In ten years of Microsoft trying to push the tablet as a computer the tablet just hasn't ever taken off. The one thing the naysayers of the iPad have never asked themselves is why has tablet computing failed up until this point?

The answer is simple... they're too under powered to do the work people think they should be doing. Essentially what is happening is people expect to work on a tablet the same way they do on a laptop but the specs of a tablet and the ridiculous price of these tablets make them useless for a computer replacement. In fact the idea that the tablet is meant to replace the computer is actually proof that no one really understands the concept of the tablet.

A tablet computer is not designed to replace computers but to act as a compliment to computers. It's best to think of it as a compliment to a desktop rather than a compliment to a laptop because as soon as you introduce a laptop into the equation people will think it makes no sense to replace the laptop with something so under powered. And to a lesser extent they would be right. That being said though a tablet does make a pretty good alternative to a laptop when conjoined with a desktop.

In my last post I surmised what the probable specs of an Apple tablet would be while also showing why Apple has a great shot at making it all work. But a tablet is only going to be as good as the software that runs on it and will only work if people see a use for it so this post is going to look at what the Apple tablet will do if it exists at all.

There are two rumours about the name of the tablet device... iSlate or Magic Slate. The latter actually is a better name in my not so humble opinion. But the name points to something bigger than just what it’s trying to name. The word “slate” conjures up the idea of a blackboard (screw you PC thugs) which of course gives the idea of writing. It’s this, mixed with the rumours about Apple’s iWork.com that provides the key as to what Apple is trying to achieve with the tablet.

Apple’s iWork application is a Mac suite in the same vain as Microsoft’s Office but it also has an online collaboration aspect since early 2009. The big problem with iWork.com was that it has been beta for the last year and also lacks many features but in its current form works well with the desktop application. iWork.com however may become more than just a collaboration tool for other iWork users. Currently you can share documents with Windows users by way of Word/Excel or PDF documents but no one can edit them online. There appears to be a move towards online editing in some form that resembles Google Docs but with a much more advanced interface a la MobileMe Mail. Throw in a mobile version of iWork for iPhone/iPod Touch/mythical tablet and you have document editing on the fly and access to documents on the fly and you’ve got a documentation system that can give you the information wherever you are whenever you need it.

Documentation on portable devices has often been poorly done with some exceptions. Documents To Go has long been a favourite of mine since the days when I had a Palm and I currently use it on my iPhone as well because it is such a nice tool to be able to edit documents on the fly and then synch back. The big problem I have with Documents To Go is that it doesn’t support the iWork format which is what I use all the time for my document editing, especially spreadsheets which I often use. It also requires a separate application to transfer those documents onto my iPhone and back again. If Apple produced a mobile version of iWork that stored everything on iWork.com then you’d eliminate the need for synching all the time because it would just work on documents stored online (a backup would be stored on the local machines though for security).

The other facet of documentation will more than likely come from Apple getting into Books. Amazon has the Kindle and Sony has the eBook Reader and there is another device called the Nook but these are single purpose devices that aren’t really that nice to use. On the iPhone there are great apps like Classics which has a beautiful interface that feels like you’re actually reading a book but there is also Stanza, BookShelf, Eucalyptus all of which have nice interfaces. I like Classics because it doesn’t feel like a computer program and that’s the problem with reading on a screen. It doesn’t move like paper it moves like a long list of text and if you’ve ever read a long list it gets tiresome and boring and you switch off. Classics however has an animation when you turn the page and the text doesn’t scroll so it really feels like you’re reading a book. Now, if Apple developed something similar and had books as purchase options from the iTunes store then Apple would have conquered the entire media sector. This isn’t a bad thing because it would force competitors to buck up their ideas instead of being stagnant in their approaches to things, especially media. Now while a device like a tablet will never replace physical books and papers and magazines it does give people more than over priced options (I mean how many books really are worth $30?) and therefore people would buy more. It happened with music and movies so there’s nothing to suggest it won’t happen with books.

But it won’t stop there. It seems to make sense that Apple will release mobile versions of the iLife suite as well. Imagine a keyboard on the screen that lets you make music in GarageBand wherever you are. Imagine being able to blog in iWeb wherever you are (handy for my site). Imagine editing your videos or keeping all your photos organised wherever you are all from a mobile device rather than carrying around a bulky laptop or being forced to do that sort of work when you get back to your desktop.

The potential for a tablet device really is huge but it needs to be done well. Apple has experience in turning sloppy technology into game changers as can be seen with the iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch. But Apple is a software company above all else, it just happens to make the hardware that goes with it. As such Apple’s software is screaming out for a mobile outing which I think Apple will deliver on. When it delivers it will show Microsoft, Palm and Google how cloud based computing should be done. This comes not because I’m a Mac fanboi or anything like that but because of pure hard evidence. Apple has time and time again changed the way we interact with the media we have today and I can’t wait to see what this year has in store for us.

As a computer technician my job mostly requires working on Windows machines. Macs are now starting to show up but due to their reliability most of the Macs we deal with will be generally nothing more than software issues.

One of the greatest tools for my ability to fix Windows machines is ironically the one thing that Windows users, especially IT "gurus", mock... my Mac. To many in either camp it seems like a travesty to use a Mac for this. To Mac users it's a travesty to use a Mac to fix Windows instead of using it to get people off Windows and in the other camp it's a travesty to use a Mac let alone fix Windows but the reality is that Windows makes it difficult to fix Windows.

