Steve Jobs, Before the iPad, On Why Tablets Suck 279
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Edible Apple: "Apple didn't release the first tablet computer or even come up with the idea for tablet computing itself. If anything, Microsoft, and Bill Gates in particular, were championing tablet computers years before the iPad was released. In this video clip from the first All Things D conference in 2003, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs explains to Walt Mossberg why Apple, at the time, wasn't keen on tablets and more specifically, why Jobs felt that stylus computing and handwriting recognition were inherent failures."
Yeah well... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was before he accidentally stumbled into the goldmine that was iOS (remember he didn't want to allow any apps at all at first) and his earlier arguments were made moot by a tsunami of cash.
This is news how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither feature was included with the iPad, So.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess this shows you how clear and consistent Steve Jobs' vision has been on this topic?
Re:And they were (Score:5, Insightful)
He lacked vision (Score:5, Insightful)
he's right about handwriting, and keyboards, and email
but email wasn't the killer app
the phone was. when Apple skipped tablets and turned phones into computers (i mean, when it decided Palm's ideas could be slightly improved and packaged in boner-inducing ways), it dived right in.
and email started to decline and texting grew. because texting is just email you can tolerate to write at 2 cps, and was already on phones.
and, interestingly, phone calls have died as well. because the phone-computer idea wasn't about calling people, it was about having that whole package of computing and connectivity in one pocket instead of two or three.
then, once the small-form-factor touchscreen interface device got popular, it was a natural transform to pull on its edges to make it, simply, a bigger version of the same thing. hence we're back to tablets. which aren't notebooks without keyboards; they're smartphones with extra spatial extent.
and i doubt that jobs saw this coming in 2003. all he saw was that tabletized notebooks were bollocks. which they were.
Apple enlarged a cellphone; MSFT shrunk a PC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And they were (Score:4, Insightful)
MS hardly the first. GRiDpad, GO, even Wang Labs (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft doesn't deserve much credit, either. Microsoft was thought to be late to the tablet party. Conceptually, the credit should go to Alan Kay for the "Dynabook." The 1989 GRiDpad was the first real product, and there was an immense amount of buzz around GO! Computing's 1992 PenPoint. Microsoft really just genned up "Windows for Pen Computing" as a sort of me-too response to PenPoint. Wang Labs had something called "Guide" (after the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) which got lost in the collapse of the company; the people working on it went on to found a company called, if memory serves me, Arthur Dent, but I don't know what happened to it.
Apple deserves credit for the iPad in much the same way as it deserves credit for the GUI... and Edison deserves credit for the electric light, and the Wright Brothers deserve credit for the airplane. None of them really "invented" these things, none of them were really the first, and most of the technology was in the air waiting to be commercialized. But in each case they were the first to make it to market with something that didn't suck--with a finished, usable, "perfected"--to use an old-fashioned word--product.
Didn't really contradict himself (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft and Gates' vision of tablet computing back then was a full desktop operating system with a stylus and handwriting recognition.
Steve Jobs pointed out in 2003 that even done very, very well, handwriting recognition still sucks.
The iPhone, a mini tablet released in 2007, had an operating system built ground up with a touch interface (no stylus), and when it came to text input it popped up an on-screen keyboard (no handwriting recognition).
The article closes with Jobs acknowledging that tablets would be good for reading articles (I saw a project on hack-a-day where someone built an iPad bracket into their kitchen so they could read recipes), and joking that tablets are a niche market.
Microsoft's tablet efforts in 2003 were worse than niche market, they were failures. Apple blew the market wide open by not following the same path.
Re:that guy should play poker (Score:2, Insightful)
Be fair. It's not because Apple magically did something nobody else had thought of to make tablets suddenly the bee's knees. Tablets still aren't that great (although I've got a 2nd-hand nook color I rooted and enjoy fooling around with). The ipad succeeded because... drumroll... it was made by Apple.
I am fully of the opinion that right now, Apple could announce today a slick white electronic toothpick for $300, and there'd be lines outside apple stores nationwide tomorrow morning demanding the new iPic. Apple can do no wrong as far as their fans are concerned.
No, succeeded because it worked well and was cheap (Score:2, Insightful)
The ipad succeeded because... drumroll... it was made by Apple.
I guess you don't remember all of the people who claimed it would fail. There was no expectation of success, there was not a huge consumer rush for it initially.
The reason it took off was because it actually worked as well as they said it would, they shipped with something like 3k apps (and remember each and every one of those apps was only ever tested on the iPad simulator!!!) and it was HALF the price everyone (well, except for me, I called the price) was expecting.
Apple could announce today a slick white electronic toothpick for $300, and there'd be lines outside apple stores nationwide tomorrow morning
Apple Cube. Apple TV. DENIED.