35 thoughts on “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”
Never understood the tablet craze… It is basically a laptop without a keyboard… less useful. Mine is collecting dust… If i need to work on something portable I use a laptop.
10inch+ screens good for video watching, playing of games made for the format, music listening, maybe even book reading should your particular religion allow you the option.
Pushing it a bit you can add game controllers and external speakers. Much love to the emus that run on android and can utilize game controllers, every device that can play Zelda, old Pokemon roms and Prof Layton is a win in my house.
Add a keyboard, you are then, at least temporarily, creating a netbook/laptop.
And thus we find ourselves swinging out of the maarketing event horizon of a “Thing”. As all Things go , for those who are want to be moved by Things, we are in the hangover phase where in we are jizzed up to be ready for the next Thing.
Are you ready? (Cue fist pumpy hook riddled music bed over black friday crowd mayhem clips)
Meanwhile back on the ranch….
Chrome books have started taking over tablet use in my house. 3 of 4 occupants now use a chromebook on a daily basis. The tablets have been relegated to back pack status, ready for the times when out and about away from the chromebook or when pulling out a kybd would be awkward/against school rules.
Tablets are still the goto device for our Heathstone addictions and for the emu needs that are now more a requirement of devices than a sidenoted desire.
Even the two ongoing Raspi builds being worked on have now grown to include kybds as a permanent feature.
PS I tried to find a place of use for my old first gen asus netbook. It makes a great terminal for working on Rpis and Ardunios as well as shelling into other machines. Also ok for music streaming. My army of moded Chumbys gets more use.
My 2009 Asus netbook died a while ago, but even though most of my junk is still in storage I still have access to too much computing power. Smart phone, workstation, work laptop. I’ve bought a tablet for my nephew and he dropped it. I got it replaced with a netbook. I did consider the Surface 3 for myself for a brief period but it comes with godawful Windoze!
Note that this is a rate-of-change chart: it says that tablets in general are still selling at their peak historical volume, and iPads are selling just below their peak historical volume (still higher than two years ago). In other words, we’ve hit a mature market.
David Megginson yes but it’s a very quick to maturity curve by technology standards. Five years from introduction to maturity? That’s pretty damn fast.
Unless you’ve still got great vision — and that’s all downhill after age 20 or so for most of us — a phone that can be easily carried and held for use as a phone is too small for intensive viewing over long periods of time — that’s where tablets can usefully come into play. I know there are guys who have ways to carry phablets conveniently, but I’m one guy who doesn’t carry a purse.
Lauren Weinstein: I’ve never been a fan of the term “phablet”, but my (for me) comfortable-sized phones — first a Galaxy Note, and now a Nexus 6 — both fit easily into any of my pants pockets. In fact, even a Nexus 7 tablet fits into my back pocket. I suspect it just has to do with the fact that men’s pants are generally looser and have bigger pockets.
That doesn’t happen to me — it doesn’t feel any different than my wallet and keys. Remember — bigger pockets, looser pants. I often forget whether my phone’s in my pocket, and have to check.
As for pocket stuffing, aside from the obvious path of lewdness, I would point out that before this brave new world of smaller screens those of us of a certain age had books, comics, cards and other artifacts of our lifestyle stuffed in as many pockets as we could fill.
This was not a fashion but rather a facilitation.
Function and form.
The nexus 6 seems to me right out of the books I was stuffing in my pockets back in the earlier days of my musing.
Smaller than the Foundation Trilogy, able to hold more books and other items than I could ever have hoped to stuff in several pants, back packs and MTA cars and…and….able to connect to a global network of data stores such that I have at the ready a large chunk of the product of our specie’s making.
And still we bitch about it.
Kid watching Star Trek in the 70’s “Oh wow that tricorder is such the shit, oh brave new future I can not wait for ya to come about”
Adult in the 2010’s with a phablet “Oh dear lord the icons are the wrong shade of mauve and eeeek what is that font supposed to be….oh lord take it away take it away it is an assault on my senses”
Exactly, Tom Higgins — as you mention, paperback novels were originally designed to fit in men’s pockets or women’s handbags, to make them easy to carry onto the train or omnibus.
I have nothing against people’s fashion choices or ergonomic preferences: if a 6-inch screen is incompatible with the way you like to dress, or is too big for your hands, then by all means, buy a smaller phone. My sister, for example, has four children under 10, and never has more than one hand free — since her hands are relatively small (compared to mine), she couldn’t possibly work a 6-inch screen one-handed, and will always need a smaller device.
One of the great things about Android’s rise and shattering of the iOS monopoly is that it forced diversity onto the formerly one-size-must-fit-all dictatorship of the iPhone. Even Apple has been forced to release more than one screen size now. Let’s all live in peace, 3.5-inch screens, 6-inch screens, and everything in-between, and respect that people have legitimate reasons for choosing different form factors.
I hope we someday move away from an economy in which the cessation of exponential growth is viewed as a bad thing. Most everyone that wanted one now has one, they’re good at what they’re supposed to do, why buy another. It’s also why I find all the post-pc rhetoric to be rather silly (especially when you notice that post-pc is even more pc).
