Gawk While You Can

The question has been raised just about everywhere about if tablets are going to overtake PCs in Joe User's life. I've seen varying arguments for it happening, and others saying that it'll never happen. I've always read them with a grain of salt, gleaning what I can from them, and discarding the chaff. Until yesterday, that is. I read an article that, well, I pretty much agree whole hearted with.

Wait. What?

Yeah, I know. Shocking that I don't have a "Yeah, but..." statement to go along with it. Gawk while you can.

I'll wait.

Now, let me explain.

The keyboard. It's all about the keyboard. Some people don't mind not having a physical keyboard to peck out their manifestos on, but me, if I'm doing something that requires more than a Words With Friends game, I want a real keyboard. It's a quirk of mine. Hunt-and-peck sends me into a spiral of flashbacks to my first computer/typing class, and it's not pretty folks. And before you suggest it, I don't want to lug one around with me, as a peripheral for my ipad. I have enough things to carry and remember, what with purse (heavy enough already, thanks) diaper bag (not storing it with the sippie cup,) cell phone, etc. I have a hard enough time remembering my cheap-o sunglasses, for goodness sake. Thus far, I haven't forgotten a kid or the ipad, but honestly, it's just a matter of time.

Another thing about it, is that I realize I'm not Joe User. I am, however, friends with lots of them. While they want real keyboards to type their emails on, they also want it for things like hot keys.* Several fancy themselves as amateur photographers, cooks, bloggers, etc. As such, things like photo editing and more in depth applications require a real keyboard/mouse in order to not be a frustration. They are similar to me, in that their ipad/tablets have replaced the laptop for some things (Facebooking, Twitter, shopping, music, etc) but not for the things that are a bit more time/labor intensive. When the powers-that-be figure out how to resolve that issue, I think the tablet is gold.


^{*hot keys = keyboard short cuts. think "Crtl + C" instead of clicking the menu option for "copy."}