Personal View: Robert Scoble
As the world awaits the impending Apple tablet, gadget enthusiasts are wondering what exactly it will be used for. Is it a gaming device? An e-reader? A video player? We’ve asked some people in the tech world what they would want from an Apple tablet, and the answers might surprise you.
“I was a tablet evangelist back in 2003 and that’s how I got my job at Microsoft – I sold tablets for NEC and back then we had a quarter-inch thick 10.5-inch [screen] tablet. So tablets aren’t anything new, that’s what a lot of people forget that they’ve been around a while.
To me it comes down to two things: one, can he show off a really integrated home, in other words, can he show why this is important to have in front of a TV. I have my big-screen TV, I have a laptop and I have an iPhone, why do I need another device in my life and what will that let me do that is hard to do or uncomfortable to do on either the iPhone or on the laptop? I think if you have an integrated remote control with an integrated TV and TV guide, with an Apple TV that lets me sling videos from YouTube over to my big TV that would be interesting, if he could make it that integrated.
The other part is textbooks or magazines. Why do we need another book or magazine reader when we have Kindle. So can this new slate, can the software in it, augment books and let me put video and 3D animations into textbooks for instance. If Steve Jobs can do something that adds magic and augmentation and a new kind of entertainment then I think this will come up to some of the expectations that have been built up for this.
There are these new usage types that are cooking in labs and startups but nobody’s really put them together. That’s what I’m waiting for – we know a slate’s coming, we know it’s going to look like an iPhone, what is the magic inside that makes it an interesting product to consider.
I was in the front row at Steve Ballmer’s speech at [the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month] and he just didn’t get that. He fumbled with the tablet, the tablet to him was like another piece of hardware that’s running Windows 7 and Steve Jobs, I don’t think he’s going to do that. I expect him to show off something new and some new interaction that most people haven’t considered yet with the world.”
Robert Scoble is a well-known blogger and tech evangelist. He works for Rackspace.
Interview by Chris Nuttall