Exponential growth is a characteristic of all new product categories. Non-exponential growth after only five years is a pretty rapid saturation by any standard.
Again, think of this as a luxury sub-category rather than a fully-fledged new category: same OSs, same apps, same app stores, same sales channels, similar user experience, bigger screens, no telephony.
People consider a smartphone a need-to-have and a tablet a nice-to-have — especially in a global economic stagnation, I’m not surprised that people are prioritising acquiring/upgrading phones over acquiring/upgrading tablets.
Optional luxury items don’t follow the same demand curve as staple items. When I was in Guinea (one of the world’s poorest countries) in July, I saw smartphones everywhere, but not a single tablet (aside from my own), even within the international aid community.
It seems an ideal will be to have whatever size screen you want with whatever features you want. The cloud is evolving to make data portable across devices, but the current annoying glitch is there is some stuff we don’t want to be portable, but all the companies are trying to vacuum it up and get us to adopt their ecosystem.
Clouds bring rain…rain and spiders crawling out of red velvet cupcakes. All hail the glow cloud.
Srsly, we are talking as if the ecomomy is not based on the same biz model as heroin. Hook em, ramp em up, let them drop cause a fresh batch is always stepping off the bus. Price control is as rigged as you can bend it. The real force multiplier is shades of need. Need to belong, need to feed the hole….country simple it is junk need.
John Hardy Developer 
Never understood the tablet craze… It is basically a laptop without a keyboard… less useful. Mine is collecting dust… If i need to work on something portable I use a laptop.
LikeLike
Tablets are ok, but once you go Phablet, you never go back 🙂
LikeLike
We used a tablet for watching videos during breakfast (CNN Student News, stuff like that), at least until we got a netbook.
LikeLike
Tablets are great for consumption.
10inch+ screens good for video watching, playing of games made for the format, music listening, maybe even book reading should your particular religion allow you the option.
Pushing it a bit you can add game controllers and external speakers. Much love to the emus that run on android and can utilize game controllers, every device that can play Zelda, old Pokemon roms and Prof Layton is a win in my house.
Add a keyboard, you are then, at least temporarily, creating a netbook/laptop.
And thus we find ourselves swinging out of the maarketing event horizon of a “Thing”. As all Things go , for those who are want to be moved by Things, we are in the hangover phase where in we are jizzed up to be ready for the next Thing.
Are you ready? (Cue fist pumpy hook riddled music bed over black friday crowd mayhem clips)
Meanwhile back on the ranch….
Chrome books have started taking over tablet use in my house. 3 of 4 occupants now use a chromebook on a daily basis. The tablets have been relegated to back pack status, ready for the times when out and about away from the chromebook or when pulling out a kybd would be awkward/against school rules.
Tablets are still the goto device for our Heathstone addictions and for the emu needs that are now more a requirement of devices than a sidenoted desire.
Even the two ongoing Raspi builds being worked on have now grown to include kybds as a permanent feature.
PS I tried to find a place of use for my old first gen asus netbook. It makes a great terminal for working on Rpis and Ardunios as well as shelling into other machines. Also ok for music streaming. My army of moded Chumbys gets more use.
LikeLike
Knitting patterns. I didn’t understand what use tablets could possibly have until I realised they were perfect for reading knitting patterns.
LikeLike
My 2009 Asus netbook died a while ago, but even though most of my junk is still in storage I still have access to too much computing power. Smart phone, workstation, work laptop. I’ve bought a tablet for my nephew and he dropped it. I got it replaced with a netbook. I did consider the Surface 3 for myself for a brief period but it comes with godawful Windoze!
LikeLike
Note that this is a rate-of-change chart: it says that tablets in general are still selling at their peak historical volume, and iPads are selling just below their peak historical volume (still higher than two years ago). In other words, we’ve hit a mature market.
LikeLike
Can’t wait for the patents to expire so I can innovate dat shit!
LikeLike
7“ tablet is my paperback novel with a side helping of internet. Except the internet keeps me from getting to that novel.
LikeLike
What is the best tablet in the iPad Mini’s form factor?
LikeLike
David Megginson yes but it’s a very quick to maturity curve by technology standards. Five years from introduction to maturity? That’s pretty damn fast.
LikeLike
Yes, but then, it was just a tweak on existing tech (bigger smartphone without voice calls) — not so much “the automobile” as “the station wagon”.
LikeLike
My old 2012 Nexus 7 is now only used to cast Plex, Netflix and Google Play Music to my chromecast, which it does really well.
LikeLike
The analogy Steve Jobs was: tablet=car, laptop=truck. Rather than stationwagon, I think motorcycle-with-sidecar.
LikeLike
Dwayne Wilkinson that’s a good use for it. An Android TV remote that nobody wants to use for anything else.
My Nexus 7 2012 is never very far from its charger.
LikeLike
John Hardy didn’t vote for Abbott mine neither. It sits on our AV unit and is on charge when not in use.
LikeLike
Unless you’ve still got great vision — and that’s all downhill after age 20 or so for most of us — a phone that can be easily carried and held for use as a phone is too small for intensive viewing over long periods of time — that’s where tablets can usefully come into play. I know there are guys who have ways to carry phablets conveniently, but I’m one guy who doesn’t carry a purse.
LikeLike
My go to phablet carry method…lanyard. When I am in the mood I use it much like FlavorFlav uses a clock.
LikeLike
Lauren Weinstein: I’ve never been a fan of the term “phablet”, but my (for me) comfortable-sized phones — first a Galaxy Note, and now a Nexus 6 — both fit easily into any of my pants pockets. In fact, even a Nexus 7 tablet fits into my back pocket. I suspect it just has to do with the fact that men’s pants are generally looser and have bigger pockets.
LikeLike
David Megginson Sure, if you like the effect of carrying a brick in your pocket when you sit down.
LikeLike
That doesn’t happen to me — it doesn’t feel any different than my wallet and keys. Remember — bigger pockets, looser pants. I often forget whether my phone’s in my pocket, and have to check.
LikeLike
David Megginson Personally I’ve never liked the loose, baggy pants look.
LikeLike
Lauren Weinstein — you’d probably like the appearance of a stocky, middle-aged guy in skinny jeans even less. 🙂
LikeLike
David Megginson The goal is to avoid going stocky in the first place.
LikeLike
Stefan Pahor I mostly use mine for reading books, & watching the occasional video.
LikeLike
7″ for books + chromecast remote, 8″ for casual surfing + emus.
LikeLike
As for pocket stuffing, aside from the obvious path of lewdness, I would point out that before this brave new world of smaller screens those of us of a certain age had books, comics, cards and other artifacts of our lifestyle stuffed in as many pockets as we could fill.
This was not a fashion but rather a facilitation.
Function and form.
The nexus 6 seems to me right out of the books I was stuffing in my pockets back in the earlier days of my musing.
Smaller than the Foundation Trilogy, able to hold more books and other items than I could ever have hoped to stuff in several pants, back packs and MTA cars and…and….able to connect to a global network of data stores such that I have at the ready a large chunk of the product of our specie’s making.
And still we bitch about it.
Kid watching Star Trek in the 70’s “Oh wow that tricorder is such the shit, oh brave new future I can not wait for ya to come about”
Adult in the 2010’s with a phablet “Oh dear lord the icons are the wrong shade of mauve and eeeek what is that font supposed to be….oh lord take it away take it away it is an assault on my senses”
Progress folks..progress.
LikeLike
Exactly, Tom Higgins — as you mention, paperback novels were originally designed to fit in men’s pockets or women’s handbags, to make them easy to carry onto the train or omnibus.
I have nothing against people’s fashion choices or ergonomic preferences: if a 6-inch screen is incompatible with the way you like to dress, or is too big for your hands, then by all means, buy a smaller phone. My sister, for example, has four children under 10, and never has more than one hand free — since her hands are relatively small (compared to mine), she couldn’t possibly work a 6-inch screen one-handed, and will always need a smaller device.
One of the great things about Android’s rise and shattering of the iOS monopoly is that it forced diversity onto the formerly one-size-must-fit-all dictatorship of the iPhone. Even Apple has been forced to release more than one screen size now. Let’s all live in peace, 3.5-inch screens, 6-inch screens, and everything in-between, and respect that people have legitimate reasons for choosing different form factors.
LikeLike
I hope we someday move away from an economy in which the cessation of exponential growth is viewed as a bad thing. Most everyone that wanted one now has one, they’re good at what they’re supposed to do, why buy another. It’s also why I find all the post-pc rhetoric to be rather silly (especially when you notice that post-pc is even more pc).
LikeLike
Bubble economics…I blame Walpole.
LikeLike
Exponential growth is a characteristic of all new product categories. Non-exponential growth after only five years is a pretty rapid saturation by any standard.
LikeLike
Again, think of this as a luxury sub-category rather than a fully-fledged new category: same OSs, same apps, same app stores, same sales channels, similar user experience, bigger screens, no telephony.
People consider a smartphone a need-to-have and a tablet a nice-to-have — especially in a global economic stagnation, I’m not surprised that people are prioritising acquiring/upgrading phones over acquiring/upgrading tablets.
Optional luxury items don’t follow the same demand curve as staple items. When I was in Guinea (one of the world’s poorest countries) in July, I saw smartphones everywhere, but not a single tablet (aside from my own), even within the international aid community.
LikeLike
John Hardy didn’t vote for Abbott Right, but it makes no sense that so many see its cessation as a problem is what I mean.
I’m making a side note; not criticizing your post.
LikeLike
It seems an ideal will be to have whatever size screen you want with whatever features you want. The cloud is evolving to make data portable across devices, but the current annoying glitch is there is some stuff we don’t want to be portable, but all the companies are trying to vacuum it up and get us to adopt their ecosystem.
LikeLike
Clouds bring rain…rain and spiders crawling out of red velvet cupcakes. All hail the glow cloud.
Srsly, we are talking as if the ecomomy is not based on the same biz model as heroin. Hook em, ramp em up, let them drop cause a fresh batch is always stepping off the bus. Price control is as rigged as you can bend it. The real force multiplier is shades of need. Need to belong, need to feed the hole….country simple it is junk need.
LikeLike