I Dream Of Sony Tablet

If you read tech news you also would have read that Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony’s CFO, has recently said “Time-wise we are a little behind the iPad but it’s a space we would like to be an active player in.” Basically it means watch out iPad, Sony has an ace up its sleeve.
Imagine a company that is one of the biggest movie studios, one of the biggest music studios, one of the biggest game studios and also one of the worlds largest electronics companies. Take all those things and chuck them in the blender with a pinch of book store and comic store (which they already have) and you get what can be an amazing tablet PC opportunity. If Sony was to do this right it would be more then a tablet computer, it could be a portable entertainment hub like no other.
All isn’t sunshine and rainbows though. Sony has a habit of taking a beautiful piece of hardware and crippling it. Read any product review and you will see a common theme. They will take this fantastic opportunity to beat Apple at their own game and they will find a way to ruin the experience with DRM or weak application support. The other problem is Sony tablets have a common theme and that is the Windows OS. I’ve mentioned it before, a tablet OS has to build with touch in mind and Windows never was.
What I’m praying for is much more interesting then my cynicism. Imagine a 7″ tablet which was unbelievably thin with slide out PS3 controller (sort of like the PSPgo, but with dual sticks). Then a little XMB on there and make the screen touch sensitive and you would have an almost perfect peice of hardware. Then take all the stores you support, from ebooks to games and throw them on there, or better yet, charge a monthly fee for unlimited access to all of it!
That is the dream I one day hope for from one of the biggest companies in the world. Will it happen, probably not (that is the cynicism again).

Via [Yahoo]

Surprise! The iPad is a tablet.

Actually, less a traditional tablet and more a giant iTouch. I have to say my first reaction was disappointment. There was nothing exciting and unexpected about it. I was hoping for a magical E-ink style screen, multitasking greatness, forward facing camera, super 2GHz dual core processor, plugless charging (and syncing) and other revolutionary concepts. I wanted the iPad to be the greatest gadget ever created.
After letting it sit for a while, contemplating Apples other successes, it dawned on me. Apple is a software company (well derr). The iPad was never going to be the hardware game changer that people speculated, but it is going to be what Windows 7 will never be, and that is an OS designed for being used on a tablet.
It is designed with convenience in mind. This is a true consumer device. It will make surfing the web fun, watching movies fun, playing games fun and it might even trick some people into reading books again. Just don’t expect it to replace your notebook.
Though I believe the price is still very high for what you get, it is the Apple premium and will guarantee you a constantly evolving user experience and one of the biggest stores around. I won’t be buying one when they are available but I have no doubt Apple will sell record amounts of them.