Will Apple's iPad help tablet computers take off?

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The first concerted effort to turn the tablet PC from something out of the realms of science fiction into the kind of computer that we’d carry around with us came from Microsoft.

Granted, others had had a go at the tablet market before, but it was back in 2001 when Microsoft channelled sizeable resources into making it the kind of product we’d actually want. It was battling with the limitations of technology and web connectivity at the time, but it was, in hindsight, a solid if doomed effort.

To some degree, its thinking was ahead of the game. While it didn’t manufacture the hardware itself, it provided an optimised version of its Windows operating system that was tailored for tablet use, and encouraged many tier one manufacturers to invest in the project.

The software featured impressive handwriting recognition and, in some professions, there was enthusiastic take up. But the tablet, at that stage, never crossed over. Microsoft has continued to support and invest in the platform to varying degrees since, but it became clear that it was unable to push this particular project up the proverbial hill.

Apple time

So can Apple? That’s the obvious question in the aftermath of Steve Jobs’ formal confirmation of the iPad. To call its announcement a surprise would be akin to keeling over when the next bear headed into the woods looking for the gents.

Rumours of Apple working on a tablet product have circled for some time, and the official announcement was a matter of if rather than when.

That announcement came yesterday in San Francisco, of course, and the product itself was broadly in line with expectations. Positioned in the gap between a smartphone device and a netbook computer, it looks to all intents and purposes like a big iPhone, and has enhanced functionality to match.

Furthermore, it evolves the user interface to a logical place, no longer requiring a stylus to interact with a tablet device. Some are calling it more of a touchscreen laptop, some simply saying it’s a more cumbersome version of an existing product. But it’s nonetheless being talked about in a way that previous tablet products have never been.

Yet while its specifications are being pored over, the simple question remains: does this mean that tablet computing is about to take off?

The difference

What immediately differentiates Apple’s attack on the market is that this is a concentrated launch into the consumer marketplace. Previously, the tablet had been positioned as a business tool - and at times a reasonably effective one - and truthfully, the entry level price of an iPad does aim it very much at the enthusiastic early adopter right now.

What Apple will need to do is get retailers on board in the same way that they managed to do with the iPhone, and put together presumably internet packages that can help disguise the overall price of the device to the end customer. That, to be fair, is unlikely to become a problem, and it’s been proven as the most effective way to get premium, new technology devices into people’s hands quickly.

Granted, some are likely to plump for it anyway at retail cost, but those enchanted by the iPad thus far are unlikely to be enough in number to make it a mainstream success. Its mass market days are some way ahead of it.

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