The Future of the Tablet, and It Isn’t the iPad 2

<i>This is why the Xoom is so intriguing. Motorola and Google are two companies that have proven their ability to see around the corner and they have made it much easier for developers to get applications to market than Apple has with the iPad.</i><p>Really, Motorola has proven their ability to see around the corner? What have they been successful with since the Razr? Seems like the Droid is a success much more due to the Android OS than anything related to Motorola's manufacturing of it.<p>Also not sure why anyone would lump Motorola in with Google as having "made it much easier for developers to get applications to market".<p>Besides, the innovative features that the author mentions the Kno having, like split-screen functionality or things for note-taking - who's to say future versions of iOS couldn't incorporate those? This doesn't need to be a winner take all, one-shot market.

Really? The future of the Table is 'more screens', and an added pen? I thought most people had finally learned that throwing more hardware at something doesn't necessarily improve the overall experience. Apple wins because they try to do more with <i>less</i> hardware.

Consider the tablet OSs competing with each other these days: iOS, Android, BBOS, Windows 7 and webOS. Out of those, only Android is built from the ground up to be customizable to any meaningful degree and I fully expect that within a year we'll see a dizzing array of tablet form factors with Android: 7" screens, 10" screens, dual screens, netbook-like clamshells, slide-out keyboards, thin glass slabs and who knows what else. A 10-12" Android clamshell is perfectly cable of replacing the majority of netbooks.<p>Expecting everybody to use the same identical glass slab is no different from expecting everybody to use the same phone, same TV or the same car model. It's not going to happen and Android is the only OS cable of the flexibility required to meet this demand.

"The future of the tablet" isn't bolting a second screen on it to mimic a physical methaphor - aka the book. As PG said, flexibility is key, not replicating existing technology with digital artifacts. Now, the Kno does some interesting things in software, but shackling that to two 14" displays sounds like a recipe for failure. (And it would barely make it through a day of class on that battery).

The Kno "...emphasizes the ability to take notes and seamlessly integrate your own thought with the information that you are reading."<p>That's a software thing, not a hardware thing. The iPad can certainly allow this kind of functionality in an app. The quoted statement sounds like it's celebrating purpose-built hardware rather than general purpose touch computing.<p>Having these features in every ebook reader would certainly be a benefit.

That’s the first thing I found after googling for Kno besides their website: <a href="http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110221/exclusive-kno-student-tablet-start-up-in-talks-to-sell-off-tablet-part-of-business/" rel="nofollow">http://kara.allthingsd.com/20110221/exclusive-kno-student-ta...</a>

PG said it best: <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/tablets.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/tablets.html</a>

Er dupe: (<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2304779" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2304779</a>)

As a form factor the future may look more like the Kindle than the iPad, Xoom, etc. The killer application for tablet size devices remains the reader and once their economics approaches that of pocket calculators (or MP3 players or digital cameras or other bulk produced electronics), the hardware cost will be competitive with paper in three ring binders.<p>The tablets based on the iPad model are akin to graphing calculators - there is sophisticated functionality added, but it doesn't really offer improved performance on the tasks for which most people require.

The FC EXPERT BLOGGER fails to distinguish between the hardware and software part of the tablet and is confused by it.<p>Moreover, he didn't explain why he thinks copying iPad is a doomed strategy.

Very poor article.<p>Claiming you can do truly multitasking because it has 2 displays is ridiculous, but that's not the biggest issue in my opinion. More of a problem is that whole vision of this tablet is made on old technologies presented in new form. Ooh, they also added pen!<p>Sort of like best use of radio, when it appeared as new media, would be reading newspapers.

I don't think I agree with that. Usage outside of what was mentioned is possible with the apps running on the tablet. Pens can already be bought as accessories.

The dual display is sorta neat, and makes me wonder if there's a way to link two iPads via Bluetooth to achieve the same effect?

tl;dr: