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‘Why consumers won’t buy tablets’: Right or wrong, and how about e-books?
August 5, 2009 | 5:26 am
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By David Rothman
“Why we keep waiting for the killer tablet computer is beyond me. Few people really want one, especially at the prices that they will have to sell for.” – CNET columnist Rafe Needleman on the Crunchpad and the rumored Apple machine.
The TeleRead take: So what do you think, gang? Is he on the money, given the small size of the current e-book market? Excerpt:
…Amazon’s Kindle, a tablet by form factor even though it has a vestigial keyboard, works because it…does things no other device can do at all: it can buy books instantly, almost anywhere, and display them on a screen nearly as easy to read as a printed page.
Note: The image is an artist’s concept of the rumored Apple tab.
Technorati Tags: Apple tablet,Crunchpaid
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Comments:
For me, the article was done right there. If Rafe actually believes keyboards and mice are essential to the computing process, he’s just showing his provincial thinking. Of course the next generation will bypass solid keyboards, just as today’s businesspeople–who once swore they couldn’t type on anything other than a typewriter keyboard–now text a mile a minute on Crackberries.
The rest, price, et al, is meaningless… prices change, and expensive electronics of today become the inexpensive electronics of tomorrow. Apps change to take advantage of the form factor… like those scroll wheels on Crackberries that are the size of pencil erasers. There’s no reason why the tablet cannot surpass the laptop eventually, once everything is in alignment.
And reading on it? Sure. E-books. E-magazines and newspapers. Bring it!
i agree with steve 100%. i’m already dusting off my credit card for whatever apple has in store, because i am certain they know all the issues people have brought up with ebook readers and tablets, and they have been watching what is happening with the kindle. i think they will surprise everyone and revamp the reading experience like they did the music experience.
Yes, but… on a LCD screen?
I’ve never had problems reading on LCD screens of good quality (which allow you to adjust type, font size, contrast, color, even apply the Cleartype setting to remove the hard, jagged edges that upset many readers’ eyes). I use them daily, at home, at work, and on my PDA, including reading (on the PDA). Using an LCD tablet wouldn’t faze me, nor a lot of others.
I realize some people do not respond to LCD screens as well. I expect, though, that improvements to LCDs and competing technologies will improve their situation.
I really like my Nokia 810 internet tablet for reading books on. It seems like exactly the right form factor: small enough to fit in a pocket but large enough to use a reasonably large type face to read a book.
And although I don’t use the internet features very often, or ever download books directly to it, I’d rather have a general purpose computer than a specialized book reading device. If I find something in a new and different format, I can always hope someone will write a program to read it, but with a special purpose device, that isn’t going to happen.
The article is hooey, in the same category as “27 Reasons Why I Know [unreleased product you might like] Is Toast” that we keep seeing on the web.
The article is a collection of unsubstantiated claims about consumer behavior toward unavailable products.
And certainly, reading E-publications on tablet devices cannot be “real work” — that requires a hardware keyboard. It is a law of the universe!
Let all innovation cease, because we already know “few people will want” anything beyond what is in the market today.
Tablets aren’t just about e-books. One of the reasons I want one is for the bigger screen it will give my iPod apps, many of which suffer from the small form factor they’re squeezed into. I won’t be giving up my PC; despite its many flaws, Windows lets me do things impossible on a “simpler” OS. But I do like the app concept that Apple has made wildly successful for portable devices. E-book reading is just one of those useful apps.
at Caron:
yes, just like what steve says in the follow-up: i think people read on screens already all the time, and that this won’t be that big of a leap. plus, apple has to jump in the stream somewhere. might as well start with LCD screens right now, and then work on the e-ink stuff. or whatever else is next.
I think Rafe is right. I guess I’m in the minority here.
People don’t want slate tablet personal computers to type on and to do text-work with.
That is why this ‘mediapad’ or whatever Apple would call it, will not be a personal computer to type on and to do text-work with. It will be the sort of thing that Rafe says does work: a browser and media viewer. It will also be the sort of thing that Rafe failed to mention: a game console.
I don’t know if it will work or not, be successful or not. I am sure that it will be different from what Rafe thinks, what I think, what most pundits bloggers and guessers think.
