Think about this for a moment
What is a tablet really... Just a really high tech PDA from the 90's. I bet if the first Tablets where called PDA's thought they would have been a complete flop. Its kinda funny how technology gets recycled.
I think you are correct to some extent. My iPod and iPad run the same applications, play music and other things. One is bigger than the other.
Not really the same as a 90's era PDA however. That said, I could do many of the same things with my Palm VII that can do with my iPad. I could write web applications as well as access the internet in a rather limited way. E-mail was easy, too.
I had a market after a fashion. Applications were downloaded quickly owing to their tiny size. Just like tunes, but larger file sizes.
My Windows CE Casio thingy could do many of the same things as my iPad. Better screen, in color, and with removable storage.
We're not with you. Stop thinking like a consumer and imagine what is done with tablets. While calculating pressure drops, doing kill sheets, and able to forward those almost instantly to my bosses through email when there was a time it would take days.
You are talking about applications. The hardware is quite a bit the same as in the old days. I could upload notes to the 3Com web server from my Pilot VII so I had Cloud Storage way back then, too.
I'd say that the PDA was more the ancestor of the smartphone. It was pocketable, which netbook and tablet are not. And it was the smartphone that killed the pda market (Palm and Windows Mobile both switched almost entirely to phones, and BlackBerry came along during that period).
I think in those days, if you asked a thousand people off the street if they would buy a mobile phone, most woulds say no, i do not need one. Technology and marketing took over and now, everyone "needs" a smart phone. I say smart phone because they are readily available, people seem to think they need one and very few want a dumb cellular phone. They want Blackberry, iOS or Android.
My PDA was almost as good as a phone. I think I had a flip phone (MOT) at the time and I carried both. Usually with an HT for amateur radio and for a time, a pager. I also carried a laptop.
Now, I can get it all in one device. Well, the HT was replaced with an application that lets me talk around the world.
That said, I just bought a new fountain pen and a few Moleskin notebooks. Ahh, the circle of life, back where I started.
It's the apple effect again. Tablet PCs were around before smartphones grew into them. Pocket PCs were around before smartphones.
Give apple their dues they've managed to make combine fashion with tech & keep it all cooking for years. Does anyone remember Le Clic cameras? Or funky coloured walkmans?
Really people don't want "fun" fashion, they want "classy" fashion. Fashion sells the product that it is wrapped around / contains. "Fun" fashion sells really well but flops quickly because it's tacky. If you combine tech with classy exterior that looks like it will last, then people will still buy.
Tablet or pocket PCs were good but nobody thought of selling them to a wider audience than, business people. They didn't / don't have that extra ingredient - style.
Smartphones killed off pocket PC because phone makers are used to making things stylish in order to sell to a wider audience.
I remember my Vadem Clio. This was a thin device called a Convertible Tablet PC. I had a nice keyboard as well as a tablet I could write on. It ran Windows CE.
I would take hand written notes at meetings and instantly convert them to text. An amazing device to be sure. It did not sell well and sadly, it is no more.
What made the iPad (other iDevices) so popular is the form factor and the ability to DL music, videos and apps, seamlessly. The apps tend to be stunning and fun to use.
It took Apple to make tablets cool and it took the iPad to get people thinking about creating things like Android Tablets. I still maintain you Android users have what you have because Apple started it all and everyone wants to beat Apple.
And this is a good thing.
Lets say the Google Glasses computer thing comes out it be the next evolution of the Tablet I think.
Google Glasses is set to drop in 2014. Not sure it will ever arrive. The term Vaporware comes to mind.
I doubt it is a new idea, so expect lawsuits aplenty.
