Steven Sinofsky on iPads replacing laptops and transitions in computing

I worry that people don't remember "The Coming War on General Purpose Computing" [1]...

When my tablet has a full IDE which lets me compile a new app and install it on the tablet, and share it to my friend's tablet, they will be "professional". When my tablet allows me to plug in any accessory I want without it having to be blessed by the tablet manufacturer, maybe it will be able to replace a "real" computer. (Although on this front USB-C gives me a little bit of hope, maybe..)

Those replies about how people are just grumpy that the times are changing are completely missing the point. We need to figure out how to re-focus the conversation and make people think about about the walled garden seriously.

[1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

I don't see it that black and white.

The big difference between iPad and PC is the input. It's no surprise that consumers are less power users of input methods than people working on their machines.

Power users always use less intuitive, but more efficient input. The mouse accelerates my cursor, it moves farther then the mouse travels and has great accuracy. On the iPad I'd have to stir my arm around all day and selecting within text with your finger in the way was never fun either (though the latter can be fixed easily). I could only imagine in "air mouse", like a touchpad on your desk with mouse-like tapping and scrolling per finger.

Typing is where I see input methods might evolve. A touch-typists will remain more efficient, especially coding for a long time. Physical feedback on screen-keyboards would have to improve to the level of physical keyboards to fix that. Good speech to text (or mumble to text¹) might overtake the keyboard for prose but not for code unless the synax of programming languages adapts.

After that I see eye-tracking and direct brain interfaces, but those wouldn't be iPad exclusive either.

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuUSc53Xpeg

If you sit on a couch or in another chill place, browsing the web with a good trackpad on a laptop in your lap is so much better than by touch on an iPad display. My impression is that the people hailing iPads that much are actually mouse and not trackpad users.

The iPad just requires more physical interaction to accomplish the same things.

The only device(s) that would be able to beat the laptop experience (imo) are comfortable (24/7 wearable) AR glasses + screenless laptop body as a keyboard. This would maintain the laptop/trackpad benefits while improving ergonimics (screen height) and also enable desktop like workflows, meaning thatcreatives don't have to switch between desktop and mobile desktop UX.

I worked on Windows 7 and 8 on the Core UX team when he took over and turned the Windows desktop into a touch friendly interface. The guy is a true believer and maybe he is right, but I certainly don't feel like my iPad gets much use anymore. Most headlines I hear seem to be about declining sales and I can't help but recall the overwhelmingly negative feedback from users about the Windows 8 changes.

I always felt like Apple did it right - take the phone and move towards the desktop. Otherwise you are just creating a system that is as bad at the new computing scenarios as it has now become for the old ones.