In an interview yesterday I was asked what problem an Apple Tablet was the solution to. “It’s obvious that the iPod solved the problem of digital music,” said the interviewer, “but what does the iSlate fix?”
I didn’t have a good answer then, but after sitting up all night reading an actual printed novel, I think I do now.
When the iPod launched in 2001 there were already devices that did what it could do, more or less. There were big, clunky MP3 players with hard drives that held just as many songs, and there were tiny flash players that held 50 songs and fit in your pocket. The problem of taking your music with you was already handled, people said. You want lots of songs, get a Nomad. You want portable, get a flash player.
The iPod did both. You could have the thousands of songs, but you could also have them in your pocket. It took all the benefits of the tiny flash drives, and added the space of the hard drive.
Today, if you want to read a lot of — for want of a better term — “digital text” (like a long web page, a newspaper site, a PDF, an eBook etc) without sitting at a computer, at a desk, your choices are either laptop or smartphone. (If there’s an eReader that’s ready for prime time, especially for web browsing, I haven’t seen it yet).
Digital text is in exactly the same position digital music was in 2000. The laptop is one of the hard drive players. To use a laptop, you have to keep it largely vertical, which means you have to be largely vertical, too. Sit up straight while you’re reading the paper. Even the smallest netbooks take up much more space than a paperback, because the keyboard and screen are at right angles, and force you into clearing a large cube to use them. Think about the difference between squeezing a 15″ laptop on to a tray table on a plane or a train and just holding a magazine. The screen is large, clear and sharp, though.
The iPhone, on the other hand, is like those flash players. For reading digital text it’s already ahead: I’m doing more reading on Instapaper than anything else these days. It’s just too small, really. It’s for your pocket, not your lounge chair.
There is a space in the middle, here. As publishing moves online, you want to be able to curl up with digital text just like you’d curl up with a book: in a chair, tea in one hand, book in the other. You want to read on trains and planes, lying on your side in bed, in coffee shops, over breakfast. But the laptop’s too big and too much hassle for that, and the iPhone’s too small.
This is the problem the tablet solves. It’s digital text with the tactility of a magazine.
It’s obvious to us now that the iPod solved a huge problem. At the time, it wasn’t. After the launch, the critical consensus was summed up by Slashdot’s verdict: “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame”. Sometimes you don’t know you have a problem until it goes away.