Tablets Still Not Here

I'm still waiting for this hole in the market to fill in. It's the tablet hole. The space for a viewer/reader/player about the size of a novel. It's easy to type on, it runs apps like an iPhone and everybody's going to love it. But it's not here yet.

Apple's iPhone, let's be frank, isn't that wonderful a piece of technology. It's a beautiful piece of sculpture: nice to look at and hold, and it's just the right weight. But now that I've had mine for a year it has such a lag in its response time that it's actually somewhat entertaining. You type, then sit back and after what seems like seconds you watch the keyboard apparently hitting keys of its own accord. Like one of those old pianos that plays itself, the keys moving in that wonderful ghostly way.

One impact the iPhone has had on me (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is that I now find myself touching screens everywhere and expecting them to do something. Of course by and large they don't, which is disappointing. David Pogue had an article in the Times this week about screens that play images and music, but aren't touch sensitive. He points out that one of the screens he reviews looks as if it was originally designed to be touch sensitive. But it isn't. Either the market won't bear the cost, or the technology won't bear the burden.

Manufacturers of tablet sized computers still seem to be stuck with the choice between power and portability. So you have a rash of e-readers that aim to trickle out their power over a long time, and so have slow two-tone screens that can't be asked to do very much.

Add to that the absence of a standardized platform for e-books and you've created an unmanageable mess of choices for users.

Somewhere on the heels of the Kindle and Sony's e-reader, you'll soon have Plastic Logic's business e-reader (see demo): a reader that's aimed at people who like to print out documents before they read them. This may sound a little bizarre as a business proposition, but the reader does have a touch sensitive (if rather slow) screen. This alone puts it ahead of other readers. But how will people with Kindle accounts use it?

These are murky waters, but they are turbulent with activity and they will clear one day. I hope it's one day soon.