Thumbs Down for the Finger as Input Device

To facilitate enterprise use, I strongly believe that a mobile device needs stylus support, so I suggest waiting to see what 2011 brings. Don’t get me wrong. I’m very fond of both my Apple iPad and my NookColor (Android), and find touchscreens addictive. But for some mobile tasks, using a stylus is much more productive than a finger. As a long-time fan of Palm’s Vx PDA and the Treo 650, I found the stylus very useful. On the other hand, I’m not so enamored of the Palm Pre Plus due to the small screen and lack of a stylus. I find the device hard to use for my fingers, unfortunately making it a non-productive device at least for me. Now imagine having to either enter a lot of data on a mobile app, or select from a large number of options. Certain professions require this. Now imagine doing it every day. For example, when a colleague asked me to create two medical diagnostics apps for the iPhone and iPad for hospitals, I thought about how onerous these would be for daily use without a stylus. Another colleague discussed a simple image manipulation app for the iPhone, but if you’ve ever tried cropping a photo with your finger, you know how awkward that can get. Can you imagine the awkwardness of tasks such as signing digital documents, or worse, take notes with your finger? Note-taking, in my opinion, will become a very common activity on media tablets, if stylus support is included.

What’s Coming

It’s a fact that 2011 will bring a whole slew of media tablets for most or all of the top mobile operating systems, and stylus support would be nice for those who feel the finger is just not an accurate data input tool for the enterprise, or even for personal creative use. Never mind the fact that a stylus can have a finite number of predefined pressure or capacitive settings as necessary, unlike a finger. A stylus also doesn’t get tired like a finger, after hours of use, day in and day out. At the moment, there are a number of stylus makers out there. I’ve personally only researched them for the iPad. What I’ve found so far might suffice for simple uses, but I haven’t seen a for-iPad stylus yet that seems precise (pointy) enough for notetaking or drawing/ diagramming. An informal poll of tech-savvy people I know who have iPads or Android tablets suggests that they’d all like to use the devices for notetaking, and I don’t imagine that’d be much different for all the professionals being issued tablets by employers.

Thumbs Up for the Stylus as Productivity Accessory

As a productivity techniques evangelist, I’m a long-time fan of mind maps-based diagramming — something I just don’t relish doing with my finger on media tablet. But as soon as a viable stylus is available, I may never diagram or write on paper again. What’s missing, at least in the iPad arena, is a stylus sanctioned by Apple, unless I’ve taken a Rumpelstiltskin-like snooze and missed some important news. On the other hand, as mentioned in a recent All Things Digital article, a number of stylus makers are trying to persuade Android handset makers into supporting stylus-based touchscreen input. If Apple does not offer their own stylus solution with the next generation of iPads (rumored to be shipping in Feb 2011), or at least sanction a third-party stylus for the iPad before the end of H1 2011, Android tablets could potentially offer a huge advantage for enterprise use. As well, a stylus would open up the possibility of creative tasks on media tablets. For example, photo cropping or drawing, or the aforementioned mind mapping and diagramming. Combined with the popular Swype method of text input (over the virtual mobile keyboard), a stylus could be just the accessory to turn a media tablet from the expensive toy it’s sometimes perceived as, collectively, to a high-productivity tool. Expectations of Apple’s iPad outselling every other media tablet out there in 2011 may not come to pass if private and business users show that they want precision stylus support. So if you’re undecided about which media tablet to purchase, you might want to skip Xmas, skip Boxing Day sales and wait until Q1 or Q2 2011, to see if any of the upcoming mobile devices have serious stylus support. On the other hand, if you just want to play popular games such as Angry Birds or Infinity Blade, there’s something to be said for the addictive factor of using your fingers.

AT&T is giving some concession to keep the old unlimited iPad data plan — but the offered reason that very few people are using the full 5GB/month data cap doesn’t seem to hold water, especially with video calling coming. On the other hand, the claim that the new pricing will be more affordable for more people sounds like a spin on “we’re losing exclusivity soon, so we want to prevent financial bleeding before the fact by offering the lowest-priced data plans now.” Will Apple slap AT&T’s wrists over this ? Not sure, but by Monday, we should at least know what consumer electronics wonders Steve Jobs has in store for the rest of 2010, after Jobs’ keynote kicks off in the morning at WWDC.

Of course, it’s still fun to speculate until then, and now speculation is running towards multiple iPhone carriers in the USA, though not immediately. This is based on speculation about what Jobs meant at D8 this week when he said there might be an advantage to this, as well as other rumors that suggest AT&T’s exclusivity contract is coming to an end in Nov or thereabouts. This might be why AT&T has suddenly created several revenue stream opportunities for themselves around the iPhone and iPad, including specialized iPhone insurance, increased ETF (Early Termination Fee) rates, revised data plans that do not favor power users (i.e., probably most early adopters of the iPad), etc.

Other interesting tidbits out of D8: that the iPad concept predated the iPhone, and that the original project was called the Safari Pad. I guess the Newton was missed.

Looks as if AT&T doesn’t want too much bad publicity. Despite of one threat of a cease and desist to a blogger who wrote to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson [contact details] about the new iPhone/ iPad data pricing plans, they’re making some concessions. If you really really want the previously promised $30/month unlimited data plan for the iPad 3G, you can still get it, but with some conditions. If you don’t already have an iPad 3G, you have to order one before Jun 7th. When you get it, even if it’s after Jun 7th, you’ll be eligible to sign up for the original $30/mth data plan. Of course, if you already have the iPad 3G, you can get the data plan now, before Jun 7th.

