Tablets and iPads: What use are they?

While it will be some time before tablets in general play a larger role in Hopkins students' lives, I have noticed an increasing use of iPads in class or when other students are sitting or milling about elsewhere. Some seem to find them just as effective as laptops when typing down notes, especially with new accessories and portable keyboards.

Flash back two years ago, and I myself would be laughing alongside everyone who saw the iPad as merely an oversized iPod Touch. Several windows-based touch screen laptops with rotatable screens were already on the market, albeit priced on the high end, and the public had anticipated a Mac tablet laptop, not a larger iOS device. Priced lower than comparably sized touch-screen devices, the iPad had still hit the markets successfully and more or less pioneered a new niche in the electronics market.

Come back to the present and what has the rest of the industry done? Numerous PC and cell phone manufacturers have introduced their own 10 inch tablets and gain lost ground against the iPad; some are trying to feed the tastes for slightly smaller devices with seven inch devices, with most of them running on Android. Amazon is now trying to expand their eReader success with the introduction of the Kindle Fire into the tablet competition with a lower price but weaker specs, and Windows-based tablets have made their appearances as well.

Here at Hopkins though, I still see a much more limited embrace of all these competitors. The only tablet users among my friends have gotten iPads over the past few months, some on his or her own volition to purchase one while others received one as a gift that they have come to thoroughly enjoy. My roommate proudly claims superiority with his Apple device over the seven inch Lenovo tablet I had been working with for the past two weeks, just because I chose a more cost-effective device that has less entertainment potential and may prove to be less of a distraction. Certainly Apple's edge is the simplicity of navigating iOS, while Android's greater complexity offers more customization yet has a side effect of a larger learning-curve and a greater time investment.

Still, my choice to choose what basically is a cheaper and potentially less entertaining device extends from my ongoing personal skeptical over the usefulness of tablets for everyday use. There are certainly many practical applications for a variety of business settings, and certain professions could benefit from having a touchscreen device that does not have the full functionality or power of a laptop. The focus on entertainment with most tablets and less on the actual productive uses has troubled me with their actual worth as a student trying to limit my distractions. Switching between applications is also less fluid with the iPad and Android devices than on laptops, and other limitations have been the basis for my skepticism of whether these devices are really worth it.

As one would imagine, it probably does make it easier to focus when reading electronic or online materials when your ability to multitask or divert your attention is limited. I am one of those students who can easily stray from an open pdf file on my laptop to some other program, especially web browsers. Reading papers is another pastime that my friends enjoy with their iPads, but they also have their fair share of games and other fun little apps to relax and enjoy their time.

At the same time though, I do find myself sitting up in bed for long stretches of time browsing the Android app market, playing a new game or trying to find workarounds for some imperfections that Android has for non-cellular devices. It is at those times when I realize I would probably be better off reading a book or printing out a paper that I would need for an experiment or a bit of homework. Still, my attention span for many of these tablet games is limited by their overall quality, which is honestly at times not much better than some infamous Facebook games.

What would keep my attention going is the quality set and constantly being raised by video game consoles and PCs; they may not have the easiest time incorporating social networking, but in most cases they are not necessary. The boundaries of my tablet use are starting to become better defined. Perhaps they do have their merit as a productivity tool for me, especially when I would rather leave my laptop at home.  

Moreover, what use would a tablet be for you? I cannot offer a good guideline, but your options are very much numerous.