Why Tablet PC Will Succeed

A lot of people a sceptical about Tablet PC; sales are still quite low, although the major manufacturers are producing 3rd generation products, and the idea of a tablet PC - while not yet mainstream - is definitely here to stay.

Personally, I'm tempted more and more to buy one. The idea of being able to sit in my lounge, an aeroplane seat or a meeting doodling notes and e-mails, then surfing the web on a device that fits neatly into my lap, really appeals. I still take a lot of notes and sketch designs on paper - because it just feels more natural and is quicker to do (struggling to express yourself in an unfamiliar drawing tool, and you quickly lose your train of thought and inspiration).

Anyway, here's some predictions on how the Tablet PC will move in the next 18 months:

• The "slate" design will win over the "convertible" model (tablets come as either a keyboard-less slate, which you can visualise as a "big screen PDA", or a model with a keyboard that folds back against the screen to give you a slate); the reason I say this is because the whole purpose of a slate is to have a device that you draw on and can cradle confortably in your arms, & convertible models are just oo bulky and heavy; you can easily plug a laptop-style keyboard into a slate - see the Motion M1400 gallery for how this works;
• PDAs will begin to fade away & Tablets will fill the void; PDAs are too small to serve any useful function except storing your contacts and giving you a basic e-mail browsing experience, i.e. the same functionality mobile phones now offer; but a 12" screen allows you to do much more, and is lighter and more portable than a laptop;
• Devs will stick to standard form factors for the forseeable future - I just can't imagine being able to develop off of a tablet... yet consultants will find these things really useful...

So what needs to change for the Tablet to hit the mainstream?

• XP Tablet Edition needs to be incorporated into XP Home / Pro; the Tablet Edition of Xp was a bit of an experiment by MS, hence they released a separate version of the OS to cater for the Tablet PC; but if this is going to work in the long term, pen & ink needs to be a standard OS service;
• The handwriting engine needs to be customisable to the user's writing style, to make it more effective;
• ActiveSynch needs to be enhanced to synch not just PDAs to a main machine, but tablets too; for instance, I have a main machine at home that I have all my files on; I'd love to be able to work on a tablet on those files, then synch them back to the main machine, so if I feel the need to work at a desk with a larger screen I can do this without having to pull out my pen drive and manually copy files around.
• The Tablet manufacturers need to create docking solutions that allow you to dock a tablet and use it as a desktop, with an external screen, speakers, etc this is almost there, & I think Motion Computing is definitely moving in the right direction with this;
• The prices are going to have to come down; at the moment, the machines are under-specced (to bring the size down), and overpriced - something's gotta give;
• More people need to be shown the virtues of the Tablet PC... just use OneNote & I think the cogs will begin turning;