So for some of us, that means we’ll have to race to order an iPad 3G. No word on whether any similar concession is available for the next iPhone, other than if you upgrade a current iPhone. (For example, as mentioned previously, I have an iPhone 3GS that I intend to keep, and thus my plan will stay at the 5GB/month cap. But I can upgrade my LG VU phone in August to a new iPhone. Unfortunately, I do not believe I’ll be able to get the 5GB/mth plan for that phone — which is a disappointment since my wife’s LG VU can be upgraded in October, and we were looking forward to video calling on the new iPhone. E.g., a feature that’ll eat up data.

Let’s look at some other stats. At an average of 1M units/month, they can easily top 8M units this year, beating out estimates of 5-7M units for 2010. The overall market for web-enabled tablet computing devices is estimated to hit over $8B by 2015, despite Retrevo’s study. Such contradictions often exist, and sometimes it’s a matter of creating the need or at least the desire. Apple managed it with iPods — I remember being part of a group of people that held out. I in fact never bought an iPod but both won a Shuffle and was given an iPod as a gift. The latter ceased to function after a year of heavy use; I’d fallen in love with it. Can Apple repeat their iPod success and make people fall in love with iPads, even when they don’t need them? (I believe so.)

Apple is already leading Android with  mobile devices in general. According to AdMob (which Google just purchased), iPhone OS-based devices are leading Android OS-based devices in the U.S. by more than a 2 to 1 ratio. Worldwide, the ratio is 3.5 to 1 in favor of iPhone OS. (With market advantages like this, is it any wonder that Apple stock price predictions for 2010 — made in Dec 2009 – Jan 2010 — suggest a $250-300 range?)

Whether Apple is maintaining any lead in the tablet market is hard to say without actually figures, given that tablet computer have existed for a while. Where Apple is lagging is with iPad-specific apps compared to iPhone-specific apps. Developers had to work with only a software simulator for the first round of apps accepted by Apple for the Apr 3, 2010, launch of the iPad. That probably hindered development significantly, and my own observation is that many such iPad-specific apps crash on occasion.

So if Apple can reboot the tablet computer market and create a demand, there’ll be room for loads more iPad-specific apps and maybe even 3rd-party peripheral devices. Whether or not that means the possibility of Windows-based tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 or Silverlight Web application plug-in for developing iPad/ iPhone apps remains to be seen. For now it seems it’s not the case, even with suggestions for Apple to be more open.

Now does HTC really want to fragment their potential market share like that? I mean, I use my iPad to check email and Facebook while I watch all the programs recorded on my DVR — multitasking. Does that mean I need a special man-version? What about all the women who want a tablet computer but not for social networking while watching TV? What version do they use? Doesn’t it make more sense to have a single tablet but with specialized configurable features? Or special cases in different colors and patterns? What compelling features will such a female-specific HTC tablet have that would persuade the numerous women I know who use netbooks to check Facebook while watching TV?

While competition is always a good thing, it seems to me that HTC’s approach is just fragmenting the mobile computing market a little too much. What do you think?

Trying to make sense of your mobile device and apps options? Want to discuss a mobile Web or native mobile app for your business or projects? Feel free to contact us to discuss your app or mobile campaign needs.

According to specs in Fortune, the XO-3 will be a 9-inch, Android-based tablet made by Marvell. It’ll have one or two cameras, Wi-Fi, and a multi-touch screen. It’ll also work with a plugin mouse and keyboard. Apparently it’ll be capable of playing HD video, too.

One of the benefits of this device is that it’ll be easier to support a variety of languages than was the case with the previous OLPC because of the physical keyboard. A virtual keyboard, on the other hand, can be switched, for example, to non-Latin characters on the fly.

The hardware is expected to cost $99 initially, but drop to $75 by 2011. Sounds pretty cheap, but at least one Asian manufacturer is planning Android-based tablet computers for $100-150, to be released by the second half of 2010.

Who knows? They might even have a similar deal as with the old OLPC, where you could buy two devices for a fairly reasonable price — by N. American standards — and one device would be given as a gift to a student in a developing country. If they manage the $75 price tag, I’m looking forward to getting a couple of these for my twin nieces — who were addicted to my iPad within minutes of trying it — as well as maybe contributing some.

I’d have to agree with the portability. I gave my wife an HP netbook to supplement her older MacBook 15″ and she loves it, despite that it’s not a Mac. If she’s on the go, she tends to favor the netbook because it slips easily into her handbag. It also has 3G Internet, whereas if she took the Mac, she’d need to find a wireless network to get online — which makes up the bulk of the work she does on a computer.

On the other hand, I favor my iPad, despite that it’s a WiFi-only model. But one is not a replacement for the other. Using an iPad is an experience that’s hard to describe. You have to try it to understand; don’t listen to people who put the iPad down without actually trying it. I was skeptical because its touchscreen-based computing has some limitations that a netbook does not, which is why the two types of devices are not interchangeable. What an iPad offers is a wholly different experience.

Still, despite the survey results, netbook sales are down and, in comparison, iPad production could increase from its current rate of 1-1.5M units/month to 2.5M units/m. So maybe what the survey failed to ask was how many people who intended to buy an iPad bought a netbook?

Update: After posting this, I found the Retrevo survey summary link, and it appears that they did ask people whether they were leaning towards a netbook or iPad, and nearly 80% said the latter.