8 Things Tablets Still Can't Do
Have we really entered a post-PC world? The new Apple iPad and its tablet rivals still come up short on a few important measures.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook, at the March launch of the new iPad, opened his keynote by proclaiming that the "post-PC revolution" is upon us:
"When we're talking about the post-PC world, we're talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center of your digital world, but rather just a device. We're talking about a world where your new devices, the devices you use the most, need to be more portable, more personal, and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been."
CEO blather? Hardly. Considering the success of smartphones and tablets, Cook has a point. In 2011, Apple sold 172 million mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, and iPods, which made up 76% of the company's revenues.
Indeed, the iPad's stunning success has helped the tablet infiltrate the workplace--another chapter in the ongoing consumerization of IT saga--as people use their mobile devices for tasks previously reserved for desktop and laptop PCs.
So is it time to junk your PC for a post-PC device? Of course not--particularly if your daily chores require the type of heavy-lifting capabilities that PCs excel at, such as professional video editing or spreadsheet number-crunching.
The Observer's John Naughton, in a March 10 article entitled "Reports of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated," put the tablet in its proper place:
"One could, I suppose, try to write a book, edit a movie, or build a big spreadsheet model with it--just as one could, in principle, dig the garden with a teaspoon. But you'd be mad to try," Naughton wrote.
Apple's post-PC mantra has placed some PC vendors on the defensive--particularly the ones who are getting their hands handed to them in the mobile arena. In a recent email interview with Forbes, James Mouton, general manager of HP's personal computer global business unit, defended the PC's viability in today's gadget-crazed world:
"While the way people interact with information has changed, when the task at hand is content creation, business productivity or immersive gaming, to name a few, a PC is fundamental," Mouton wrote. "Fortune 1,000 companies and governments rely on PCs for their infrastructure backbone and security."
As our slideshow illustrates, security is just one area where tablets are lacking. If you need mega-storage on your primary computing device, enjoy first-person shooter games, want an easy way to read stacks of archived DVDs, or run power-hungry desktop programs, a slate simply won't cut it.
The new iPad may have a dazzling display, optional 4G LTE wireless, and a better rear-facing camera, but it's stuck with the same storage specs as the original model: 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB. And since there's no external storage slot, the only way to boost capacity is to buy a roomier iPad. Competing tablets are expandable, but they can't match the PC's cavernous capacities.
While iPad fans are waiting for a 128-GB model, many laptops feature 1-TB hard drives and desktops with 2-TB drives are commonplace. Sure, you could offload your tablet files to cloud services such as Apple's iCloud (and soon Microsoft SkyDrive for Windows 8 tablets), but local storage is best--particularly where Internet access is spotty.
Apple iOS password managers aren't as secure as their developers would like us to believe. ElcomSoft security researchers, speaking in March at Black Hat Europe in Amsterdam, discussed their study of 13 iOS password keepers, only one of which had strong cryptographic protections. Three free apps even stored their master passwords in unencrypted form on the iOS device, making it child's play to uncover the password, the researchers reported. And at the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco, two presentations focused on security weakness of mobile hardware and software--an issue that's delaying deployment of strong protections around mobile apps. (These aren't tablet-specific gripes, of course, but rather ones that apply to all mobile devices, including smartphones.)
Tablets are replacing PCs in many work environments, including factory floors, hospitals, and even restaurants. But the verdict is still out on the long-term health effects of using slates for extended periods. A 2011 medical study by Harvard and Microsoft shows that tablet usage has a greater impact on head and neck posture than conventional desktop and laptop PCs.
A one-pound computer may be easy to hold for 20 minutes, but carrying one for several hours is another story. Touchscreens raise ergonomic issues as well, particularly if the user keeps one arm in an elevated position for hours to tap the display. To be fair, keyboards and mice have long been linked to repetitive stress injuries, and are far from perfect.
Unfair? After all, the new iPad's Retina display and quad-core graphics make Apple's third-generation slate a fine platform for swiping games, including Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Apple's demo-fave, the Infinity Blade series. But the iPad's touch display can't match the options of a gamepad or keyboard, and slates aren't ideal for first-person shooters. Bottom line: FPS fans won't abandon the PC, Xbox 360, or Playstation 3 for the tablet anytime soon.
