A truly tectonic shift in how we use computers is happening right now, and I'll bet it's happening within 30 feet of where you are while you read this.
What is this shift? Powerful, portable, user-friendly mobile computing in the form of a touch screen tablet Pc. You can bet that no matter where you are in a developed county you'll be no more than 30 feet away from person with a touch screen gismo of some description.
And what's more, given the recent advances in hardware and software, those citizen may genuinely be able to use their devices for something useful!
You see, it's all about the power.. Well 'power consumption' to be more exact
Early attempts at true mobile touch screen computing were rather lack lustre. The Windows Operating principles was used approximately exclusively, and whilst touch screen support was added to later versions there were two Major problems.
1) The Windows desktop Os was a huge power-hungry monster... Ok so maybe that is a miniature harsh. But the truth of the matter was that when you combined the Windows Os with the X86 platform it is tied too, you could not furnish a thin, light and suited gismo that could:
a. Supply decent video playback, let alone play Hd video.
b. Play any kind of allowable 3D game.
This meant that most early attempts were either heavy, chunky hot slabs of processing power, or they were wholly under powered and approximately unusable.
2) Windows was never designed from the start as a touch screen Os for mobile devices. No matter how hard you tried it always felt that you were using an Os that had been forced onto a tablet Pc, and had then had touch screen support bolted on like an oversized exhaust from you local motorist discount centre.
The situation looked pretty grim and it was set to continue in this manner until the first iPad hit the shelves.
Apple had created a scholar piece. By not using the x86 platform (Arm Risk processors were used instead) and by designing an Os from the ground up, Apple had created a gismo that could do approximately all whatever could want of a mobile device.
You could browse the web, read your emails, watch a film, approximately whatever the mean user could want to do they could now do on a handheld gismo that didn't need it own movable nuclear reactor to power.
What's more, the gismo was built to high standards and had a user-friendly and easy to understand interface. It was approximately as if the gismo genuinely wanted you to use it. It was genuinely years ahead of the former attempts based on Windows.
The fact that it didn't run windows would have been a problem for just about whatever other than Apple. Apple already had its own 'Apple Universe' thing going on and it could merge the iPad into that universe. This universe has existed for years without needing to be compromised to work with Windows and its x86 architecture (although granted Mac Os can now run on x86 hardware).
The iPad represented a way for Apple to hook citizen into the Apple universe. The iPod, the iPhone, these devices too were all a way to hook citizen into the Apple universe.
For several years the iPad had been The selection for a mobile touch screen device, with a slick front end and a quality feel.
The iPad owes it success largely to the fact that the platform is the sealed, tightly controlled and polished stock of one organisation. The whole platform is tightly controlled by Apple from the hardware spec, to the Os build and even to a degree the Apps that third parties write for it (via operate of the Sdk with a refusal to support any other run times like Adobe Flash).
But this is where the problems start; this operate ends up restricting the platform. There is a imagine one of the iPads catch phrases is 'There's an App for that'. It's because there has to be an app for everything. If you want to watch Bbc I-player you can't do it through a browser, you have to use an App. The same is true of Itv Catch up assistance among others.
You can't use any browser-based flash games, and you can't access YouTube through the browser.
This operate has also been turning software developers off of the platform in recent times, although the important revenue's that citizen can earn writing software of the iPad has kept this in check for the moment.
Into this photo emerges a very unlikely combination, one whose vague happening could have been improbable several years ago, but its specific form could not have been foreseen.
For years I have been saying that no one is ever going to break the dominance of Microsoft by tackling them head on. Apple has tried for years and they have hardly dented Microsoft's revenue's. In fact, Apple have probably helped Microsoft by giving Microsoft person to hold up as an example of competition every time they are threatened with a break up because they are too big.
Any rival will have to grow up in a parallel technology sector, and then merge with others in the same position to originate the 'critical mass' required to take on Microsoft in its dominant markets.
Well this is happening now, and who are these new players..? Google, Nvidia and about a thousand manufacturers of all distinct sizes and shapes.
For several years Nvidia has been working on a new hardware platform called Tegra 2. The Tegra platform has always been aimed at mobile hand-held devices with a slant on video performance. However, after seeing the success of the iPad and the possible for hand-held touch screen computing Nvidia shifted the Tegra platform up a few gears.
