Just bought an iPad and I can easily see how it will remove laptops from the work place in the coming years. As a productivity tool it is lighter, nicer to work with, and provides access to all the essentials... One day they will look back at laptops and say " those old timers used to use massive bricks with buttons"
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No more laptops at the workplace
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miles01110
macrumors Core
Piggie
macrumors G3
Of in 10 years time they could say to each other.
Remember those stupid Tablets that were all the rage a few years ago that you can to keep connecting to computers to get anything serious done on them.
Wonder where they all disappeared to ?
Probably be a collectors item someday 🙂
Despite TRYING to look all Star Wars and Star Trek. A REAL keyboard is still a better/nicer way of entering in text.
It's difficult to think where we will end up, but at the moment, we are a little bit form over function right now.
You don't REALLY want your keyboard blocking your display do you?
Not in an ideal world.
Not unless you had some other option.
Remember those stupid Tablets that were all the rage a few years ago that you can to keep connecting to computers to get anything serious done on them.
Wonder where they all disappeared to ?
Probably be a collectors item someday 🙂
Despite TRYING to look all Star Wars and Star Trek. A REAL keyboard is still a better/nicer way of entering in text.
It's difficult to think where we will end up, but at the moment, we are a little bit form over function right now.
You don't REALLY want your keyboard blocking your display do you?
Not in an ideal world.
Not unless you had some other option.
Sedulous
macrumors 68030
Piggie
macrumors G3
Indeed.
Or, and here's a radical idea..........
You could attach a thin keyboard to the device, so that when you wanted to do some serious typing, you could fold out the keyboard from the device.
Better than having to remember to carry a separate unit around with you all the time 😀
I'm going to assume you don't do serious spreadsheet or accounting work, or simulation work, or CAD work, or database work, or data management, or proposal writing, etc...
Substitute with ANY work - its simply impossible to do work on an iPad....its not practical. Thankfully I never purchased mine with any expectation of doing such a thing..it makes a great gaming and 'quick browsing' device...not much more 😉
Maybe if you can plug the iPad into a minimum 21" monitor and a full keyboard and a mouse and run Excel etc... The 100s of people I deal with at my company and others will never have an iPad replace their work computers. Sure, the iPad is a nice add on, but when it's time to get down to work it just doesn't have what's needed.
If I have to keep up with a BT keyboard and everything I rather just carry a regular laptop.
Get a Mac Air it's light or a laptop that is light like the Mac Air but made like that Dell Duo would be nice
Get a Mac Air it's light or a laptop that is light like the Mac Air but made like that Dell Duo would be nice
Piggie
macrumors G3
Yes, can't see that changing for another couple of decades at least.
Can't think of anything else that will be practical for the time being I'm afraid to say.
We still a million miles away from Star Trek AI that we thought we were getting easily 10 years AGO !
Shortsighted
Good grief. For a bunch of tech junkies, some of you are pretty short sighted when it comes to technology.
Isn't it crazy how today's smartphones are more powerful and useful than computers were just a few years back. Isn't it also crazy how technology improves exponentially?
Smaller form factor devices, (ie: maybe tablets, or maybe whatever comes down the line) WILL replace desktop machines at some point as well as user input methods as we know them, and IMHO, it will be in the near future. I'm sure decades ago some people could be quoted saying that small "desktop" computers will never replace the computers that take up entire rooms too.
C'mon guys stop being so shortsighted.
Good grief. For a bunch of tech junkies, some of you are pretty short sighted when it comes to technology.
Isn't it crazy how today's smartphones are more powerful and useful than computers were just a few years back. Isn't it also crazy how technology improves exponentially?
Smaller form factor devices, (ie: maybe tablets, or maybe whatever comes down the line) WILL replace desktop machines at some point as well as user input methods as we know them, and IMHO, it will be in the near future. I'm sure decades ago some people could be quoted saying that small "desktop" computers will never replace the computers that take up entire rooms too.
C'mon guys stop being so shortsighted.
