Windows 8 tablet PC makers: We can’t compete with the iPad’s price

If reports from Taiwan are to be believed, hardware manufacturers are struggling to create Windows 8 on ARM (Windows RT) devices that are competitively priced against Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The reason? According to Digitimes, OEMs have to pay Microsoft $90-100 for a Windows 8 license.

While that $90-100 figure sounds a little bit on the high side (Microsoft historically charges OEMs around $50 for desktop licenses and $30 for Windows Phone 7 licenses), it doesn’t really matter: Even at $10 or $20, Microsoft (and OEMs) would be hard pushed to compete with Amazon and Apple on price. Apple effectively gives iOS away (it’s a hardware company, after all), and Amazon gets Android for free. Microsoft has to charge for Windows 8 and Windows RT because it’s a software company; if it didn’t, it wouldn’t make any money, which shareholders might see as a bit of a problem.

The other important thing to bear in mind is that it’s virtually impossible for OEMs to create a tablet that’s comparable to the iPad, for the same price. Apple’s design, supply chain, and manufacturing dominance is so stellar that the iPad is actually one of the cheapest tablets to produce. Famously, the fat, plastic-body, WiFi-only HP TouchPad cost more to manufacture ($318) than the 3G iPad 2($310). Once you factor in the additional cost of a Windows license, there simply is no way for similarly-outfitted Windows tablets to compete on price. (As an aside, this is the same reason that OEM ultrabooks are struggling to match the MacBook Air’s specs.)

Where does this leave Windows 8/RT tablets, then? Well, for a start, Apple applies a huge markup to its tablets: The original $310-to-produce 16GB 3G iPad 2 sold for $629 (this is why Apple is the second most valuable company in the world). Windows OEMs can always undercut that price, but once they factor in license fees the profit margins will drop precipitously. It will also be interesting to see if Intel can price its SoC Atom parts (Medfield and Clover Trail) to compete with ARM. It is due to the double whammy of Intel and Windows “taxes” that Dell, HP, and other desktop PC makers only have a profit margin of around 5% (while Microsoft and Chipzilla laugh all the way to the bank with margins of 20-30%).

As long as someone is willing to take a hit to their profit margins, then, it should be possible for Windows ARM tablets to compete with the iPad and Kindle Fire. Of course, all of this speculation doesn’t take into account the fact that Windows RT could be more desirable than iOS; users might actually be willing to pay a premium for Windows tablets. For that to happen, we’d need hundreds of thousands of Windows RT apps, though, and so far it doesn’t look like that will happen. We should also remember that Apple could quite easily block the entrance of Windows RT by dropping the price of its iPads, and still remain healthily profitable.

Read about my $200 Windows 8 tablet — which seems more like a dream every day

Source

Apple sneakily debuts 32nm A5 in new iPad 2, Apple TV

With an illusory flourish that only Apple could pull off — “Focus your attention on this shiny iPad 3!” — the magicians of Cupertino have quietly started shipping iOS devices with 32nm A5 SoCs. So far, the new $399 iPad 2 (iPad 2,4 in Apple nomenclature) and third-generation Apple TV have been confirmed to use the new chip, but it’s also possible that there’s a new generation of the iPhone 4S with a 32nm A5 at the helm.

The original A5 SoC (system-on-a-chip), found in the first iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, was built on Samsung’s 45nm process. The A5X SoC in the iPad 3, which has four GPU cores instead of two, is also 45nm. By moving to Samsung’s 32nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process, the new A5 processor (S5L8942, pictured above) is 40% smaller than its predecessor (pictured below), uses around 30% less power, and is significantly cheaper for Samsung to produce — thus, no doubt, allowing Apple to retain its fat profit margins on the cut-price iPad 2.

As far as we can tell, this is the first mass-produced part to roll off Samsung’s 32nm HKMG process. Samsung has announced four of its own 32nm parts — the Exynos 4212, 4412, 5250, and 5450, with the 4212 was slated to power the Galaxy Nexus — but so far, nothing has emerged (the Galaxy Nexus was powered by TI’s OMAP4). It’s possible that the 32nm process wasn’t ready in time for the Exynos 4212, or it might just be a case of Apple having a huge amount of clout — it must be one of Samsung’s largest customers, after all.

