I Can't Find a Single Productive Use For My Tablet

I don't find them good for consuming except for movies on a plane. Movies at home? The bigger the screen the better. I'd much rather watch movies on my 42 inch TV from my sofa than my tablets.

Reading? I'd much rather use my Kindle Paperwhite. It's better on the eyes and soooo much lighter.

Browsing the internet? I'm a curious person and I click lots of links. So for example I'll come to HN and ctrl click every title that sounds interesting. Tablets hate this workflow as they start removing tabs. Even when it does work invariably I'll run into a page that doesn't work on the tablet. Maybe it's a WebGL page. Maybe it's a Flash page. Maybe it's a page that requires interactivity but does not respond to touch events.

Finally I'll want to comment on something or post something I found to my facebook or G+. In those cases tablets suck balls. Editing text in a tablet is a exercise in frustration. Trying to move the cursor, format, copy and paste. It's not fun. Pasting a link in the Facebook app doesn't generate a editable preview like it does in a regular browser and many other shortcomings.

I could go on and on. Some of these limitations I put up with on my phone but then my phone fits in my pocket and is always with me. My tablets though, really, I find them pretty useless. There's sole purpose at this point is to once in a while check out some new app someone tells me about. Otherwise mine are unused.

I had dual monitors at work when I had a job at a Fortune 500 company. Yes, they can be great. But I posit that tablets aren't useless, the author is merely too rich and spoiled (as are lots of people on hn, who no agree with him). Not everyone can afford dual monitors and multiple other electronic devices to choose from. That's like saying cars are passe and going out of style since I got my pilot's license. Why would I want to drive when I can fly? Hey, good for you. But there are quite a lot of people on planet earth of more modest means (maybe he has heard of third world countries?) who, like me, might well appreciate the hell out of having a tablet. I am sure I would happily go back to a netbook should my circumstances suddenly change. For now, I cannot imagine how painful that would be under my present circumstances.

Back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Getting away from my cubicle to sit somewhere nicer with a cup of coffee and plan/brainstorm with SimpleMind+, a great little mindmapping tool whose touch interface is really slick.

Calendar and mail works great. It's like a little secretary.

Sitting in my armchair in the morning with a cup of tea reviewing todos and stuff is nice.

I'm comfortable enough with writing on the iPad mini (in portrait) to write stuff in Drafts (great app). Sitting somewhere with the tablet makes it easier for me to focus on just writing. I usually write in Markdown and save to Dropbox, then I can do whatever with it on the computer later.

Reading articles on Instapaper. Not "productive" in the narrow sense, but I don't really subscribe to this dichotomy!

I also use it as a remote for my music player... Meditation timer... I play music with some friends and it's awesome to be able to just pull up the chords & lyrics for any song. (Plus Propellerheads has a fun iPad synth that I play some silly leads on...)

I didn't really have any idea what I was going to use it for when I bought it, I just needed it to do some mobile web app prototyping. But it's delightful! My laptop is pretty stationary now -- the mini fits in my inner coat pocket.

So - reading/learning. That can be productive.

I also reply to emails and schedule calendar events from it. As soon as I need to edit documents, manage servers, or write code - I move to a laptop or desktop, it's just more comfortable.

P.S. wrote this on my iPad

Oh, it's perfectly usable on the desktop, but it's so much more effective on the iPad -- faster, more enjoyable, easier.

I'm still amazed; a month ago, I could have penned the OP's article.

It's that simple. I don't find using it to be terribly productive for work purposes (especially as a data warehouse consultant). I realize that some people have, and that's great, but for me it doesn't fit the bill.

So what I use it for is when I specifically want to ensure I can't work. I grab it, I go into the sitting area of my bedroom (away from dual 27" display setup), and do things that are very much "not work" in my lounge chair. I might check on my finances. I might play some games. I might browse a few sites, catch up on them with something like Reeder, or read old articles with Instapaper. I watch my subscribed channels on YouTube. Perhaps check the weather. Perhaps do some shopping, catch up on Twitter, or maybe check Facebook to see what friends are prattling on about. If it's late, it'll get perched on a nightstand and I'll play some podcasts, stream a movie or TV show, or put something on from YouTube and fall asleep to that.

I could do that on my iMac + display as well, but then I might get sucked into doing actual work, which I want to avoid. I'm not going to work on large database apps or ETL processes on my iPad. I'm not going to code effectively on my iPad. It's suboptimal for it. So I relish in that fact and it's my "coffee table computer" or my "fun computer". And for that, it does a great job, mostly in ensuring I stay away from "doing work" when I don't want to be working. Overall, it ends up being about 30-35% of my "total computing" time, but at least all of that time is 100% leisure instead of constantly straying back towards work.

However, with iPad they learnt things much more quickly than the PC. The things they do on the iPad does not involve a lot. They are just content consumers who do not want their computer to be in their way. The mobility of a tablet means that when my Dad has back aches he can just lie down on a bed and read form his iPad.

about 4 years ago when I thought I'll first buy them a computer so that they'd be able to do some video conferencing with the family, I actually took them to Microcenter, just to show them the variety. To my surprise, my Mom 'assumed' that the computer will respond by her touching the monitor to click on an icon (she had seen people playing with iPhones).

On the other hand, for me iPad hasn't got a lot of value at this point. I do not play games. I am a programmer who is constantly on a computer and when I am not on a computer, I am on my iPhone. But that does not mean I fail to see how cool a computer that can be carried in your hands is for others.

