
Voice recognition gets better all the time too. I now use Google's Voice Search on my Android phone, asking for what I want instead of tapping the tiny touch screen. Most of the time it works, even in a noisy street.
Jobs is right when he says there'll be push-back, and not just from PC manufacturers. There'll be resistance from information workers trained to produce specific kinds of outputs.
"How can I produce the quarterly report on an iPad?" they'll ask.
The quarterly report is not the aim. Managing the business effectively is the aim. The quarterly report is merely a means to an end. Real-time dashboards business intelligence could completely remove the need for a human to create that report.
OK, maybe it all won't turn out like this. But with so many tectonic forces changing the landscape of information technology right now, I'm certain that the tablet will become the standard portable window onto cloud-based information – even if it's a very small private cloud.
The traditional PC industry will certainly be transformed, along with the ecosystem of software vendors and services companies that surrounds it.
Have your say
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I hope voice recognition is not the way forward. My Irish accent with a lisp is not treated kindly by such technology. When I use Google Nav on my android with voice I always end up in a pub
It's not yet been explained how, without text, that the spectre of homonyms, inter alia, and their wont of causing confusion, is to be accommodated. Given that the utility of mere audio, sans text/qwerty keyboard, is seemingly being pushed, methinks, contextually, the whole idea 'sounds' very precarious indeed.
I am reminded of the animal being led around with a rope attached to the ring in its nose.
Why for the need to keep abreast of the latest electronic gadgetry, for it seems to be dictating trends that tend to diminish the skills learnt whilst a young student, where are the people today who can use their minds in lieu of a calculator and provide the answer in quicker time than you calculator?
The former use of writing instruments that gave each of us our unique identifiable hand-writing, I refer to the beautiful styles of Copperplate common until the 60s-70s, then of the cursive script that became the new attractive style of written expression?
The day will arrive when the average business executive will be quite useless if there is no available electricity, nor battery charging or replacement facility.
So much of today's student mind is geared to electronic responses, in lieu of personal well presented personal
responses, why will this new trend be adopted over pure human brain-power, oh, by the way brain-power is free of any monthly costs, is easily transportable, is dust-proof, water-proof, but most importantly it cannot be lost mislaid or even
stolen?
Williambtm.
The keyboard and text has one key advantage the other forms of input cannot match - privacy. I can type or read a private message in a busy office without the rest of the staff eavesdropping. Even at home, I don't want my kids listening in.
In any case, could you imagine how noisy a modern office would be if everyone was dictating to their computer or listening to documents or videos. The use of headphones would completely kill any interaction between staff and the provision of offices for everyone would be prohibitively expensive.
Natural speech and text have very different patterns. A user guide delivered over video would be a shocking reference document. Attempting to have a non-realtime discussion over with recorded video would be trying, and also require some video editing tools to handle quoting and citations. If email dies, perhaps this thesis will stand up. Otherwise I'll happily sit in your bucket of alpha geeks.
A lot of modern tech is very visible. 'Unobtrusive' I think is going to be the way to go. Check out http://www.handykey.com/. I don't think it works with iPads however (and no idea about other tablets), but I like the idea of a device that you could use with one hand, and without breaking eye contact with the person you are listening too.
Not so long ago I would have argued that this was nearly impossible to achieve.
I even bought a neatly integrated cover to my iPad with a bluetooth keyboard that many loved. It was great.
I now have a great stylus, better apps that recognise my handwriting and respond quickly, and I have found my iPad is the only device i carry with me throughout the day.
No note pad, no laptop, just the ipad and the stylus.
While I haven't quite dropped the niceness of my ergonomic keyboard when working at my desk, I am figuring that as the tools become more readily suited to what I need (rather than commonly use) I could easily see it becoming redundant.
I record all meetings while drawing notes all in the one device, in most cases taking few notes, which means i can give my entire focus to the people at the table rather than head down trying to record what was said.
The key is the apps (as noted above) and as they mature with the demand so too will the capabilities. Now rather than needing more memory or space, I look for smarter apps that let me be more productive.
What I didn't believe would happen so quickly is rapidly happening and with more devices in users hands it will further drive more innovation.
Less cables and devices. I am all for it.