I use my iPad in an industrial environment to help perform internal audits and load relevant documents when customers (B2B) or suppliers come audit us. It's a great information CONSUMPTION tool, not a great data CREATION tool. I can enter basic data, but when serious work needs to get done, I head back to my Windows laptop.
Augmenting the workspace: yes
Ruling the workplace: not in the next 10 years.
Augmenting the workspace: yes
Ruling the workplace: not in the next 10 years.
Tom G.
macrumors 68020
mrkgoo is correct. Everyone who is belittling the OP's original post because of keyboards is not thinking of the future. You think keyboards are necessary because you are used to them. Think about the fact that if you had never learned to use a QWERTY keyboard, what could you use for input.
Just keep this in mind, that the QWERTY keyboard arrangement that we are all used to exists because it was necessary to slow down typists on mechanical typewriters, not because they are more efficient. Now that we no longer need to slow down the input of letters, it would seem that the QWERTY keyboard could go the way of the Dodo bird, but it can't right now because too many people are use to it alone. If the keyboard stays around for a while, I can see a need for different arrangement of the keys to speed up data entry.
Therefore, I think that the OP was totally correct in his posting. Also remember that he said Workplace, this term also includes places where the data entry is not needed to be done from a QWERTY keyboard. For instance even now AutoCad does not need a keyboard for most of its input. An inspector in a factory could use a different display to put in his data. A salesman does not need a full QWERTY layout to fill out an order blank. The list goes on.
I'm 66 years old and have worked as an electronics/instrument technician all my life and am totally blown away by the possibilities of the iPad in particular, but all the other tablets that are coming down the pike after it.
Just as the laptop will eventually spell the end of the desktop PC in all but specialized cases, so too will the iPad and its compatriots eventually spell the end of the laptop.
Just keep this in mind, that the QWERTY keyboard arrangement that we are all used to exists because it was necessary to slow down typists on mechanical typewriters, not because they are more efficient. Now that we no longer need to slow down the input of letters, it would seem that the QWERTY keyboard could go the way of the Dodo bird, but it can't right now because too many people are use to it alone. If the keyboard stays around for a while, I can see a need for different arrangement of the keys to speed up data entry.
Therefore, I think that the OP was totally correct in his posting. Also remember that he said Workplace, this term also includes places where the data entry is not needed to be done from a QWERTY keyboard. For instance even now AutoCad does not need a keyboard for most of its input. An inspector in a factory could use a different display to put in his data. A salesman does not need a full QWERTY layout to fill out an order blank. The list goes on.
I'm 66 years old and have worked as an electronics/instrument technician all my life and am totally blown away by the possibilities of the iPad in particular, but all the other tablets that are coming down the pike after it.
Just as the laptop will eventually spell the end of the desktop PC in all but specialized cases, so too will the iPad and its compatriots eventually spell the end of the laptop.
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miles01110
macrumors Core
Believe it or not, some people use machines for more than facebook and games. Who's shortsighted?
You are assuming that portability and ease of transport are desirable qualities. In many industries they are not. There will always be a market for desktop computing- unless certain industries as a collective decide that their data can and should be able to be transported (and lost) anywhere their employees please.
Unfortunately, you can rarely convince folks who lack vision of a disruptive technology on the coming transformation of the way we are going to use computers in the workplace. I know people where I work - and you can guess their ages- that still do not believe computers are needed in the office.
The Tablet will not eliminate the use of desktops and laptops in the workplace, but it will substantially reduce their presence...especially as future Tablets become more powerful without any noticeable increase in their footprint.
The Tablet will not eliminate the use of desktops and laptops in the workplace, but it will substantially reduce their presence...especially as future Tablets become more powerful without any noticeable increase in their footprint.
Big difference and shrinking a device than changing the way you input data into it and even with smartphones you don't do serious data input into it.
I don't see a major change unless they're working on thought input. Voice recognition has come a long way but still not speedy as typing it in unless you want to go back and correct the mistakes.
