Tag Archives: palm

Holding the Tablet

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By Jeffrey the Barak

The most polarizing computing device ever sold is spreading across the United States.

Long-time professional hardware reviewers have all published their opinions for and against  the wisdom of buying one, now, later or never. Some say it’s a giant iPod Touch, (as if that were a bad thing), others say it’s the most important breakthrough in personal computing for the masses.

The importance of this device is great, or small, depending on your personal point of view. A tablet computer is not new, the interface of the iPad is not completely new, and the concept of the device is not new, but it is here, it is enjoyable to use, and it is very useful.

Looking beyond this device, it is clear that in general there is a huge demand for a device that has the following qualities:

  • Affordable
  • Connected
  • Easy to use
  • Useful
  • Enjoyable

Forgetting current issues such as Flash versus HTML, Apple versus Google (I love them both), Google Docs versus Microsoft Office, computer operating systems versus mobile device operating systems etc.,  The demand of the consumers will win out, as it always does, and the inventors and manufacturers will fill the niches.

One of the more promising roads to computers for all is the Google Chrome operating system, designed to fulfill the needs of the average person, offered at zero cost, and designed to run on low cost “Netbooks”. Plenty of money will be spent on high-speed Internet access, the Netbooks and their accessories, and on goods and services advertised on Google, to make it all worthwhile for Google to give us this system at no cost.

Clearly, the usual standard traditional option will remain for anyone with the money to get a full computer, PC, Mac, whatever, and run heavier applications to make music, movies etc., and to manage business. But once millions of adults and kids begin to use Netbooks, with Google Chrome or another OS, or iPads, the technical world will change as much as it did when everyone got a mobile telephone.

The Apple iPad is a hurdle and a challenge to Google’s plan for global domination via Chrome, because the iPad has such a beautiful design ethic as compared to any Netbook that exists today. Sure we may prefer to type on a keyboard and have the illusion of multitasking, but who really prefers plastic and fuzzy graphics to the chrome and special magic glass touch screen that is on the iPad? People may choose less functionality and go with iPad simply because of it’s beauty.

I think that Netbooks would have become much more widespread if they did not run Windows. Even the simplified version of Windows 7 that ships with most Netbooks today is pretty horrible and slow and well down a dark road of bad design. In this pre-Chrome era, the only alternative to Windows is a flavor package of Linux, but regular folks who are not computer enthusiasts tend to have no end of little problems with Linux, because it’s never really completely finished and tested. For success, a normal idiot needs to be able to get anything done, and that’s why the iPad is so brilliant.

Personally, to do any considerable amount of work, in comfort, I need a desk, and a large monitor with sharp graphics. I am very comfortable with my 27” iMac, but less so with my 13” Macbook.

For many years I was a Palm computing enthusiast, even before they became telephones. I upgraded and flipped my way though Palm (or Handspring) devices right up to the TX, then my eyesight became inadequate to really enjoy the size. Had my wife not bought me an iPhone, I might still be eschewing small devices, but with a good pair of glasses I can enjoy the excellent design of the iconic iPhone.

Today’s iPad has all the appeal of those Palm Pilots, plus the appeal of a paper based personal organizer, plus the power of an Apple computer plus more that we never dreamed of ten years ago.

Of course, a connection is required, but we can count on that becoming normal everywhere in the future. The point is, no matter what pros and cons the iPad and the Netbooks give us, it’s inevitable that millions of people around the world will have something that is greater than a smartphone, and not as great as a laptop. You can bet on it.

Every student in every school will have some device, just as they all have calculators today. Nothing will stop it.

Going back in time fifteen years to before the Palm era, our paper based systems were as heavy as, and much thicker than iPads. But they would not give us movies, games and other forms of entertainment. The entertainment factor is very important and many an iPad buyer will never do an ounce of real work on his or her iPad, but the entertainment is a distraction from the real importance of the format. Anything that makes computing an extension of our fingertips is world changing tool.

