Pint-Sized Mobile Devices

photo credit: Mike Babcock

Lately I’m fascinated by the Dell Streak and am thinking it would be fun to get one. But really, what is the use case? Do tablets have a place in everyday life?

The tablet computer is an interesting device because it fills that no-man’s land between the phone and the computer, and has so much potential as a conveyor of meta experience to users of the other platforms.

The problem so far is no manufacturer has provided compelling reasons why we should be buying tablets and adding them into our routines. It’s almost as if everyone is blindly following Apple’s lead regardless of whether doing so makes sense. Now we have a flood of iPad-like devices, where the original iPad is, let’s be honest, interesting but not really useful.

My prediction: There is going to be a killer app for tablets and it is going to be immediately obvious to everyone why we need to use this medium. In the meantime, developers with mobile programming skill are going to be writing their own ticket - so learn how to build apps for Windows Phone, Android, iOS, or (to a lesser extent) WebOS.