Maybe tablets will start to include a laser display that is projected on any flat surface and you can type on it.
I don't see it changing in the next 10 years, the one constant thing about computers has been the keyboard, it may have got smaller but it's stayed the sames
I don't see a major change unless they're working on thought input. Voice recognition has come a long way but still not speedy as typing it in unless you want to go back and correct the mistakes.
Maybe tablets will start to include a laser display that is projected on any flat surface and you can type on it.
I don't see it changing in the next 10 years, the one constant thing about computers has been the keyboard, it may have got smaller but it's stayed the sames
Piggie
macrumors G3
Again, it all depends on the world you live in and the world you think everyone else lives in.
If you work in a modern IT company with HR departments, bonding sessions for building team moral and zoom around the offices on a skateboard, tapping in notes on your latest IT.
You may no be aware that there are far more people working in industries that don't have the time to mess with gadgets and want something totally universal that will work and read anything.
Still needing to use Floppy disks as their hundred thousand dollar machines from 10 years ago have floppy drives for loading their programs in, and anyone from another company could email them something in any format or device and they need to read it quick and fast to get the work done and move on.
Not everyone works in shiny shiny offices of the future.
If you work in a modern IT company with HR departments, bonding sessions for building team moral and zoom around the offices on a skateboard, tapping in notes on your latest IT.
You may no be aware that there are far more people working in industries that don't have the time to mess with gadgets and want something totally universal that will work and read anything.
Still needing to use Floppy disks as their hundred thousand dollar machines from 10 years ago have floppy drives for loading their programs in, and anyone from another company could email them something in any format or device and they need to read it quick and fast to get the work done and move on.
Not everyone works in shiny shiny offices of the future.
Whats a QUERTY keyboard😀
Those entries by the sales man into a form were predefined in the software but that software was created and inputed on a keyboard. Not a 10 key or pen/screen system
Piggie
macrumors G3
To do voice recognition you need full perfect AI.
It needs to understand that when someone else walks by and you should "Get me a tea" it does not type in: Get Me A Tea
When you go, Errr, Ummm, O I don't know............
It does not type that it.
Only a human can be dictated to and understand what words are part of the dictation and not just words/noises that are not supposed to be written down.
It needs to understand that when someone else walks by and you should "Get me a tea" it does not type in: Get Me A Tea
When you go, Errr, Ummm, O I don't know............
It does not type that it.
Only a human can be dictated to and understand what words are part of the dictation and not just words/noises that are not supposed to be written down.
Nugget
macrumors 68020
This argument (if it were actually true*) would call for a more efficient keyboard layout like Dvorak, not for the end of keyboards altogether.
The keyboard is currently the fastest, most efficient method of text entry known to mankind. Before you can call for its death because "we no longer need to slow down the input of letters" I'm afraid you'll have to come up with a faster mechanism to use in lieu of a keyboard. A tablet with multitouch sure isn't an alternative.
I don't doubt this is true for some segment of the workplace, but I just don't see the technology taking hold for the majority of tasks until a suitable alternative to the keyboard is invented. Touch interfaces are just too compromised to replace a keyboard for most uses.
No one is talking about how strong the computer might be, the main limitation for tablets is inputs and outputs. A 10" screen is only good enough for a subset of office tasks. Touch data entry is also only good enough for a subset of office tasks.
So change the layout of the keyboard. The options we have are keyboard, mouse, touch, and dictation.
Dictation is horrible for most office work unless all you do is write emails. Even the CxOs I know spend a ton of time in Excel and saying 'move to cell b1' is never going to happen and is much less efficient that either mousing or even touching.
Touching doesn't work for extended periods of time. Even Apple has come out and said they know the ergonomic issues with constantly having to reach up and touch the screen.
For doing general office work the keyboard + mouse + things like gestures and other add ons are probably the best inputs we have come up with to date. They are fast, accurate and allow a learning curve that lets users become more efficient as they get better.
