[colug-432] to get a tablet

[Rick Hornsby]

On Mar 11, 2012, at 14:43 , Scott Merrill wrote:

> On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM, Rick Troth <rmt at casita.net> wrote:
>> What do y'all think about tablets?
> 
> My dad, however, absolutely loves his iPad. He reads books, plays a
> ton of solitaire, occasionally checks email, and regularly Skypes with
> my sister. For his activities, a tablet is a much better device than a
> laptop: no mucking about with an operating system, or anti-virus
> software, or glitches that make him call me to ask "how do I fix
> this?"

I really like my iPad although I don't use it as much as I'd hope I might.  Mostly I've been using it for surfing, watching netflix, or using the SD card adapter to look through the photos I just shot with my DSLR.

I have to concur with what several others have already said.  Tablets are (currently, at least) designed for consuming content, not creating it.  Other than my Kindle DX, I don't have much experience beyond my iPad.  There are two main issues I see with content creation.

The first is the device-is-the-application paradigm (one application at a time, full screen) doesn't really work well when you're used to being able to do more than one thing at a time like easily move bits of content between Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere or google for a manpage, and have your terminal on screen next to it.

The second, Bill mentioned already - the input methods on tablets are cumbersome.  Keyboards with actual buttons are old school and have been around since the dawn of computing, yes.  But they've stuck around because they work.  I've tried to get used to the on-screen keyboard for the iPad, and I've gotten better at using it.  As I sit here typing out this email on my macbook, I am noticing that part of how I know where my fingers are without looking at the keyboard is the tactile feedback from the tiny ridges on the F and J keys, as well as being able to feel the edges of the keys themselves.

-rick