There’s so much expectation and hype about the things the Apple tablet will include, but there’s one thing I want it to exclude: wires.
The iPhone and the iPod are wonderful devices, and can operate wirelessly for most of the time. But they still come with wires in the box. You still have to sync them to your computer with a wire; you still have to charge them up with a wire.
Like floppy drives when the iMac came out, wires are an ugly necessity of modern computing. And one thing I want the tablet to do is start the shift towards properly wireless computing, just as the iMac started the shift away from floppies and towards USB.
I’m a pretty average computer user. On my desk I have one computer, an external monitor, a printer, a couple of backup drives, an iPhone, a router, a keyboard and mouse, and a USB hub to connect it all into. The result is the photo at the top of this post. It’s a horrible mess.
I’m not expecting miracles. I don’t expect the tablet to banish wires overnight. It would be lovely, though, if it just pointed everyone else in the right direction.
I want to see a device that syncs everything wirelessly. Maybe that might require us to wait for OS X 10.7, maybe it might need us to buy a Mobile Me account.
And, less likely to happen I know, I want it to recharge wirelessly. That will mean two wires I don’t need to add to the spaghetti at the back of my desk. Perhaps in coming years there will be other devices that follow the same path. And perhaps, if I take the same photo 10 years from now, it’ll look a lot less crowded. I hope so.