With the low-level stuff out of the way, what does the 32nm A5 actually mean for users? Well, for a start, the new iPad 2 probably has significantly more battery life than the original iPad 2 — either that, or Apple has also combined the new SoC with smaller, cheaper batteries (definitely a possibility, to reach that $399 price point). Performance will be the same. Incidentally, if you recently bought an iPad 2 and it came with iOS 5.1 installed, you have the new 32nm part; if it came with iOS 5.0.1, you’re all out of luck.

More importantly, though, the 32nm A5 is a very strong indicator that the iPhone 5 — which should be released this year — will also have a 32nm SoC. As for whether this will be a 32nm A5X, or something entirely new (a quad-core A6?), we don’t know. It’s also likely that the iPad 3 will undergo a 32nm revision, too, reducing its power consumption and thus the need for the huge (and heavy) batteries that currently encumber it.

New 32nm A5 (APL2498/S5L8942) vs. old 45nm A5 (APL0498/S5L8940)

The shift to 32nm will further cement Apple’s dominance in the smartphone and tablet arena. In terms of power consumption — the most important metric when it comes to mobile — only devices powered by the 28nm Snapdragon S4 have a hope of competing. The 45nm Tegra 3 is growing longer in the tooth every day.

[Image credit: Chipworks]

Source

What the iPad 3′s Retina display looks like under a microscope

As you probably know by now, the pixels in the new iPad’s Retina display are so small that they almost can’t be seen by the human eye — but as you can see above, the story is very different indeed when you look at it at 80x magnification under a microscope.

What you see above is the LCD displays of the iPad 3 (left) and iPad 2 (right) as photographed byLukas Mathis, a Swiss software engineer and UI designer. He received his iPad 3 this morning, and like any discerning geek the first thing he did was investigate the beautiful 2048×1536 Retina display — first by eye, and then under the microscope. Then he checked out the screen on his iPad 2 and marveled at the much larger (and quite differently shaped) pixels. Not satisfied, he magnified the display of his iPod Touch, iPhone 4S, Kindle Fire, Google Nexus One, PlayStation Vita, and, and, and — well, let’s just say that Mathis has a rather large number of gadgets (a bunch of them are pictured below).

Anyway, despite the very obvious differences in resolution — they’re all photographed at roughly 80x magnification, so the pixel sizes are relative — the layout and shapes of the pixels are very interesting. Take the iPad 2, for example: Not only are the subpixels (red, green, blue) non-rectangular, but the green subpixel is one shape while the red and blue are another. In the case of the PlayStation Vita, the blue subpixels are only half the size of the red and green. On the Google Nexus One you can see the much-maligned PenTile matrix — and in the HP Veer and PlayStation Portable displays (pictured on Mathis’ site), each pixel is scarred with dark lines.

What do all of these differences mean? Well, now we’re moving into the arcane realm of LCD and OLED technology. The dark gaps between the pixels (and within the pixels in some cases) are mostly caused by control circuitry (each and every subpixel has a few microscopic copper wires running to it) and the need to make sure that each pixel group is “square” (draw an imaginary square around each group of three subpixels, and you’ll see what I mean). The weird shapes are most likely about controlling the exact amount of light that each subpixel emits. In the case of the PS Vita, with its skinny blue subpixel, it’s safe to assume that the blue light being emitted is twice as strong as red or green; if it was full-width, the resulting image would be very blue.

It’s more complicated than that, though. It might be that the backlight has a hint of blue, and so the blue subpixel is made smaller to compensate. The anti-glare coating on the display might absorb more red and green, and so those subpixels need to be larger. There is also the fact that different display manufacturers use different techniques; Samsung might prefer rectangles, while Sharp might prefer more organic shapes.

