Jonathan Angel recently explained very well, in a piece about the IBM PC’s birthday’, something I realized the first time I saw a tablet computer, that is the main reason why I will not limit myself to any device like that, and suggest nobody does. Here’s that reason, expressed with two quotes from Jonathan’s piece, which I do suggest you read in its entirety:
- Smartphone and tablets make it easier to sit and consume, not participate in any sort of detailed expression
- awkward text entry = less _democracy (because awkward text entry = less text entry = less active participation)
Does it make sense, in a world still founded on the written word, to rely only on devices that don’t make text entry as fast as possible?
I confess there’s another part of what Jonathan wrote that I love. It’s when he says (synthesizing) “I wonder what some people don’t understand about the definition of the word “work.” If twenty-somethings don’t want to work with personal computers [because they like tablets better]… there are plenty of older workers who need jobs”.