Yes, you can print from your tablet, but the process usually requires some sort of proprietary solution rather than the hardware-agnostic, cross-platform simplicity we've come to expect with PCs. Apple's AirPrint, for instance, allows wireless printing from the iPad to AirPrint-ready printers, including models from Canon, Epson, HP, and other vendors. On the Android side, there's a Wild West assortment of printing options, such as Flipdog Solutions' Easy Print app, which lets you print documents and email via Google Cloud Print. The industry needs to come together and simplify the mobile printing muddle, however.
Tablets have no moving parts, such as those prehistoric optical drives that will soon vanish from laptops too, thanks to the popularity of diskless (and disc-less) PCs like the MacBook Air and its Windows clone, the Ultrabook. That's all well and good--until you need to access a stack of DVD backups that you burned a few years back. Maybe you've archived important business files to Blu-ray too. Well, tablet fan, you better move those files to the cloud, because you can't insert a DVD in a tablet. Of course, you could always carry cumbersome gear, such as an external DVD drive and a cable or two, just in case you need them. But who wants to do that?
You can find scaled-down versions of powerful desktop applications--sorry, they're too brawny to be called "apps"--for tablets, including Adobe Photoshop Touch, Avid Studio, and Microsoft OneNote. Still, there's a serious "app gap" between PCs and slates.
What won't run natively on tablets? Desktop powerhouses such as Apple's Final Cut Pro and Microsoft Office (well, not yet, anyway), as well as custom enterprise programs written for Windows PCs. And upcoming Windows 8 tablets powered by ARM-based processors won't run legacy Windows software either. Indeed, the tablet's arrival in the workplace may cause major migraines for enterprises.
The new iPad has a dual-core CPU with quad-core graphics, 1 gig of RAM, and up to 64 GB of storage. Nice specs for a tablet, certainly, but positively ho-hum by desktop and laptop standards. Why should you care? Well, as tablets become more mainstream, you'll want to use them for more demanding apps beyond, say, Evernote. Tablet power will increase over time, of course, but will slates always be PC's weaker sibling? Reports of hotter-than-expected iPads suggest that heat dissipation may become a major issue as tablets get more powerful components.
The new iPad has a dual-core CPU with quad-core graphics, 1 gig of RAM, and up to 64 GB of storage. Nice specs for a tablet, certainly, but positively ho-hum by desktop and laptop standards. Why should you care? Well, as tablets become more mainstream, you'll want to use them for more demanding apps beyond, say, Evernote. Tablet power will increase over time, of course, but will slates always be PC's weaker sibling? Reports of hotter-than-expected iPads suggest that heat dissipation may become a major issue as tablets get more powerful components.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, at the March launch of the new iPad, opened his keynote by proclaiming that the "post-PC revolution" is upon us:
"When we're talking about the post-PC world, we're talking about a world where the PC is no longer the center of your digital world, but rather just a device. We're talking about a world where your new devices, the devices you use the most, need to be more portable, more personal, and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been."
CEO blather? Hardly. Considering the success of smartphones and tablets, Cook has a point. In 2011, Apple sold 172 million mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, and iPods, which made up 76% of the company's revenues.
Indeed, the iPad's stunning success has helped the tablet infiltrate the workplace--another chapter in the ongoing consumerization of IT saga--as people use their mobile devices for tasks previously reserved for desktop and laptop PCs.
So is it time to junk your PC for a post-PC device? Of course not--particularly if your daily chores require the type of heavy-lifting capabilities that PCs excel at, such as professional video editing or spreadsheet number-crunching.
The Observer's John Naughton, in a March 10 article entitled "Reports of the death of the PC are greatly exaggerated," put the tablet in its proper place:
"One could, I suppose, try to write a book, edit a movie, or build a big spreadsheet model with it--just as one could, in principle, dig the garden with a teaspoon. But you'd be mad to try," Naughton wrote.
Apple's post-PC mantra has placed some PC vendors on the defensive--particularly the ones who are getting their hands handed to them in the mobile arena. In a recent email interview with Forbes, James Mouton, general manager of HP's personal computer global business unit, defended the PC's viability in today's gadget-crazed world:
"While the way people interact with information has changed, when the task at hand is content creation, business productivity or immersive gaming, to name a few, a PC is fundamental," Mouton wrote. "Fortune 1,000 companies and governments rely on PCs for their infrastructure backbone and security."
As our slideshow illustrates, security is just one area where tablets are lacking. If you need mega-storage on your primary computing device, enjoy first-person shooter games, want an easy way to read stacks of archived DVDs, or run power-hungry desktop programs, a slate simply won't cut it.
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