Finally, jumping back to the topic of resolution, you can clearly see the higher PPI of the iPhone 4S display versus the iPad 3 (326 PPI vs. 264). It’s a shame that Mathis doesn’t have access to the Galaxy Nexus, as its 1280×720 PenTile display with 316 PPI is probably quite a sight to behold.

[Image credit: Lukas Mathis]

Source

Why Google and Android users aren’t paying any attention to the new iPad hype

Like most of you, I have been discussing thenew iPad with my technophile friends, ripping apart the news and taking a look at what the big deal is. During the course of our conversations, the overarching question that we are working to answer is “What will Google do to counter this new device with Android OS?” The largest reason for us looking for answers to that question is the inevitability of our group getting asked for our opinions by friends (and editors).

While there have been times where we have been pretty impressed with the technology that Apple has announced, this was different. While we agreed that the new screen resolution is going to be nice, there really isn’t anything game-changing that would make the tablet device a must-own. This is the same reason why Google and its Android team doesn’t care about this release, and aren’t scrambling to one-up Cupertino with some killer feature for the upcoming Jelly Bean update.

As a user of a number of Android devices, including a Galaxy Tab 10.1, the different features that Tim Cook and his team rattled off were underwhelming. I will totally concede the point that the Retina screen is a large step forward for mobile computing, but at the same time is a bit of a marketing ploy. It’s interesting that Apple made the effort to explain away the fact that the new iPad’s screen can have the Retina classification even though it only has a PPI of 264 compared to the 326 that the iPhone 4 packs into its screen. While the viewing distance math presented on stage is correct, it does still smack of marketing spin. Nevertheless, the resolution is pretty amazing for a portable device. However, nothing else that was announced made me envious in the least because they were largely inconsequential.

Take for example the dual-core A5X. While I won’t say that multi-core computing in mobile devices is a bad thing, it’s a bit humorous to me since the applications available right now don’t take full advantage of the power available. This fact isn’t something that I attribute to just iOS; Android has the same issue. Nvidia was so desperate to make money on the Tegra 2 that it had to create its own application in the Android Market so users could find the apps that were specifically written for the architecture. Don’t get me wrong, hardware advancement is a great thing, but multi-core means nothing to the average consumer except for marketing purposes. If they think there is a device that’s faster and more powerful than what they are currently using, they are going to buy it.

So, sure, the A5X has gotten a spec bump in the fact that it has a quad-core GPU that will give a performance boost, but it’s hardly a leap forward in technology. Neither is the addition of LTE connectivity — while it’s certainly a nice-to-have it’s not a show stopper. For Android users its almost become a standard feature for those on Verizon, despite the fact that it’s a vampire on battery life. Speaking of which, I am curious to see if the new iPad’s battery can last nine hours while on LTE. I am doubtful to say the least.

Wednesday’s announcement left me completely underwhelmed as a technophile and an Android user. Unlike other fans of the little green droid, I don’t want Apple to go anywhere. The relationship right now between Google and Apple is like that of the Red Sox and the Yankees. They hate each other in public, but secretly admire what the other is capable of. This causes intense competition that only benefits us as consumers. I was hoping for an amazing device that would force Google’s hand to actually take a hard look at the issues facing its mobile OS. Instead of a major hardware upgrade, Cupertino presented a hardware sidestep (at best) that is going to split the iPad brand and cause market confusion.

There’s a very specific reason why the company decided not to call it the iPad 3 and to keep the iPad 2 around for awhile. Apple couldn’t in good conscience call this device the next generation of its tablet line. This is to be admired… because it isn’t! If the new iPad had been called the iPad 3, it would have looked a lot like Samsung’s misstep with the Vibrant on T-Mobile. If you will remember, Sammy released the Vibrant on T-Mobile which people flocked to buy, only to release the Vibrant 4G less than a year later with specs that should have been present in the original version. By making the differentiation, Cook and his company avoided a consumer confidence fiasco. Keeping the iPad 2 around at a lower price will serve to keep sales brisk, as Cupertino knows that there isn’t enough reason to jump for the new device if you already own the second generation.

While the consumers will certainly flock to their local Apple retail stores to be among the first to own the new device, there really isn’t much reason to. With no major leaps forward besides an almost-Retina display that will still be playing high-def content on a 4×3 aspect ratio (hope you like those black bars), there is nothing to concern Google and its Android users. Both groups are looking ahead to the Tegra-3 armed tablets coming down the pipe from Asus and Samsung, which we hope will raise the technology bar to a higher level. Hopefully next year’s iPad release (the iPad 4? The newnew iPad?)  will bring something awesome to the table to continue to force innovation, because this new iPad certainly didn’t.

Source

Verizon gets it: We want data freedom, and don’t want to be gouged for it

Apple’s inclusion of a mobile hotspot on thenew iPad is pretty exciting. Like the iPhone, we can now use the tablet as a hotspot to share the data connection with our other wireless devices. But Verizon’s move is even better: you don’t pay extra for it.

Verizon has confirmed to several sites that its 4G plans will include the option to tether at no additional cost. Verizon’s iPad 4G plans include 1GB of data for $20, 2GB for $30, and 5GB for $50. This is completely different from smartphone plans, where the “right to tether” can set you back as much as $20 per month, in addition to the normal fees.

AT&T hasn’t specified whether it will follow a similar route, although a tweet provides little hope. In fact, it suggests AT&T will not offer tethering at all — a move none of us should finding shocking considering the company’s past history. Remember when tethering was first introduced in 2009? It took the company a full year to support the feature.

At least one carrier seems to be listening. Despite the industry’s protestations, we pay a set amount every month for a set amount of data. There shouldn’t be an additional charge for the right to use the data in another way, as long as we stay within those limits. No matter whether the data’s being used by the device itself or a device tethered to it, I can think of no valid reason why such a right should incur an additional charge. It’s price gouging, plain and simple.

Verizon seems to have figured this out. Its olive branch to those who want to tether devices to the iPad in order to use the data they have already paid for is a solid business move. It separates them from the competition (for now), and hopefully is the beginning of the end of a crappy, consumer-hostile practice.

Will this signal the end of the tethering tax on smartphones, too? I’ve argued previously, regarding AT&T’s data throttling strategies, that you can’t have two sets of rules. In the end, customer pressure won the day and the carrier relented. If we really want to end the surcharge for hotspot use, we’re going to have to apply pressure to the companies in the same manner to get what we want, and frankly what is right.

Source

The iPad shows again that Apple isn’t afraid to compete on price

Even before the new iPad debuted in San Francisco on Wednesday, rumors were circulating about the iPad 2′s future. Was Apple about to expand its tablet line through a similar strategy as it had already done with the iPhone? Yes it was, and it is a signal that things are a-changin’ in Cupertino.

The iPad 2 takes the role as the budget model, its price cut by $100. The 16GB WiFi version now comes in at $399, with the WiFi+3G model retailing for $529. It is obvious that Apple has no desire to play with the bottom feeders — the Kindle Fires of the world — but sure as heck will make its tablet competitive with those in the same league.

Samsung is playing on price here too, peddling its Galaxy Tab 2 for $350. The screen is just seven inches though, which is arguably too small for some tablet applications. For $50 more you can have an iPad, with a bigger screen and basically the same specifications. Apple just put a good deal of pressure on a rival that has given it fits over the years. Do you blame them?

Apple’s move to keep the iPad 2 around is part of a bigger strategy by the company which allows it to compete in an area — price — which is generally foreign for the company. Its detractors have long been fond of talking about the “Apple Tax,” where the company charges a premium for a product that has similar specifications to its competitors for much less.

Sometime over the past several years things changed. Apple quietly lowered its price points, while at the same time beginning to give up its longstanding tradition of completely refreshing its product lineup once an updated version launches. Like the iPhone 4S/4/3GS arrangement, the iPad 2 is a sufficient tablet for a large majority of consumers, and that’s what it’s about. Expanding the market, staying dominant.