One of the most powerful features of Mac OS X is not a Mac OS X specific feature but one that has been around for almost as long as *NIX operating systems but is one of the most under-utilised features of Mac OS X. It's power makes for some interesting ways of forcing software to conform to your way of storing files. This magical feature is called Aliases.

In layman's terms an alias is a shortcut but it does more than just create an icon to a file or application. The best way to describe an alias is to think of a railway junction. When a train is coming to said junction it will default to a single path, however throw a switch and the train is diverted to another path. That's the function of an alias. The beauty of an alias is that if an application such as iWeb, iPhoto, Bento, etc requires a dedicated path for a file you can create an alias in that directory to point to a file in a separate directory or even external drive or network path. This way you can keep files stored in a central location and have a number of machines connecting to the same file.

The caveat is that if you try to run the applications that require that file on multiple machines at the same time you run the risk of corrupting that file. Thankfully though many applications can lock a file so that it can't be edited by more than one person at a time.

Someone's not doing their maths right!! Or if it was someone in the States that did this...they're not doing their 'math' right!

In this news item....http://www.nzmac.com/news/apple/apple-introduces-ilife-09.html, site user Whitty and I have been having a chat. I confess I didn't really think much of the issue of price until I went and did some hunting around about previous versions of iLife and iWork and the exchange rate at the time....so well done Whitty. I knew that times are tough, but Apple's not playing fair.

August 07
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US Price for iLife '08 and iWork'08 is $79 each
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/07ilife08.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/07iwork08.html

At the time, $1 NZD = $0.7608157438 USD (thanks to http://www.xe.com). That works out at $103.84 NZD based on the exchange rate at the time.

The items go on sale at the time for $109 NZ...so a reasonable conversion

http://www.apple.com/nz/pr/library/2007/08/07ilife08.html
http://www.apple.com/nz/pr/library/2007/08/07iwork08.html

January 09
=======
US once again get either bundle of apps for $79 USD....
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06ilife.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06iwork.html

Today, $1 NZD = $0.595880 USD.

That works out at $132.58 NZD for the product at today's exchange rate.

I have absolutely no problem with software installing update checkers. Adobe, Apple, M$...fine...not a problem. Mostly, because if they annoy the heck out of me, I'll disable them.

Well the other day they released a Google Earth plugin (http://code.google.com/apis/earth/) for the Mac...cool! I installed...and since then have been getting dialogue boxes from "Google Software Update" telling me that there's an update for Google Talk to install....a service I don't use.

My issue is that 1) there's no way to say "never ask me to install anything related to Google Talk again" and 2) there's no way to say "Don't check for updates for me, I'll do this manually"...an option I usually set updaters that annoy the heck out of me too.

In the end I had to go onto the web and find....

1. This - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/12/google-software.html

2. That Google appear to be breaching their own principles - http://www.google.com/corporate/software_principles.html

It's amazing, the more I read about what Apple is planning for Snow Leopard the more I realise I've already been there.

I'm not knocking Apple but I came from where Apple is heading when I left the sadly sinking ship that was the Amiga. Everything Apple is planning to do has been done on the Amiga back in the 80's and 90's.

Let me explain. Apple is shrinking Mac OS X instead of expanding it. Effectively Apple is removing things that make it bloated namely Carbon. Carbon was designed as a quick way to get Mac OS 9 apps onto Mac OS X. Unfortunately Many developers relied on Carbon to do things that Cocoa wasn't able to do at the time. When Cocoa became more inline with what Carbon did people still didn't move to Cocoa. Now Snow Leopard apparently is removing or at least reducing functionality of Carbon which means a lot of apps need redeveloping and by which I mean most likely Office and Adobe's apps. If apps are already written in Cocoa then there will be no issues.

I was under a Non-disclosure agreement so couldn't say much about what I saw in Kuala Lumpur related to Acrobat 9, but the big emphasis with the next version of Acrobat (announced yesterday) is multimedia...without a doubt!

In particular, the digital ePortfolio functionality of their Acrobat Professional product is staggering...considering this is all delivered in a PDF...just writing that staggers me...I never saw PDF as a multimedia delivery platform at all.

I won't go into detail here, but instead point those interested to....

I think I've probably gone through 3 cheap scanners in my time as an OS X user. Not so much that I use a scanner a lot (the one next to me hasn't been turned on in over a year)...but because the fact that many of the previous scanners would only work up until a certain version of OS X.

So tonight I desperately needed to scan something. The drivers would only run in 10.3 and below...so the answer? Boot into Windows, where the drivers for this old scanner continue to be maintained and are available for XP. Phew!

And yes, the other way to look at it is that I basically had to go back to an old OS (XP) to run an old program.

One of the things I love about working on the Mac is how efficient the User Interface is, however it's far from perfect. There is one thing that irks me about UIs and it has to do with user interaction with the environment.

I'm right handed and I tend to have a visual path leaning to the right. My mouse is to the right of my keyboard as is most right handed people's mouse. This means to access things like the Devices or Folders on the Finder we have to travel a reasonable distance to get what we want which in turn makes the interface inefficient. To be productive you want to go as little out of your way to do something as possible and this is just something a computer's UI does not allow for on ANY platform let alone Mac OS X.

Currently the Finder looks like this: