Mark Weiser’s description of the three main Ubiquitous Computing devices was prescient. He named them the tab, the pad, and the board in order of increasing size. I have at least one of each in my house now. This was published about 20 years ago, so our terminology has changed a bit. The tab, wrote Weiser, was a handheld computer. The pad is more the size of a book or laptop. The board was wall sized.
My Android phone definitely counts as a tab, though we call those smartphones now. My Nook Tablet seems to resemble a pad (tabs and pads mean the same thing now). In my living room I have a computer connected to a projector for watching movies; this definitely counts as a board. These devices all embody different ways for consuming media, and in the present day they’re used almost exactly as Weiser predicted with only one main difference.
The pad, as originally envisioned, was supposed to be fairly stationary. A user might carry their tab around, but they’d be able to find pads anywhere. If you can pick up a pad no matter where you go, there’s no need to carry one with you. Pads haven’t become that commonplace yet, but even if they do I don’t think people will stop carrying theirs around. The modern equivalent of the pad, such as my nook, goes everywhere with its owner. One of my friends just bought a new coat because it had pockets big enough for his Kindle. The tab (smartphone) has a screen that’s just too small to be useful when you’re out and about. Even if every table in every cafe eventually has a scratch pad, that still won’t help you when you’re on the bus.
The modern desktop is a much better fit to Weiser’s expectations for the pad. There are desktops pretty much everywhere that you go (work, home, the library). You wouldn’t carry it with you. It’s even the main tool for creating content. When I want to do a lot of work on my smartphone (like write a new app for it) I do that work on my desktop and then transfer it to my phone or nook.
The modern laptop fits more under the tab category, for the same reason that my nook goes there. I still carry it around with me all the time. While touchscreen devices are great for consuming content, they don’t work as well as for creating it. The OCR just isn’t there yet. It may never be, as anyone who’s tried to read my handwriting can attest.
There seems to be place in Weiser’s world for a completely different kind of device. One devoted solely to content creation. Keyboard and mouse work very well for a lot of tasks. I wouldn’t have wanted to write this post on a touchscreen, for example. There are other input tools that people need for more complicated tasks.
The tab/pad combo is getting better as a storage platform and screen, but I don’t think it will ever take over for any kind of content creation. Perhaps as technology improves it will become the main computing device that you use, that carries around your files, your music, your life. When you’re at home, you may plug it into a dock that allows it to interface with larger screens and more appropriate user interfaces (maybe it’ll even do that wirelessly).
In spite of the focus on content consumption rather than creation, Weiser’s vision seems to have come true today. That’s one nice thing about reading old articles. It really feels like you’re living in the future.