Keeping around “last year’s stuff” also keeps the company true to its own business ideals. It is heresy for the company to release a substandard product without any kind of wow factor. This is why you will never see Apple directly compete with the Kindle Fire: there is no such thing as low-end in Cupertino.

Will Apple eventually compete in the mini-tablet sector? Probably, and rumors suggest that one is in the works, and in some cases they indicate Apple may already be purchasing the parts to build one. But its not going to be as cheap as the Fire or other budget tablets.

Just a guess here, but I think a “iPad Mini” will likely come in at a $299 price point or so. It is going to be similar in functionality to the iPad 2 now, unless Apple figures out a way to construct those Retina displays cheaper (that’s not going to happen for now). Either way, when put aside a Kindle Fire the smaller iPad will blow its competitors away, and people are going to pay that “Apple Tax” for a better product.

Could I be crazy in my thinking here? Possibly. At the same I don’t think its crazy to believe that Apple is serious about maintaining its dominance in the “post-PC” market, and realizes price and value are the biggest factors in keeping them on top, especially with the cheap-and-cheerful harbinger of Windows 8 on the horizon.

Source

Why the iPad 3 Retina display changes everything

Updated @ 1:30pm: It’s confirmed: The iPad 3 will have a 9.7-inch 2048×1536 264 PPI display. The extra pixels will be pushed by the A5X processor, which will have a quad-core GPU (up from dual-core).

Updated @ 1:40pm: The iPad 3 is the same price as the iPad 2, too, but slightly thicker and probably slightly heavier.

In a few moments, Apple CEO Tim Cook will take to the stage in San Francisco and announce the iPad 3, or iPad 2S, or iPad HD. Little is known about the iPad 2′s successor — we can only speculate about its processor, RAM, and cellular radios — except for the fact that it will have a Retina display. Cook, like Jobs before him, will try to convince us that it changes everything — and you know what? It will.

If we put aside potential issues such as price and weight — yes, there’s almost zero chance of a Retina display iPad being sold at the same price as the iPad 2; Moore’s law just isn’t there yet — and simply look at the benefits and new use cases for a Retina iPad, you will quickly see what I mean. For a start, get your head around this: The iPad HD will have a 9.7-inch 2048×1536 (264 pixels per inch) display. To put this into perspective, the nearest competitors, size-wise, are 15-inch 1920×1080 laptop displays, which have a PPI of just 146. You can find desktop monitors in the 20-inch range that sport resolutions of 2560×1600, but that’s still “only” 150 PPI. In short, the iPad HD will be visually stunning, and for supply reasons — 2048×1536 at 9.7 inches is still right on the edge of what’s feasibly producible with modern processes — no other device of a similar size will be able to match it.

What can you do with that kind of resolution in a tablet, though? How does the Retina iPad actually change everything?

Reading

At its most basic, a higher PPI means smoother, more readable text. Assuming you don’t have a problem with looking at emissive (backlit) screens for long periods, the iPad HD will be a fantastic device for reading books, magazines, and websites.

Multimedia

When it comes to creative work of any kind — be it programming, editing photos, or designing a website — more pixels is better. I think everyone, including Apple, has been surprised by unusual uses of the iPad, from Lang Lang performing an encore of Flight of the Bumble Bee to magic tricks. Just last week, Adobe announced Photoshop Touch for the iPad, and Avid Studio is surprisingly powerful. With a Retina display, the iPad would supercharge all of these applications — and originate a bunch more, I’m sure.

Games

Assuming the iPad HD has the guts — and the rumors do point towards a faster A5X or A6 chip making a debut today — then 2048×1536 will make for a gorgeous gaming platform that will attract gamers and developers alike. With Apple dangling more and more of its limbs in the gaming and home entertainment pool, a high-res iPad would make the perfect peripheral — and a terrifying match-up for Nintendo’s Wii U, which, like Apple’s solution, will also consist of a box connected to the TV and a tablet controller.

