Tablets, Ultrabooks & Copying

There are a lot of devices not the market being branded as tablets and Ultrabooks, when in reality they are anything but. It's maddening to me, as I love both of those form factors, and they seem to get diluted with each new marketing strategy. This is how I define those two form factors:

Tablet Device

- Hand held mobile device weighing 1-2 lb. at most.

- 4:3 screen ratio, designed to be held in portrait (like digital paper), but works equally well in landscape. Android is something of an exception in this regard. Because it was designed to be viewed on a phone, it looks okay (depending on device) with a 16:10 ratio, even when held in portrait.

- Touch screen interface with no others required to access all features.

- Mobile operating system designed for tablet form factor, no mouse pointers or UI that would imply input other than touch. My preference is that the OS is as good at allowing the user to create media, as it is for consuming it. Productivity with equal parts fun.

- 10+ hours of battery life. Anything less doesn't match up with my usual work day.

Everything else is some sort of media consumption device, hybrid, or glorified e-reader.

As exciting as Microsoft's Surface device might be, it is not a tablet device. It's a somewhat baffling personal computer with a touch screen. I know Microsoft and everyone else is going to market the device otherwise, and it just doesn't sit right with me. Windows 8 RT running on the right hardware, might qualify as a tablet device, but I haven't held such a thing in my hand yet.

I hope the Surface is just a step in the right direction to a true Windows-based tablet device.

Ultrabooks

- Clamshell design mobile computing device weighing 2-3 lb. at most.

- 16:9 (or similar) screen ratio, to be viewed in landscape.

- Keyboard, Trackpad interface with no need to carry external mouse.

- Desktop operating system.

- Solid state drive storage.

(...although I am starting to see the merit of hybrid drives provided they don't add bulk to the device.)

- No optical drive.

- 7+ hours of battery life.

Everything else is some kind of personal computer.

There are a number of devices that will probably break my rules, succeed, and find consumers that crave their line-blurring form factors. The industry will probably call them tablets or Ultrabooks for the sake of marketing, but it still feels wrong. These unique form factors deserve names of their own.

It sounds like I'm just describing the iPad and the MacBook Air in my quantifications above. It's probably because those two devices have defined their respective form factors like no other. They are pretty much the standard against which all others are measured by tech sites, comment section trolls, and myself.

The year is half over and I haven't seen anything that comes close to making me want to relinquish my 2010 MBA or iPad (except the newer iPad). Windows 8 RT gives me hope that there might be a Windows Product worth buying again in the Ultrabook category, but no one is making a tablet worth buying right now. Props to Google for their Nexus 7 media consumption device, it looks really good.

I can't even look at the comments section of any tech website without marveling at the number of people pointing out how similar laptops, tablets, and similar are to Apple products... whether they are or not. Everyone from car makers to PC manufacturers has been copying each other since the inception of their respective industries. It is a practice that sits at the core of all human innovation, natural as breathing. Why this is so surprising to people or that they feel the need to point it out all the time is mysterious to me.

There are certain design truths whether you are crafting a commercial aircraft or a double decker ice cream cone. As the mobile computing industry settles on these truths they will come to resemble each other more and more over time as standards of creation are quietly adopted. It's just another sign that we are becoming a global community with a greater awareness of one another.

Washington Post Social Reader = Evil

For those of you who still insist on using the Washington Post Social Reader on Facebook as a means to consume news - I present the following for you to consider. Yes, things like this can end up in the newsfeed of your friends, family and coworkers who currently have you subscribed.

Friends don't let friends use the WPSR!

I submit that linking the article in your status update is dumb and messy because Facebook made it that way, but at least you are in control of what people subscribed to your feed see!

The Captains Of Finance

If any of the Captains of Finance are wondering why the OWS movement has gotten all sorts of traction and international attention... they need look no further than the Mayors and Governors playing into the OWS's hands. Bloomberg should have just thrown a press conference and had the NYPD beat the heck out of kid clutching an American flag. It would've been cheaper and had the same results. Like I needed more proof the world has lost its mind.

Reuter's take.

Amazon Fire Tablet

There is a ton of hype surrounding this new device. Then there's all the shameless headlines claiming this device will take on Apple's iPad just for page views. Finally you have what must be obviously a serious gamble on the part of Amazon releasing a $200 Android tablet at what is probably cost.

Does Amazon have the content to back up handing these things out for virtually no profit? I think they do and then some. The problem is that the media and tech blogosphere is being really quick to shove the little guy into the ring with the iPad. It'd be like watching a Ford Focus try to outrun a BMW 530d during a chase scene in a John Frankenheimer movie.

Maybe if Robert De Niro is in the Ford Focus, and he's packing a H&K MP5.

I don't see a lot of people holding an iPad in one hand and an Amazon Fire in the other and weighing the pros and cons of each item before making a purchase. They barely resemble each other in what they would and can be used for by both casual consumer and tech adept. Employing my previous comparison, I don't see someone who went in to buy a BMW 530d being talked into a Ford Focus instead, and vice versa.

There's some chatter that Amazon's Fire could unleash doom for it's more expensive Android brethren fighting for market share. Could a cheap device being handed out at cost for the purpose of distributing paid content wreck the ambitions of devices put on the market to provide that and dozens of other services in addition, just because it's cheaper?

The tech market is largely perception based. It is for this reason that companies don't release their sales figures unless they are pretty sure they're top of the heap. Just because a device doesn't sell well, there must be something wrong with it. Given the youthful nature of the mobile computing device market, it's not odd at all that it would all look like melodrama unfolding in a junior high hallway.

The analysts making the assertion that a $200 price point will give Amazon an edge in competing with Apple haven't been paying attention to the last 10 years of mobile computing. My first laptop in 1999 was $2500 for a 200mhz. Most of the people who buy and rely on mobile computing devices are used to paying a high premium for the privilege of bringing their computer with them wherever they go. Relative to what my iPad does for me on a day to day basis, the $700 I paid back a year and a half ago seems like a bargain.

Yes, it's easy to forget that I'm not the typical iPad user and that even the games loaded on my iPad are somewhat work related. I use it to create far more content than I consume, something the majority of people who use desktop computers at home probably can't say. I'd really like to bash Jeff Bezos (it'd be easy) for his snide comparisons made during the unveiling of the Fire tablet, but he isn't trying to sell one to a guy like me.

Diablo III Debacle?

Got some work done today but I couldn't help myself. I've been caught up in some serious anticipation waiting for a new Blizzard game called Diablo III. I loved the first two.

I'm a fan.

The first two games boasted free online play with other folks, single player offline play, whatever you wanted, on your own terms. You couldn't pay real money to level a character or upgrade your features. The first two Diablo games were so utterly bereft of the bullshit and industry shenanigans that they are enshrined on virtually every computer I own, even if I don't sit and play them for hours like I used to. I loved the mods people put out that let you mess with the game after you'd passed it seventeen times with each class.

Diablo III will have none of that from what I hear.

Online Play Only.

Cash for Item Marketplace.

No User Modifications.

I'm an angry guy right now anyway, and maybe some of how I feel is misplaced rage.