Almost 6 years have passed (24 "computer years" considering each quarter brings new products), but I'm still shocked at how far things have come, remembering back to the things I wanted prior to the "age of the smartphone."
Where the initial desire was for better data sync capabilities and ubiquitous, more seamless mobile data/web access, the reality now is an almost-fully-functional web browser on most smartphone devices, and laptops (netbooks) that, while underpowered, offer mobile access for less than $500 (the cost of the smart-phones I was considering in 2004).
Along with netbooks, we have the category of computers that Apple is working on resurrecting: the tablet.
Wired has a relatively involved examination of the ways that tablets will start a new age of computer interaction, as well as an iPad review, which bring up interesting ideas about the possible future of using computers. Possible futures aside, I'm already struck by the effect that the multi-touch interface that Apple introduced almost 3 years ago has had.
I watched, and was pretty awestruck, as both my 18-month-old daughter and her grandmother both picked up the device and used it without instruction when I received my original iPhone as a christmas gift 2 years ago. The simplicity and usability of the interface has completely changed our expectations for how to interact with devices. Since then, my daughter has had to learn that not all screens are touch interfaces, which was amazing for me to understand as a "default" expectation once the concept of "control it by touching it, pointing where you want to go" has been experienced first-hand.
I've had a related experience in testing Apple's iPad: for the most part, my expectations are met in how to get things done by touching elements in the interface, based on the idea that I should be able to control it by pointing my way through the interface. Adam Engst's description of how the device and interface seem to "fade away" is totally appropriate, as my focus turns almost immediately to what I'm trying to get done, rather than how I'm doing it, since the size is large enough that workarounds for the small screen (iPhone) aren't an issue.
Watching people like John Gruber actually start to use the device to write reviews, surf the web, and communicate is enlightening, since it illustrates the simple ways tablets can be useful. All of the gripes about finding a use or a need for the device highlights the fact that this is a class of device most people have not considered using. Granted, previous iterations of tablets (Windows tablets, Axiotron's ModBook) have limited "pizzaz" since they are still "just" laptops modified one way or another to allow pen-based input instead of relying on keyboard input. The "revolutionary" aspect I believe Apple is banking on is making the form-factor small & light enough to offer advantages over a netbook-tablet, and simplifying the functions such that getting things done is more about simply doing them than futzing with what you are using to accomplish a task that isn't quite capable of doing anything simply. This is clearly Apple's philosophy, and why they keep a closed system: do what is fast and "worth doing" on this device, and use a "real computer" for anything more complex. Don't waste the time trying to do something out-of-scope.
Granted, people will always *try* or want to do things out-of-scope, both because they can, and because they want the freedom or advantage of being able to accomplish a task with less hardware, especially when it comes to travel.
The thing that catches my imagination is thinking about what the world will be like in 10 or 20 years, as a generation who was literally raised expecting all interfaces to be touch-capable are reaching college age, and expecting to have access to all knowledge an information at all times. Granted, it will probably take about that long for textbooks to be published digitally with any regularity, and for other practices in universities to "catch up" but it seems entirely feasible for the digital age to have become the norm by that time.
I'll continue watching the arguments both ways, but I will learn as much as I can about how people think this is supposed to work, and how tablet/direct-computer-interaction is actually working, since I believe that the future will be touch and voice-activated/interpreted interfaces, which will be the "post-keyboard" era.
Now back to waiting for "the future," in the form of a 3G iPad, to arrive...