Movies

At 1024×768, the iPad 2 struggles to display any content over 480p; at 2048×1536, you’ll be able to watch delicious 1080p video with space to spare! This does rely on Apple securing access to HD content — but it will need that for the Apple iTV, too.

It ain’t all fun and games

A Retina display won’t be without its issues, though. For a start, just like with the iPhone 4, app developers will have to create all-new assets — and creating icons and textures that look good at 264 PPI won’t be cheap or easy. Then there are the aforementioned technical issues: Unless Apple has somehow reinvented backlight, LCD, or lithium-ion battery tech, there’s no way the iPad HD will be comparable to the iPad 2 in terms of weight, cost, or longevity.

Updated @ 1:50pm: It seems I have to eat my hat. Apple has just released an iPad 3 with a Retina display at the same price point as the iPad 2. It is slightly fatter, however.

Now read our post about how Apple managed to squeeze all of that new tech into the iPad 3

Source

Which smartphone or tablet display does best in bright light?

Tired of squinting at your smartphone or tablet display on a bright sunny day? We may have the answer for you, then. DisplayMate Technologies president Dr. Raymond Soneira took a look at four tablets and four smartphones, gauging their performance in a wide range of lighting conditions from absolute darkness to indirect outdoor sunlight.

Apple and Samsung’s displays took top honors, with the iPhone 4, iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy S, and Tab 10.1 taking top honors. Doing much worse was Amazon’s Kindle Fire, while the HTC Desire, Motorola Xoom and Droid X also fared poorly. Overall, it appears by a slight margin Samsung’s displays are the best, while Dr. Soneira found the HTC Desire as the worst performer.

Soneira’s tests find that HTC has a lot of work to do on its displays. At a level of 20,000 lux, which is equivalent to full indirect outdoor sunlight, the display is unusable. Tablet-wise, the worst performer was the Kindle Fire, which shows similar readability problems at 20,000 lux and above.

“Other than jacking up the screen Brightness, manufacturers have done very little to improve screen readability and picture quality under high ambient lighting,” Dr. Soneira says. His company sells the software which he uses to judge the displays, which it says will also correct the problem. In other words? This guy has a vested financial interest in the results. Regardless, it’s a good look into what electronics manufacturers still need to do to improve displays.

We’ve heard a ton about Gorilla Glass, but in the end Corning was more focused on making thin, unbreakable glass than working on light reflectivity issues, where a lot of readability issues when it comes to ambient light come from. So that’s not the answer either.

Apple’s made a lot of hay over its Retina display and its advantages. While it has done wonders for the readability and clarity of these displays, it’s done jack for their readability in bright light — and DisplayMate has already said the display isn’t that great. Since we’re becoming ever more dependent on these devices, this is a problem that begs for a fix. “While Apple and Samsung are currently the best performers in high ambient light, it is possible to do substantially better with advanced scientific lab tests and analysis”, Soneira says.

I doubt for one second that Apple will reach outside of its bubble in Cupertino for help, but you have to think they would be interested in Soneira’s findings. Other companies like HTC and Amazon look like they could benefit greatly from this work — putting it bluntly their displays are pretty crappy. Then again, they do say you get what you pay for, right?

Read more at DisplayMate: Smartphone display results & Tablet display results

Source

ET Debates: Are tablets the future of mobile computing?

At times it can appear that ExtremeTech, like other large sites and publications, has a “monolithic voice,” where every writer seems to agree with each other. In reality, this isn’t the case: We argue a lot; we just don’t publicize it. Today that changes, with a new story format: ET Debates! First we will hear the opening gambits from David Cardinal and Sebastian Anthony, and then they will both give their rebuttals. The actual debate took place in the ExtremeTech bunker in front of a small but eager crowd of friends and family — this is the transcript.

David Cardinal: Tablets are the future

Tablets are cool. They’re fun, portable, have long-lived batteries, and are increasingly useful. The immediacy of a touchscreen you can hold in your hand, coupled with a screen large enough to read a magazine make them the most exciting development in computers since the laptop. Currently the iPad is all the rage for tablets, even among those who already own an iPhone. Alan Kay — inventor of the Dynabook, the iPad’s 1968 virtual ancestor — explained why when hecommented to Steve Jobs about the iPhone, “Make the screen at least 5″ x 8″ and you will rule the world.”

Smartphones, with their small screens, aren’t going to replace the trillion pages of books, notebooks, newspapers and magazines that the world has been consuming for the last 500 years. The tablet will. Already kids are feeling shortchanged when their books don’t come to life the way their electronic devices do.

For all their appeal, tablets have one life-threatening drawback. It is just plain hard to create content on them. They do have a huge advantage over smartphones, with the larger screens making possible a facsimile of a true keyboard — and more than one published author has written a book entirely on a tablet — but compared to a full-size keyboard they fall way short, if you are a touch typist at least. It is no wonder Apple plowed a few hundred million into Siri.

Even if voice doesn’t wind up being the way to go for phone and tablet input, tablet makers will have plenty of options as technology improves. Projected light keyboards, and roll-up keyboards that could double as the protective cover of a tablet, are already emerging to provide for situations where text needs to be created at a rapid clip.

Until now, the desktop juggernaut has been propelled largely by its legacy of nearly infinite applications. Once the input problem is addressed, there are few remaining applications that can’t be accomplished in some form on a tablet. The success of the cloud as a storage medium for applications, media, and documents is hastening this trend.

With tablet screens moving to full 1080p HD resolution, and the advent of quad-core ARM processors achieving near laptop performance, there will be no reason for users to suffer the inconvenience of a traditional laptop “clamshell” design, or even desktop OS, for most of their computing needs. But neither will they suffer with a phone screen to replace using paper.

Sebastian Anthony: Smartphones are the future

It is hard to put a finite, absolute value on the flexibility and empowerment endowed by smartphones. Throughout history we have revered the handheld, portable tool: The sword, the pen, the pocket calculator — and now the smartphone. Almost every surge in human civilization is attributable to a tool of some kind — a forge, a printing press, a steam engine — and I firmly believe that smartphones, or more generally, ubiquitous, carry-everywhere, wearable computers, will push us over the threshold of the next stage of human society.

There are two fundamental differences between smartphones and tablets: size and weight. A smartphone is small, pocketable, and light enough to be wielded by anyone over the age of two. A tablet, by virtue of being large enough to display magazine-like content, is always going to be heavier, suck up more energy, and require a separate shoulder-carried bag (or dungarees with a large, kangaroo-like pocket).

The smartphone’s litheness comes at a price, though: The smaller screen simply isn’t very good when it comes to reading magazines or textbooks. Screen size is only a secondary issue, however. Ultimately it will come down to the interface. If we have wireless contact lens displays, who cares how big the device’s screen is? When we have a brain-computer interface and can simply think of a sentence, who cares if the keyboard on a smartphone screen is a bit fiddly?

It’s also important to note that smartphones and tablets, except for the screen, are virtually identical. Both smartphones and tablets can be plugged into external displays, keyboards, mice, and other peripherals. Both smartphones and tablets can be used to make calls, or play games, or Skype your beloved.

Perhaps the best argument against tablets, though, is to look at the question from another angle. When you leave the house in the morning, would you rather take your smartphone or your tablet? Would you rather have a device that is better for reading magazines, or a device that easily fits in your car, in your hand, and in your pocket? If technology has taught us anything it’s that ubiquity is key, and with a cheaper price point and smaller form factor, the smartphone simply cannot lose. Mac vs. Windows. Betamax vs. VHS. Tablet vs. smartphone.

David’s rebuttal

Books are among the most popular objects in history. And their writable companions — paper and notebooks — are even more popular. People are used to carrying and using paper or “notebook”-sized objects, to school, to meetings, and even to read on vacation. Sure, as Seb says, there will continue to be a flurry of radical new input and output devices that will claim to eliminate the need for screens, keyboards, and even gestures. But will any of them actually prove to be comfortable and useful in our lifetimes? A heads-up display in a car is one thing, but trying to read today’s news or Science magazine on futuristic contact lenses or with a brain implant is another — it is hard enough to keep track of Scientific American or ExtremeTech articles when trying to listen to them on Audible.

