2010 will see some interesting and useful developments in the tablet / e-book reader space. The concept of a thin, light, portable device with a decent screen size (i.e. a letter sized piece of paper) and long battery life to read things on – such as newspapers, magazines, books, the web – is quite compelling.
There are a few products on the market already – such as the Kindle. In my view the tipping point to widespread adoption will be colour screens that can render glossy magazine resolution, the ability to get web content via wifi rather than just over a cell network, and a low enough price point. At least that's what I'm holding out for.
To some extent this is vapourware – but there is a lot of activity and potential competition in this space. Consider:
Several Slaw articles have mentioned the Kindle and e-book readers like the Sony reader.
Another entrant announced within the last few days is the JooJoo, formerly known as the Crunchpad . This one is rather controversial. The story behind it (feuding developers) is as interesting as the product itself.
Of course there is the much anticipated Apple tablet - which many predict will appear some time in 2010.
Microsoft has shown a concept called the Courier.
And top that off with a publishers consortium that is working on digital publishing standards.
We've been playing with the Sony reader and the Kindle at my library, and I have to say that as much fun as they might be, another device to schlep around in my purse is not inspiring. And frankly, the i-Phone interface is more readable than the Sony touch e-book.
I suspect that in the next 3-4 years, we'll see the entire e-book market collapse in favour of a multi-tasker like the tablet or the e-reader/netbook.
As uninspiring as it is to carry another device – it's not so bad if it replaces a book or newspaper. (Holographic projection would be nice.)
And yes, I agree we are headed towards a tablet multi-tasker.