The iTablet: What I think they are thinking

To start with, it's not an iPad. That's just going to get confusing when you're dealing with foreign accents. To me, it's an iTablet, and that's what I'm sticking with.

Now, obviously, this whole thing has been argued to death over the last few days. But as the title originally said, this is a place for the Mangled Remains of Other People's Thoughts. Spending two days arguing about it before coming up with a response is very much in keeping with this blog's mission statement.


Soooooo....

Firstly, let's be clear. This is a device for people who don't drive themselves to work, or who do a lot of their work outside of their office, be it at coffee bars or at home. Which is why a lot of tech-heads are struggling to see the point of it. They go from an office that has a high-spec work computer to their home that has a high-spec gaming computer. The idea of someone like my Dad, who takes his one computer around with him, uses it on the train to London, and doesn't know or want to know what processor speed means? Well, it doesn't quite fit their mental model of how things work. The idea that most users would be, not just happy, but better off with nothing more than a web-browser, an e-mail client and the basic Office package isn't how engineers and computer people see the world. But as the surging trade in netbooks has proven, it's the reality.

Secondly, as most people have realised, this is Apple's standard "Gamma-testing" trick, in which they get an open beta among their most devoted acolytes, and make money in the process. It's like when they released a phone with possibly the best mobile-based browser ever created, and didn't include 3G capability, neatly forcing anyone in Europe who'd bought one to spend hours justifying that they didn't really want internet on the train, and that 3G signal isn't available in their area anyway, and all the other mad arguments that early adopters come up with.
In 3 years time, the iTablet "v 3.0" will have a webcam. It will have a special piece of white plastic and metal that allows you to attach your iKeyboard (sold seperately) to your iPad as if it were a normal laptop. (And if it doesn't, I will be doing a great trade in twisted coathangers with padding on one end). Apple will have solved a lot of the "niggles" that are making this product significantly less appealing than it is at the moment. And I actually think there's the potential for them to do something truly exciting with it at the same time.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that the iTablet OS is now branched from the iPhone OS. Sure, iPhone will always be the base from which it sprung, but they'll diverge over time. And I think there are a couple of interesting things that we will see added to an iTablet interface that won't be on the iPhone OS.

Firstly, I think that they're working on a way to create "pseudo-multitasking". The most damning issue with the iTablet's lack of multitasking is that if you're writing a report and you want to be able to see your primary research resource as you write, that ain't gonna happen without a lot of switching back and forth. Now, I understand why Apple doesn't like having multiple apps running on portable devices, which is why I think they'll develop a system whereby you can switch to another Application, but you can still see whatever was on the previous App when it closed.
To the average user, it'll look as if the other App's still open, whereas all that's actually there is the equivalent of a screenshot which reopens the App it's related to when clicked.
That'll solve almost all the user stories that occur when you increase the screen size of an iPhone to the point where having a second App running makes any damn sense at all.


Secondly, I think that they're working on an iPen and an iArtist app. The iTablet's of a size where you could actually do proper design or art work, if it had a decent stylus pen to do it with. Imagine something along the lines of WaCom's Cintiq. And yes, I know, the iPhone was specifically designed for you to use your fingers, but that's because it's a phone. I don't write on a notepad with my pinky.
Now, this would be the thing that really turned the game around. Along with writers, artists are one of Apple's core target demographics. If they could make a Photoshop standard application and a stylus that worked on their touchscreens, they'd strike gold. Not just for artistic work. Scrawled notes, draft blueprints, sketches of penises, shopping lists... The possibilities are endless.
And if they don't, someone will. I mean, I'm an arrogant sonofabitch, but I'm not stupid enough to think I'm the only one who's thought of this. The hardest part would be creating an iPen that would work well enough with the iTablet's touch sensors for fine work, and getting the iArtist app to the point where it could sub for Photoshop. But neither of those are anything more than technically challenging, especially from inside the company.

Thirdly, at some point they're either going to win whatever battle they think they're fighting with Flash, or they'll release the patch that they must have waiting in the wings. Because otherwise, that iTablet browser is BROKEN. For a phone, not being able to access certain resource-intensive webpages is acceptable. Accessing the internet will always be an "added feature" on a phone, somewhere far below making calls and playing music. But for a computer? And not only a computer, but the Apple equivalent of a netbook?
 I got into quite a heated argument with one guy at work about this. His response was that Flash is on the way out, as evidenced by Youtube's steady switch to HTML5. And I'm sure that Youtube is switching, because they're a delivery company, not a content creation company. They'll switch to whatever makes their job easier. I'm pretty certain the same applies with Hulu. Although I'd be a lot more sure if you could use Hulu in my country.

But Flash is the default application for content delivery among media companies. And by default, I mean this:

Apple aren't taking on their competitor Adobe. They're taking on everyone from Spongebob Squarepants to CNN. Which, considering their market share, is a bit over-ambitious. As Jeff Vogel, creator of my childhood obsessions put it;

At that size and price, I expect a computer. And thus, I can't buy it. Because of this little chain of logic.

If a computer doesn't have a fully functional web browser, it's not worth buying.

A fully functional web browser needs to support Flash.

The iPad does not support Flash.

Ergo, no.

I don't care about Apple's model of "what the world of the Internet should be". I would want to watch iPlayer on this thing. And I can either ask the BBC to change their entire internet presence to support the iTablet, or Apple can add an entire Flash plug-in to the iTablet browser. Ask yourselves which of those "entire"'s was the one that sounds the most sarcastic when you read it aloud.
Apple are a business. If you cannot accept the realities of your operating environment, you need to provide an easy way to change whatever you need to change. If Apple brings out a program to allow you to convert a Flash webpage cleanly to HTML5, they might kill Flash. Maybe. But that is not the best use of their time, when they could just support Flash-based webpages.

If they're not working on those things, they bloody well should be; because otherwise, what they demonstrated the other day as their "fresh new thing" was a combination of an over-priced, locked down netbook; an eReader that won't support the standard eBooks; a notepad you can't write or draw on with a pen; and an iPhone that was too damn big to be used like a phone even if it had that capability... which it doesn't. Coupled with a browser that is, by any sensible standard, broken.

In which case, it may be time to think carefully about how to handle Apple's second run of wilderness years.
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For reference, the "offensive" screen in the picture above was of an erotic nature. Seriously. Apple have created an internet browser that can't display porn. I mean, whatever your personal or moral standpoint on pornography, that's evidence that Apple's dream of a Flash-free internet is so optimistic as to be deluded.