Realistically there are a lot of ways the smartphone and tablet category will begin to get mushed together. Whether it is the hybrid design of the Galaxy Note — featuring a ‘tweener screen and integrated stylus — or simply very high-speed synchronization, allowing users to grab whichever device is right for the right task without thinking about it, there will be ways to make the choice more seamless. As we’ve seen with the massive popularity of the iPad and now Android tablets among those who already have perfectly good smartphones — including in many cases paying for data plans on both devices — there is a real demand for paper-sized interactive interfaces. Seb mentions the sword as a popular tool. It differs from a knife only in size, but that is exactly what makes it effective.

Seb’s rebuttal

The brunt of David’s argument hinges on a single statement: That screen size is important. Specifically, he argues that a tablet-size display is somehow divinely infallible when it comes to consuming and creating magazine, newspaper, and notebook content.

The problem is, at 5.8 by 7.8 inches — around the size of an A5 sheet of paper — the iPad screen isn’t actually anything like a magazine or newspaper page. Yes it’s the same size as a paper notebook — but then why not just carry a paper notebook? It’s lighter, and you can actually keep it in your back pocket. If tablets were actually the size of a newspaper, then I could see David’s point — but they aren’t, and in their current form, ensconced in aluminium, glass, and powered by heavy batteries, they never will be.

David also points out that you can plug a keyboard into a tablet it becomes a serious content-creation tool — but no more so than a smartphone. If you want a larger screen, why not get a device that comes with a keyboard — like, you know, a laptop? Furthermore, his claims that ARM chips are approaching “near laptop performance” are folly; ARM is improving, but so is x86. There are no indications that ARM will catch x86.

I concede that larger screens have their place, but there’s simply no way that the hard, heavy tablet chassis will usurp either the smartphone or the laptop. A much more likely future scenario is that pocketable smartphones will do all of the processing, and then transmit a video signal to a low-power, magazine-sized color e-ink display, or a contact lens display.

Source

High-tech bad parenting: Giving your kids a tablet

Better living (or parenting) through technology? That is the question posed by Nielsen in a recent study looking at the use of tablets in families with children.

The firm finds that in households owning a tablet computer and with children under 12, 70% of children use the tablet. What these parents are letting them use the tablets for is likely cause for concern among those who feel parents today are not fulfilling their parenting duties.

77% of these children are playing games, while 57% use the tablet for educational purposes. The rest of the most common responses read like how to keep children occupied without actually parenting: 55% use the tablet for entertainment purposes (less “Are we there yet?”, more peace and quiet); 43% to watch television and/or movies; and 41% to keep the child occupied while at a restaurant or event.

At least 15% have used the device to keep in contact with other family members, but kids appear to be missing out on valuable life lessons, such as manners or learning from life’s experiences. It poses an interesting question as to whether or not society is only making the problems caused by technology worse, such as the end of interpersonal communication, or just not having the skills to deal with each other in real life.

There is a good deal of evidence that tablets can be amazing learning devices, such as the amazing video above from YouTube of young Bridger Wilson at ease with his father’s iPad. Tablet manufacturers have also created child-centric tablets like the Vinci, aiming to make the tablet a true learning device.

While kids can use these devices to learn, at the same time parents still need to parent. Nielsen’s numbers suggest that parents are increasingly using the devices to do more than teach; instead they’re increasingly used to babysit. Is this the right thing to do? It’s a question that has been asked for years. Like televisions before it during the 1950s and 1960s, there is probably not an easy answer.

One thing is for sure, though: childhood is short. Being in a children’s life as much as possible does make a difference later in life. Ask yourself, do you want to raise your children yourself, or have somebody to do it for you? Think about it.

Read more at Nielsen

Source