It's nice to have a variety of options for interfacing with the computer, but is the tablet PC really going to find its place?
The tablet PC is really going to have to prove its mettle to outdo some of the latest smaller handheld devices.
I'll tell you one thing: the technological revolution has really turned us into sticklers for perfection. What happened to the days when a 90 on a test was a pretty good result? Ninety percent? Ha! These days, you've got to be talking five nines (99.999) before you even get to put your .02 dollars into a discussion of high availability. And even that might not be good enough.
Data input is another area where near-100 percent precision just doesn't seem to cut it. With OCR scanning software, better than 95 percent accuracy seems like pretty good performance . . . until you have to actually go through and correct that small (but usually difficult to find) percentage of errors.
Voice-recognition software might be able to learn your speech patterns in order to reach higher accuracy, but I found the training readings required for this a bit off-putting (though perhaps not as off-putting as those in the office who found it necessary to gather behind me, shaking their heads, as I repeated words and phrases over and over to the computer: happy . . . happy . . . happy!). And even when it reaches top performance, the translation to text process can come up with some pretty interesting errors.
Now, though PDAers have been keeping the fires burning, we are about to relive the joys of coping with handwriting recognition through the next generation of Tablet PCs and pen-based computing. So far the jury still seems to be out on this next round of devices. Some reviewers have found Microsoft's Tablet PC operating system to be fairly good at converting natural handwriting to text, while others have been left exasperated. Those in the latter group discovered that they could get much better results if they learned to change their writing style so the machine could better intrepret their handwriting, but since the OS doesn't -learn" in the way that voice recognition systems do, this was their only option.
Where the system seems to shine is in its handling of digital inkâ€"pages of handwritten diagrams, doodles, and characters that can be saved, searched, and filed for reference.
So what does that make the Tablet PC? Pen-based computing might offer interesting alternatives, but the device isn't a replacement for the notebook computer, or even the desktop, for entering large amounts of data. There are so many instances when keyboard entry of data is simply the best choice (just look at the growth of the collapsible keyboard market fueled by all those PDAs). These days, on the other hand, pure data entry is simply not the driving force it once was for those using computing devices. Just think of all the pointing, clicking, and selecting you do with your applications.
The most obvious industries that might benefit from the Tablet PC form factor are mobile salesforces and those making use of vertical applications (except of course doctors, whose handwriting would make the unit impossible to use).
But in these areas, the Tablet is really going to have to prove its mettle to outdo some of the latest smaller handheld devices such as the iPaq Pocket PC.
I've seen some reviewers who claim the Tablet PC will be a great device for Web surfing at home. I find this a little hard to believeâ€"and so did those who responded to a ZDNet survey on the expected role of the device. Only 13 percent saw a place for the Tablet PC in the home (23 percent thought it would meet the same fate as previous attempts; 26 percent thought it might make a good notebook/desktop replacement; and 38 percent went for the vertical market applications).
I know Tablet PC makers would love it if pen-based computing turned out to be the killer app that would make the form factor a must-have, but I have a feeling that those who fall in love with the Tablet PC will do so more for its mobile computing capabilities.
So to be a success in this age of targeted marketing, here are the qualities of the customer I believe Tablet PC manufacturers should be actively searching out: is 25 to 30 years old (gadget freaks); is in sales for the healthcare or in a shipping and delivery industry; and, of course, has good penmanship.
Brian Haverty is Editor-in-Chief of Technology & Business.
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It's the good penmanship requirement that will kill the tablet PC.
More and more people have better typing skills than handwriting skills, and the maximum typing speed is massively better than the maximum handwriting speed.
If you've got room for a decent-sized tablet, there's room for a keyboard.