Why The Tablet Will Finally Be Steve Jobs’ “Computer For the Rest of Us”
By Leander Kahney (11:16 pm, Jan. 25, 2010)
Our old friend Farhad Manjoo has an insightful piece on Slate explaining why he hopes Apple’s tablet will be like a toaster.
Farhad hopes the tablet will have an iPhone-like operating system (as we’ve mentioned here before) that offers a somewhat restricted, locked down computing experience like the iPhone. That is, he hopes Apple has removed all the complexity of using and maintaining a traditional personal computer.
“The most revolutionary thing about Apple’s phone wasn’t its sleek case or the multitouch gestures, but the artful way in which it hid nearly every bit of complexity behind a display of easy-to-understand icons. The iPhone contains no visible “directory structure.” Your music is not in a particular place on your phone; it’s just on your phone, and you get to it by launching the music player. Other than charging it, the iPhone requires no maintenance. Backups and OS upgrades occur automatically, and because all programs are approved by Apple (and because even third-party programmers aren’t given deep access to the phone), you never have to worry about malware. And look how easy it is to install a program: Choose one from the store, press “Install,” and type in your password to authorize the purchase—and that’s it. The iPhone doesn’t ask you where you want to put the new program, or how you’d like to launch it, and whether you’d like it to be the default program for doing a particular kind of task. It just puts up a little icon on the screen. To run the program, click the icon. To do something else, hit the home button.”
I think Farhad has put his finger on the most important feature of the tablet. It’s not designed for nerds, like traditional PCs (even the Mac) but for ordinary consumers who have no interest whatsoever in learning how to use a computer.
If you can get your noodle around it, it’s an astonishing thought. Steve Jobs is attempting to reinvent computing again, but to do it right this time.
The tablet will usher in a new era of consumer-level computing that will be utterly different to computing in the past. Instead of mice and keyboards, there’ll be a new generation of software designed for fingers and voice. It’ll be a lot easier to use (see all those videos of toddlers using iPhones), and a lot easier to maintain. Thanks to Apple’s controls over app installation, it’ll be largely free of the viruses, driver issues and tech-support headaches of traditional PCs. Of course, we’ll sacrifice some freedom to tinker for all this — but who cares? (Our own Leigh McMullen for one. See his “My Tablet Won’t be Running any Silly Phone OS.”)
No wonder Steve Jobs is so excited about the tablet. All the way back to the Apple II in the late 1970s, his earliest ambition was always to make computers accessible to mere mortals — to make the computers “for the rest of us.” It’s the realization of his earliest dreams.
Posted by Leander Kahney in Apple, Apple Tablet, News, Opinions, Steve Jobs | Comment on this article
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Awesome and insightful. You know I hadn’t really thought about it like this before, but you (and Farhad) are absolutely right. Who cares about file types as long as what I want will play? Stacks, Docks, Folders… these are last century. If Apple isn’t doing this, then maybe they should look into it for the next few years. Less computer=more magic. Maybe even my awesome Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard will start to look like DOS to me. Who needs to see all this garbage? I get there’s a place for it, when I’m doing my real work. I’m an Art Director and sometimes I have to use Illustrator, then bring the file into Photoshop, then take it somewhere else… etc. But the rest of the time, we’ve turned into consumers. Give me the website I want. Play me that song I like. Run this specific app. Who needs a desktop that needs cleaning up or file extensions?! Yuck!! Thanks for this article and possibly making computers exciting again. I hope Apple is thinking like you guys are thinking.
MisterK, on January 26th, 2010 at 12:01 am
While I do think there’s a lot of value in the iPhone paradigm, I hope that the tablet will allow users to make the choice for it to be open or not, without having to use unsupported and waranty-voiding techniques in order to do so. I also think third-party developers want to make the decision about how they distribute their software.
Scott, on January 26th, 2010 at 12:07 am
Scot, we’re talking about Apple and Steve Jobs here (then again, they are one and the same, aren’t they). I don’t think those two names and ‘open’ go very well in a sentance.
Tyler, on January 26th, 2010 at 12:20 am
“If you can get your noodle around it, it’s an astonishing thought. Steve Jobs is attempting to reinvent computing again, but to do it right this time.”