Nvidia teamed up with Arm to originate an ultra low power, yet suited processing platform.
The Tegra 2 platform is basically a dual-core version the iPad processor which has been developed a generation on. In addition, it has been combined with an developed graphics accelerator designed by Nvidia especially for the platform, as well as other specially designed processors to deal with tasks like Hd video encoding/decoding.
As a hardware platform it blows all former attempts at mobile touch screen computing out of the water... Literally. It's so far ahead that if the Tegra 2 platform was taking part in an Olympic race with the other offerings (Windows+X86 and Apple) then after the event it would be forced to take a test for doing improving drugs and have its gender verified.
Even the iPad 2 cannot compete on raw power with a Tegra 2 device.
What's more, Tegra 3 has already completed found and it is ready to go into manufacturing, plus Tegra 4 is apparently in an developed found phase. Tegra 3 (quad-core anyone?) is going to make Tegra 2 look seriously underpowered (even though it isn't), and Tegra 4 seems to be verging on the edge of science fiction.
So genuinely that's it then, any gismo based on a Tegra 2 platform is the best mobile gismo going and no one should bother buying whatever else?? Well no, it's not quite that simple.
Why isn't it that simple? Well for starters Tegra 2, 3 and 4 are just hardware platforms, you need software to run on them.
That's where Google and the Android Os come in... Rise oh slayer of Microsoft! (A bit too ahead of the curve on that prediction? Let's wait and see on that one then, but the possible is there).
Android started as an Os for mobile phones. So it was designed (like the Os on the iPad) with as small a footprint as possible and touch screens in mind. It is also Very flexible as it was designed to run on a huge range of devices.
Unlike the iPad Os it is also very open, with the source code being released to the collective (otherwise known as 'open source'). This flexibility has one big downside, and one big upside.
On the downside the Android Os is not as slick as the Os on the iPad. It's a miniature harder to use and it always feels a bit cruder. In clear areas it may even be a miniature slower to retort even though the hardware is hugely classic when running on Tegra 2.
On the plus side, the openness has strapped a big rocket to the development of the Android Os and the last 2 months has lit the touch-paper.
We now see a huge Android society growing up colse to Tegra powered Android devices from all manner of manufacturers. We are going to see some major game releases for the Tegra + Android platform genuinely soon (including direct ports of several Ps3 titles), and there are quite a number of game studios that are backing Tegra + Android.
What's more, there are a huge number of Apps ready for both Android and iPad now through their respective markets. You can be fairly clear that no mater which one you buy, there is an app to do whatever it is you are seeing for an app to do.
So what does all this mean? How could you fairly sum up the current state of mobile touch screen computing? Which gismo is best now? Which has the most promise and time to come potential?
If you want to suggest a gismo for your parents who just want a quality gismo to browse the web, read emails and play solitaire on, tell them to go and get an iPad. Its ease of use, solid quality and trustworthy doing just can't be beaten at the moment.
If you are on a allocation and you want a suited and flexible gismo and you don't mind a few rough edges then go and get a Tegra 2+Android 2.2 tablet like the coming Vega or the Point of View Mobii. If you are willing to do some reading and search for what the android society offers to get the most from these devices (custom software including the Cyanogen Rom (android 2.3)and resources like http://www.android.modaco.com and http://www.xda-developers.com) you will end up with a gismo that is Far more capable and polished than its price tag suggests.
If you don't want an iPad, but you still want something slick with a quality feel, then don't buy whatever now. Wait until the new generation of Android 3.0 tablets are properly released and have been out for a few months, then go and spend colse to 450 on one with a Tegra 2 chipset.
And if you want an iPad 2..? I genuinely cannot think of any imagine why you would spend that much money on an iPad 2, seriously I can't. Unless maybe you were just a huge Apple fan.
As for the future? Those of us old enough to remember the battle in the middle of Microsoft and Apple already know what's coming. I firmly predict that Apple will make all the same mistakes again. They will put the ideology of the 'Apple Universe' and the perfection they aim for above openness and they will get left behind in the great tablet race.
For those that are too young to remember the Microsoft vs. Apple battle, watch this intimately and you are about to see history repeating itself.
This will be a big shame because when it comes to ergonomics and ease of use apple is currently ahead, although this lead is shrinking a miniature each day.
iPads, Android and the Rest of the World