Glen Burchers, editor of the Smart Mobile Devices blog at Freescale Semiconductor, loves the touchscreen tablet model of smartbook. This is not only because Freescale developed an early i.MX-based tablet prototype, but because Burchers was an early customer of the iPad and became a True Believer, as evidenced in a recent post. During the month of May, Burchers’ blog is running a multipart series discussing the results of a study Freescale conducted with the Savannah (GA) College of Art and Design, examining how different age groups and demographics might use a touchscreen tablet, and how that might impact device design.
Over the May 22 weekend, I had my first extended test-drive of an iPad, and developed a definite crush over its features, though falling head over heels in love might be an overstatement. The iPad makes a great reader, but after a few minutes with Reuters and Financial Times, I wanted to spend my time with the Guitar Player and Puppet Pals apps. My experience made me accept most of the findings Freescale has published to date. But unlike Burchers, I don’t think touchscreens in general have been optimized for soft-keyboard or general text use yet. This could change in the next generation, to be sure.
In the college-age group, Freescale identified the e-reader as the top application, raising the question of how much iPad will replace Kindle or Nook. Moving up in the list is note-taking, though the spotty history of touchscreens and styluses makes me wonder if we are any further along in effective note-taking and handwriting recognition than in the days of GridPad and its ilk. The next two categories identified by Freescale, word processing and file transfer/Bluetooth, have overlapping interests and common problems. Simple synchronization of files with a smartphone or desktop is not the problem, it’s manipulation of files through text entry. Similarly, word processing requires a re-thinking of how a soft keyboard might work, something I’ll discuss below. Freescale’s final category for college-age users is entertainment, which is where we share observations with the young child user.
Freescale’s initial post on 12- to 14-year olds, and its May 17 follow-up post on the 8- to 10-year-old set, identifies common gaming use for all kids, though adolescents rank texting as high as gaming. Anyone who has watched the numerous videos of toddlers using iPads can testify that kids from age two to puberty are bowled over by a touchscreen. The Freescale post makes the interesting observation that most elementary-school kids use an iPod touch as a gaming platform, not a music player. It’s likely that, because of its greater ability to shift application orientation based on the physical orientation of the device (look at the Labyrinth game application), iPad will win even more young users as a premier gaming platform.
But here’s where we get back to current limitations. The Freescale post on young adults shows a prototype device (above photo) with slant display, featuring a soft keyboard. If this model allows for useful entry of large documents, the touchscreen will win the form factor game hands down. We’re not there yet. iPad’s toggling between alphabet and numeric-character keypads feels unnatural. This factor not only gets in the way of writing a long story, it even makes web access inconvenient if one wants to hand-enter a specific URL. My friend, a committed iPad lover, is as skeptical about this aspect as I am. He said the iPad “is the ultimate magical toy, but would I use this for serious work? No way! Keypad interfaces are way too klunky.”
We can anticipate that touchscreen technology will vastly improve for fine-grained user support. We may see voice-to-text applications get better, to the point where documents can be entered primarily by voice, with touch access limited to text-editing. Obviously, what Apple and other tablet developers hope is that if toddlers and young children are enamored with the touchscreen, all client devices outside of smartphones will die a slow and painful death as these kids grow up.
I agree with Burchers that the touchscreen model will dominate, and I certainly agree with Freescale’s headline for the series, “One Size Does Not Fit All.” But we need to see significant touchscreen technology improvements before the tablet is ready to dominate smartbook and netbook worlds. It will be interesting to see the remaining posts in Freescale’s intriguing series.
Loring
