Are iPads and Tablets Just a Flash in the Pan?

It can't be denied that there has been a massive take-up of iPads, Android tablets and all the other similar devices, across the entire world. They have become the 'must have' gadget in many households and businesses, but are they really such a great tool? Apple started (or kick started) the whole tablet market, but a lot of Apple products are designed to look cool and to make the buyer feel cool about their purchase. Sure tablets do deliver on what is says on the box, but is that what we all really want, do we know what we want or are we just following the trend?

Personally I see several drawbacks with tablets:

• They are quite light and thin, but they are not truly portable like a mobile phone is, you can't put it in your pocket, so it's not much more practical than a small laptop.


• The keyboards are easy to use, but the surface is hard so it would not be much fun doing a lot of typing, although I am sure some people do.


• Being so thin also makes them fragile, an electronic mobile device really needs to be tough.


• Tablets are not really business products, sure people use them in business, and they are fine for email and accessing website and web apps, but you still be a need to use a computer for certain tasks.


• They are too large to use a cameras, or as mobile phones, which is not really their purpose, but do we really want multiple electronic devices that do the same thing?

I have seen a lot of people using them In their homes as a convenient way to access recipes websites while in the kitchen, TV guides and takeaways listings while sitting on the couch, or as a games consoles and portable movie players.

The way I see it, tablets have only a limited lifespan, and we will all be laughing about them a few years from now. I see truly portable devices the size if mobile phones taking over, not in their present form as the screens are too small, but possibly as devices that unfold in some way to give a large touch screen, but can be easily folded back down again into mobile phone format or smaller, maybe wrist watch size. Or as a 3D projector, where we can interact with the images like in the Iron man movie. A lot of this technology already exists so it's not that unbelievable. Or maybe none of this, and as Monty Python used to say 'and now for something completely different'.

Anyway that's my two cents.

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