Will Tablets Ever be Used for Productivity?

The iPad has proven to be another home run for Apple and shows no signs of slowing down. Apple has once again established a new market segment with their elegant design, and their competitors – Google and its hardware partners – are hard at work trying to compete.

Just like the original iPod and the iPhone, a big head start has translated into a huge market share lead for Apple. The problem for the competition isn't that there are no viable and attractive alternatives; It's that no one has managed to capture the simplicity and ease of use that Apple works into every one of their products. The end user can see no reason to spend the same or more for a product that doesn't have that wow factor.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have never been a huge fan of Apple because of their closed ecosystem, and as a result I've adopted Google's Android devices. In the tablet space however, I see no reason to consider an Android offering over the iPad. This is because the iPad, and tablets in general, are for consuming content. When it comes to getting things done, a tablet just won't suffice. For serious work, a computer simply cannot be beaten, and today's smart phones have enough functionality packed in to get plenty of work done on the go.

The tablet space wasn't created by Apple, it was merely perfected and brought into the mainstream. Seduction is what Apple does so well. Their recent success can be attributed to making well designed devices that consumers drool over.

Today, and in the near future, tablets will be used for specialized purposes but I cannot see them ever becoming that one device to replace them all. Ultimately, I see cloud computing and the ever-increasing capabilities of the smart phone to continue to hold tablets in their own special niche.

When it comes to reading a book or playing a game, you would be hard pressed to find a device better suited for the task than a tablet. Try to write a book or get some work done and see how far you get before you're reaching for the mouse again.