Like it or hate it, this is the iPad era, and soon it will also be the Chrome era. And as the Internet and Wi-Fi spread, more people in the world will be joining our world.

Jeffrey the Barak is not carrying a penguin

Time for a computing rant

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By Jeffrey the Barak

I should begin by stating that today is April 8th, 2009. This is important whenever writing about technology, or as in this case, ranting about technology, because by the time you read this, things may well have changed.

I am not a computer journalist, I don’t take advertising revenue from Microsoft or Apple or Norton, and I am no programmer. But I do use computers and I know what I like and do not like.

So this rant is partly an observation, partly a wish list, and partly about 1973 Buick Electra converted to run on battery power. (More on that later).

babbage_difference_engine_sRanting about computers, the big kind.

I wrestled with Windows from early 3.0 until late in the XP era, before I became so busy with actual work that I decided it was high time to stop messing around with dialog boxes and virus scans and abandon Microsoft so I could get some bloody work done.

My solution was to switch to Mac. Now I’m not one of these guys who says Apples are perfect and all other fruits are rubbish, because that is an exaggeration, but I will say that I no longer work for the computer. The computer now works for me.

I remain open-minded about where computing may go in the future, but as people who have downgraded to “netbooks” will tell you, there is a future in online application use and assuming being connected continues to become more ubiquitous, that may be our direction.

Ranting about computers, the small kind.

I got into palm-top or handheld computing in the 1990s with a Palm III and dabbled in Windows tablets and then gave it all up when my eyesight deteriorated, only to jump back in when my wife bought me the first iPhone.

I still find Internet use to be a pain in the eye on the iPhone, but I think that on one’s palm is the best place to work in many situations.

But I always wanted to fill the gap between a notebook / laptop computer and a handheld device such as a smart phone. My first attempt at doing so was to buy an Acer tablet computer, but I found the operating system, the hardware and the screen to be very close to completely unusable. It was slow enough to make you scream, awkward to use, and hard to see in almost any light, but only for an hour then the batteries ran down.

I held out hope for Palm’s “Folio Mobile Companion” invention in 2007 only to see them backtrack and cancel the release. And rumors continue to abound about Apple’s plans for something bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a Macbook, with an alternative operating system.

And this is the key, and why the tablet failed for me, something roughly the same size and weight might succeed if it does not try to be a computer. That is: no Windows, no OS X, no full blown Linux, but something more like the iPhone operating system. We have to recognize that a small whatever-you-call-it is not a computer. This is why tablets were awful and also why these new “netbooks” don’t really work well with the Windows OS installed. They come with XP because it’s only about $25 now, but it’s not right for a little ten inch thing.

People who run simple Linux shells to get them online to do stuff get much more satisfaction from their netbooks, without the squinting. It was the same when Palm had two versions of the Trio smart phone, one with Windows Mobile, the big seller, and one with the last version of the Palm OS. The Windows one was terrible because you really need a big screen to work well in Windows. The Palm OS one was less terrible. The little tiny keyboard was never as efficient as Graffiti, if you took the time to learn Graffiti.

The iPhone reminded me that even someone with bad eyes and big fingers can still work in the hand if the OS and also the input method are clever enough, (they are). And as long as there’s an Internet connection, then there is room for a lightweight device that is larger than a pocketable mobile telephone.

Another thing netbooks have done is throw the escalation of processing power and application complication into reverse. This has coincided with the end of the megapixel arms race in digital cameras, and the end of the economic boom, that never should have been a boom in the first place, due to it’s source in hype and debt.

If applications can be usable over the wi-fi, then they will be better if they are less complicated, not more so, so this new small way of thinking can potentially move Microsoft’s fortunes into the hands of Google, Yahoo! etc. Anyone who develops good web-based applications.

Revolutions still to come in display and input technology will add strength to this movement. The tortoise may beat the hare in computing.

So about that electric Buick Electra, oh sorry, I’m out of time.