Astonishing – completely agree. Nice catch by Farhad, and you Leander. Considering the number of Apple related posts I read in a day, I’m baffled I have never seen this pointed out in this way. The simplification could also apply to the development side, as the iPhone SDK has also simplified development and turned a much broader swath of people into potential contributors of software. And yes, the device introduced tomorrow will no doubt continue this trend. It is revolutionary if you think about it, even though the process has been incremental. Incredible to think about how many obstacles Job’s had to overcome and how many years he has devoted to making this technology happen.
Joseph, on January 26th, 2010 at 1:09 am
@Tyler, I realize that Apple (Steve) like to maintain as much control as possible, but Apple isn’t run by morons. There are advantages to open platforms (it may be a requirement for certain industries for example), and I can see them offering a consumer level (closed) and a pro level (open) option as a possible strategy for keeping both camps happy.
I could also see them locking the thing down completely, or opening it up like OS X. It’s all just speculation until Wednesday.
Scott, on January 26th, 2010 at 4:20 am
Whether this is a good idea or not depends on how people are expecting to use a tablet device: as a ‘portal tool’ or as a ‘work tool’.
If it’s a portal tool, they’ll want to use it to browse websites, play music, read magazines and books, watch movies, and maybe write and read notes and emails. In this case, the actual machine interface needs to be – as has been said above – simple to point of almost completely invisibility. No need for directories, terminals, and all the ‘interface noise’ that we’re used to dealing with.
On the other hand, if people expect to be able to use a tablet as a tool for, say, coding, or making artwork or designs that use many applications (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, etc.) then they’re obviously going to need to use directories, and all the other bells and whistles that are associated with entire ‘projects’, where lots of different files are kept together for shuffling off to print bureaus, etc.
I think the tablet will be very much in the former camp: a window onto a digital consumer world, and that therefore Apple will make the interface extremely simple, like the iPhone.
But it won’t be more than a week or two until someone hacks it to make it the way they – and possibly you (and definitely me) – want it. ‘Open’ is in the hands of the people, whatever a particular company wants.
Gray, on January 26th, 2010 at 4:43 am
This certainly makes sense to me, tablets have been done many times before and simply never take off because they are not suited well a full OS experience for most users.
Ryan, on January 26th, 2010 at 6:34 am
“Who cares about file types as long as what I want will play?”
It is ironic that you should use this example, given that the iPhone has such poor codec support. Much of the time, the file does NOT play, and needs to be transcoded.
And to add insult to injury, there’s no way to install your needed codecs. If you do everything Apple’s way, it just works. But for the rest of us, it is an infuriatingly limited platform which requires special treatment. I hope the tablet does not lock us into the same limited paradigm.
iGenius, on January 26th, 2010 at 8:31 am
This is the best article I’ve seen on the upcoming Apple tablet that I’ve read. Indeed, why not a tablet for the non-geek masses, something mom & dad, gandma & grampa could easily use. The iphone & ipod touch have changed a lot of computing ideas, so I’m sure Steve has simpler, better, ideas up his sleeve. I can’t wait to hear the announcement.
Ictus75, on January 26th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Ok, so maybe Jobs wants to add a layer of abstraction to computing to non-techies can have an easier time with computers. That’s all fine and good, but why do it with this difficult to use form factor? I honestly don’t see how to ergonomically use a tablet. Laptop form factor has has staying power for a reason.
Kyle, on January 26th, 2010 at 11:18 am
Now that I think about it, I think the iPad’ll not just be a tablet computer.
It’ll be a “New Thing”.
Like the iPod.
Yes, I know there are “Digital JukeBoxes” before the iPod, but I mean a different “New Thing” in that just as the iPod isn’t just a musicplayer, the iPad’ll be not be just a computer in the tablet form factor but this …. thing” that *everyone’ll* wanna have & will be one of those things that, as the cliche goes, you can’t think about how you lived without this ….
It’ll be a videopad/”music experiencer”/game machine/news aggregator/eBook/magazine holder.
Tomorrow cannot come fast enough.
CaryMG, on January 26th, 2010 at 11:59 am