A main difference between the two
types of technology is the keyboard, which allows longer pieces to be written
on laptops and desktops.
From Phones review |
Smart phone sales outpace those of
tablets, laptops and desktops, and that trend is expected to continue into the
near future.
New research done by Canalys found that, for the first time, in 2011 more smart phones were
shipped than personal computers (including laptops, desktops, and tablets). The
report was that 488 million smart phones were shipped, compared with 415
million PCs. These results are expected based on the fact that much of the
globe has yet to join the web, but many of these places are using cell phones.
“Many people, especially in the developing world, have ‘leapfrogged’ the wired internet
and the desktop computer,” Jurgenson says. “[They’ve] moved straight into
mobile devices as their first entryway into the internet.” The belief is that
if and when the two-thirds of the world that is not on the internet start using
the web, it will be through mobile devices and not through traditional laptop
computers or desktop computers.
Mobile devices, though, do not lend
themselves very well to creation or production of books, long articles, or
computer programs, or the editing of audio and video.
Even though handheld devices can do
so much and are so convenient for us, there are still some obvious benefits to
sticking with computers to do complicated tasks. For example, tablets are able
to shoot videos pretty well, and the quality of the videos is not too much
worse than that of a video camera. Obviously, there is a decline in quality but
not enough to make shooting video on a tablet worthless. But as for editing
videos and editing audio clips, the iPad doesn’t have nearly the capabilities
that a laptop has.
In the same way, software developers
and computer programmers would never be able to do all of the writing and
testing of code with the same effectiveness on a phone or even a tablet as on a
computer. For these tasks, people like to have the control that computers
offer, not the convenience of handheld devices.
For these reasons, it
will take time for mobile technology to fully surpass traditional devices for
every task; tablet producers will definitely have to think about how they can make
it easier for users to type for a long period of time or write and test a long
program. The Microsoft Surface seems like a good start, as it provides not only
the convenience of a tablet, but also the vast capabilities of a laptop when
the user needs it.
If Apple comes out with a product
similar to the Surface, and I do not see why they wouldn’t, it would further
this merging of different technologies that Jurgenson and Bederson pointed out.
Companies will always be trying to create better devices, but for the next
couple of years at least, a blend between the laptop and tablet could be the
direction in which much of the world decides to move.
With these new blended technologies, some experts are predicting that
tablet sales will outnumber those of traditional computers and laptops by 2016.
The feeling is that today’s population, especially in the United States, is
much more concerned with convenience than performance. Ultimately, experts
believe, handheld devices will be small, convenient and easy enough to
substitute for the laptops of much of the population.