That’s why it would have been smarter of Rafe to write about the thing … after it had been released and confirmed with actual specs. Then he can speculate on whether it will be a success; and if, at that point, he still wishes it ill and declares it will fail, the odds will be against him. Not that Apple has had no failures – they have had plenty of them, and one notable bomb since Mr Jobs returned (his beloved Mac Cube) – but by far all the devices and gizmos they have actually released have been successful.
So let’s just wait and see, shall we?
Oh, I forgot – we do need to stoke up hits and page-views, don’t we? Never mind.
Always hearing that back-lit LCD is bad for the eyes, and e-ink sort of screen is easier, less strain for the eyes. However, I read many many ebooks on LCD screens, from Palm to Windows Mobile devices, never notice the eye strain issue. Anyone actually did research on the eye-strain issue? Or just another urban legend?
I think tablet computers do have a lot of potential — I do however, agree with pound, a pure tablet will never replace a more full functional laptop or desktop for certain tasks.
For games, ebooks, Videos (Where the iPhone and iPod Touch are a bit undersized), web browsing, video conferencing (if it has a built in web-cam), and undoubtedly other applications I haven’t thought of, a tablet will be great. Sure it can do other things like manipulate documents and spread sheets, but ultimately for those tasks a keyboard makes a laptop a better choice.
Still, for many people, the things a tablet could do would probably be quite sufficient.
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Bill
Tao Says:
“Always hearing that back-lit LCD is bad for the eyes, and e-ink sort of screen is easier, less strain for the eyes.
Anyone actually did research on the eye-strain issue? Or just another urban legend?”
______________________________________________________
Apparently it is quite real; they even sell a product to counter it and the reviewer at PC Magazine found it works. Here’s a review:
http://www.gearlog.com/2008/09/eyes_on_with_gunnar_optiks_digital_eyewear.php#more
The American Optometric Association has a name for the general condition, too:
http://www.aoa.org/x5374.xml
It appears to mostly a bightness/color contrast issue.
As far back as the 60′s there has been debate at to what combination of settings (forgreground, background, brightness, contrast) reduces eyestrain. In the early CRT days, folks sweared by amber monochrome displays and ATARI made a point to use (very) light blue on sky-blue as the default setting for their home computers to make them more readably on the low-res TV displays common to the era. They also allowed pretty much any combination you could try; black-on-white, green-on-black, or their reversed options. Most owners who experimented ended up back on the default. Mr Bushnell’s crew were apparently on to something.
Over the years, most PC applications (Windows chief among them) have allowed us to select any combination of text and background color (Mobipocket on PC is especially good that way) but most people ignore this because, ever since the original Macintoshes, we have been indoctrinated that wysiwyg is a law of nature and that you *have to have* sharp black on bright white to real.
My own experience with ebooks on tablet PCs is that cutting the backlight down to minimum makes even black-on-white strain-free for sessions of 5-plus hours. (And, of course, current e-ink screens do essentially that by lacking a backlight.) I’ve seen the same from the rocketbook readers in their warious incarnations.
Me, I’m curious to see if Apple’s mythical tablet will do anything clever to deal with this; maybe using reflective LCD with LED sidelighting.
As for the article from CNET, all it really needs is a new title: “Why people haven’t bought tablets, yet”.
Funny how even technologists forget that the future is not the past with a different wall calendar.
Felix, you’re right: Consumers have the ability to adjust their displays to fit, but most of them do not, either because they do not know how, or are afraid to mess with the settings. Even worse, most computer HW/SW packages don’t make it easy to even find the settings to adjust them… even Microsoft’s Cleartype setting, an excellent solution for most LCD-users’ eyestrain issues, is buried about six clicks deep under the screen settings menus.
This is a personal ergonomics issue that, like most computer-related ergonomics issues, have barely been addressed. Most of them are only dealt with after medical problems result in class action lawsuits or negative press.
Of course, it won’t even become an issue unless the device in question is bought and used. But if it is bought and used, and the ergonomics question comes up, we’ll see if the manufacturer will refuse to cave… or if consumer demand forces them to change in order to keep their sales going.
The other complaint about tablets… that they’re tablets, and therefore, less than functional next to laptops, PCs, etc… is, frankly, laughable. Hello, peripheral industry! The market to sell optional keyboards, control mice, gaming controls, cameras, UPC scanners, tricorders, etc, etc will be only too happy to make sure we can do whatever we want to do with our new tablets.