Tabs - a fad?

Laptops, smartphones, tablets, better of all three….what is next? Who is the audience for tabs, and what is the need that this device serves?

To answer this, I believe moving a step back, and assessing “how in today's fast moving world the lifestyle has also been changing (even) at faster pace / interval, as compare to may be what it had been a decade back. Not long back, we had portable cassette players, CD players, mps3 players, iPod, smartphones with superlative audio quality...what it essentially means the innovation is driven through need, or influences the need to cannibalize the existing product”, would really help.

It is not a new phenomenon; however, may be we never paid / attached so much thought to it either. What it also means is that a company’s success or float can’t be dependent on existing product / service, rather it has to keep evolving, else be ready to face the extinction (the marketing is full of these idioms and illustrations). The things change, if you have the monopoly, or have created a monopoly kind of situation; otherwise, the strong forces of market are so ruthless that they show no mercy to the laggards.

Another known fact, conceding a ground to opponent, rest assured that it be fought tooth and nail, when it comes to regaining the lost ground.

With this backdrop, I personally feel tabs are for the people who like to surf, read, and need reasonable computing power to accomplish these and other computing needs. These are not technology savvy people (Ok; may be most of them), rather they are consumers, and demand experience. That is experience of elegance, branding, and usage at the same time. For them these are not three attributes or needs, rather it is only one need, “experience”. Well, may be that is why iPad was a runaway success, and leaving all others to catch-up with it.

So, what is in store post tab? Will it be a death of PC / laptop?

I personally believe that eventually, more or less, market would consolidate into smartphones and laptops (lighter, smarter and more powerful). The reason behind this understanding is the “smartness” of smartphones and the tasks that these devices have been carrying out. With powerful cameras, video conferences, mail, quality audio system, connectivity options, printing, gaming, ever increasing computing and storage power and of course, the basic functionality of calling, it is having all the “services” that you need from a device you want to keep “handy”, is portable and help you keep “connected”. With its pinch and gesture driven movement, it is easier to read (relatively) too, albeit maybe not for a longer period of time.

On the other hand when it comes to actual development, testing and release of applications / software, people need mobility and high computing devices with lot of connectivity options, which enables them to work for relatively longer hours with less strain. That is where you need laptops, as it provides exactly the same. Of course, the needs around long battery hours, and light weight are yet to be tackled effectively; nonetheless, the progressive products are inching closer to desired levels. Again, you will have categories within laptops; however, the basic traits will not change, i.e. need for power computing, extended working hours, bigger screen etc.

So, what is tab’s work? It is a product, which has traits of smartphone and “basic” laptop, to provide users a mobile experience. However, can those be used for serious software development, or can those be used as a replacement for your phone? Those had been and will always be “add-on”; if those survive the revolution in smartphones.

It always beats me as why do you need an 800$ device to read books? The reason being, all other needs can easily be (at some place even better) be served by your smartphone. This is not a device, which can replace your laptop either. Then why do you need it?

May be it is a device, which was a stop gap arrangement until your smartphones could serve those needs. I believe the time has come, where the “premium” tag to this category is no longer justifiable. At best it could serve as replacement for netbooks. That is, convenience / volume category, and not as “niche” market.

The reason behind my understanding is very simple, smartphone with an option of “physically expandable” screen is tablet. This trait is well known, and I’m sure many companies would have been researching to provide this flexibility with no compromise in “experience”. It is a matter of time, when we have that feature in smartphones, and at that time it would be the end of tablets, or at least those would recede into “netbooks”.

Of course, all of this with affordability, as you do not want to create another “satellite phone” kind of case study.