It's taken a while, but ELWYN JORDAN is now convinced about the benefits of a tablet.
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In a recent blog, I wrote about my 7-year-old grandson getting an iPad Mini. This got my head spinning.
You see, it had taken a while for me to really come to grips with the iPad (or similar tablet), let alone it being used by a 7-year old! When they first came out, I really couldn’t see the point of a device like this.
It used to be simple: there was the desktop computer, and then there was the laptop. One for home use, the other for carrying around. Mobile phones were, strange as it may now seem, devices used for making phone calls.
But then it all changed. Mobile phones became capable of connecting to the internet, so we were able to do some of our computing stuff on our phones. Being small though, they were pretty limited as to what sort of internet work they could do.
A new device, the netbook, was invented. This was just like a laptop, only smaller: and less capable. At first I didn’t like them either. Some lacked even a basic means of downloading information out of them. That seemed a bit silly.
But I began to see a use for them. Their great benefit lay in their size and portability: they were great for travelling. A normal laptop still takes up a fair amount of room, but a netbook fits into the luggage easily.
In the meantime, the mobile phone was getting bigger, and more capable. The “brick” was returning – albeit in a slimmer and more stylish form. Their processing power increased dramatically, so that performing computer type tasks became much more practical, even if everything was, of course, displayed in miniature.
Then into the midst of this came the tablet. But what was it? In some ways it seemed like a really, really big smart phone, only without the “phone” part: or a simpler type of netbook, without the netbook’s capabilities and proper keyboard. I suppose I saw it as filling a gap that wasn’t really there; or answering a question that nobody had asked.
When my son-in-law bought one, I asked him what he thought of it. He attends a lot of meetings, associated with work and other commitments, and he said it was really useful for that. Being relatively small it was easy to carry and he could make notes during the meeting, or read pre-prepared notes etc. Suddenly it made sense. You couldn’t do that on a phone – well you could but it’d be difficult working with something that small – and of course it was much easier to use in that situation than a bulky laptop.
I saw them being used in other situations too, where their use made a lot of sense. For example the minister at our church started using one in his sermons. Rather than have printed notes on a lectern, he had his notes on an iPad. It gave him the freedom to move around the stage and just carry his notes in one hand.
And of course games are so much better to play on one of these than a smart-phone or a miniature games-device!
So I could see that it was a useful thing. Mind you, I still thought it was answering a question that probably nobody had asked, but I could see that there actually was a gap in the range of technology for it to fill.
It really is mind-blowing when you consider the range of devices that we have available. If you lined them all up they’d look like those stick-figure families you see plastered across the back window of people-movers!
Just like any computer-type device (including phones), there is a wide range of specifications with these tablets. Although Erica Sadun, writing on the TUAW web-site, said that we shouldn’t be basing our choice on the specifications. “It's not about the specs, it’s about user experience.”
Now, while I think that specifications are important when considering the purchase of any electronic device, what she says makes sense. In summary she says, “People buy iPads because a 2-year-old human or a dim-witted cat can figure out how to use one. People buy iPads because an iPad does everything the user wants it to do and more than the user expects.” They might be just one point in that long line of devices, but they really are very useful.
Anyway, I better stop now, because I think I need a tablet. No, not an iPad, I need a Panadol, because all this still makes my head spin!
Elwyn Jordan is a musician and full-time music teacher. Besides music, his interests include technology and motoring. He runs a motorcycling website called The Old Bloke. http://theoldbloke.homestead.com. You are welcome to get in touch with Elwyn at elwyn.jordan@yahoo.com.au