There's your first problem. (Okay it's not a big problem, and yay for sd slots, but the Nexus 7 and 10 are fantastic devices.) I have a Nexus 10, and got this case for it: http://www.amazon.com/Poetic-Removable-Bluetooth-Keyboard-Fu... The keyboard is just big enough that I can type more or less at full speed (the weird location of the right shift sometimes bugs me). I can understand the view that without being able to type quickly, productivity in a lot of areas isn't possible. But it's an easily solvable problem with a case, especially if you have a 10-incher and thus aren't too worried about trying to fit the thing in your pocket. (Though caseless my N10 fits in my rain jacket pocket.) I also can get that lacking a second monitor is a pain, though it helps to have a 2560x1600 resolution on the tablet.

Here's a sample of productive/useful things I use my tablet for: programming (Terminal IDE is a great help here, it has vim and ssh if I need something on my main machine), calculating, price checking, note taking with keyboard (if you can type, why write?), lecture recording, reading, testing Android apps I/friends have developed, fitness tracking, instantly satisfying my curiosity when only Google can do so, navigation, calling people over SIP, memorizing important things with Anki, taking pictures and never having to say "I wish I brought my camera", and buying stuff from vending machines that accept NFC-credit cards. All of these could be done with a good phone+keyboard+maybe screen-dock, but I don't want a phone.

My regular use of a tablet (with a data plan): Reading. It's almost energy replaced books for me. Email when away from my desk. Note taking. Reference. Lots and lots of it, whether through a web browser, PDFs stored in my Dropbox, or special purpose apps (language dictionaries among many others). Extra screen to put a document on while working on my laptop away from an external monitor. General web browsing, on the couch, when eating lunch, etc. News. Flipboard has replaced newspapers entirely for me. Emergency server maintenance - I once resurrected our storefront server at 1:00 AM without getting out of bed. Remote VNC over VPN from anywhere. Casual gaming. A 9.5" screen is so much better for this than a 4" one. Movies while flying - way easier than trying to work with a laptop in coach.

Not to mention anything I would do on my Laptop - if I had my laptop with me at the time. I carry my tablet with me everywhere. I leave my laptop on my desk.

1. Field guide for birding

2. Field guide for astronomy

3. Omnifocus

4. Mobile fitness regime

5. Taking notes in class (my wife who lives on her 15" MBPS) used one for a class with iAnnotate. Worked like a dream.

6. Synthesizers. The musical instruments on the iPad are stunningly good

7. As a control surface. I use mine to control Ableton live

8. Notes. I use mine for note taking often

9. Scratching out ideas (I use Paper and a Stylus).

10. And lots of reading research papers and figuring out ideas

11. All my camera manuals stay with me when I go on a photo trip.

Books are one thing where I am all kindle all the time. Long form reading and tablets don't work for me.

This is why I think that things like the Samsung ATIV and the Asus Transformer Book are so neat. For most things I do - writing code, writing emails, posting my inane thoughts on Hacker News, the laptop form factor is pretty ideal.

I really like the book form factor for reading texts. For novels, my Kindle is great, but for textbooks and technical books, with a lot of random access, I much prefer a tablet to a laptop, and to the weight/space requirements of a dead tree book. I have the Kindle DX too, which is a pleasure to read, but the lack of random access is killer.

That said, I never have my tablet when I have my laptop, since it's more stuff to carry around - which is why I think if they were one and the same, it'd be ideal.

With browser sync, you can look something up on the main screen, then carry the tablet to the lunchroom (or toilet) to read it.

Tablets are fantastic for children. If you have kids, you may find that they take to it like a fish to water. You may want to steer them toward educational nature videos and math games, rather than mind-numbing running games like Temple Run, just to justify all that time they could have spent reading a book or playing ball outdoors.

Tablets are handy for reading or watching shows in the dark. My wife and I are watching Downton Abbey in bed. It's not ideal--I wish I had a robot arm thingie to hold the tablet rather than having it balanced on my chest, digging a ditch into my skin. But it's good enough; easy to pause and go back to catch what they said (we're not British and the dialects are sometimes tough to follow).

Basically, tablets are quite useful, and there's about 100 million users just in the U.S., so they must be doing something right! What's more, I suspect we've only scratched the surface of what these gadgets can do.

My tablet - very light on my stomach, as easy to hold as a book - easier with no page flipping etc. The half hour before I sleep is usually when I use my tablet.

Also - I develop for Android. Honeycomb was the first Android version designed for tablets. It came out about 2 years ago, early 2011. Back then the Android smartphone to tablet ratio was something like 95 to 5, if not greater. The integrated smartphone/tablet ICS Android version came out at the end of 2011. Meaning, the tablet OS and API hooks have only been out for two years, and initially there was very little of a user base.

In other words, these are still early days. I am sure the popular Android tablet focused apps of the future are yet to be written.

Now I edit iPad app code on it in "anywhere anytime" opportunities. Our app's users save hundreds of thousands of dollars (actual savings for mileage & enterprise data access "anywhere anytime").

If you can't find a productive use you're not trying very hard.

1) surfing the web from my couch

2) some games like plants vs. zombies are sublime on a tablet, much better than on a pc imho

3) pdfs read much better than on a pc or a kindle

4) comic books (cbz and cbr files) on a ~10" tablet are almost as good as the real thing

5) when docked, my tablet makes a fantastic picture frame showing the photos in my google+ account

6) there's some music production software that are really quite good, I like Caustic myself, there's similar for iOS.

7) lots and lots and lots of pretty decent painting apps

8) I use it to see notifications, task, etc. things that I've entered from my PC into some "cloud" service. calendars, trello tasks, etc. Just bringing my tablet into a meeting with trello pulled up on it makes it seem like a have a super human memory and is far less intrusive than a laptop

9) use it as a third monitor, there's some great wifi streaming apps that tell your OS to use it as another monitor. Sure it's a bit slow, but if I stash my email program over there, or a shell that's tailing a log or something, it's perfectly adequate

10) better yet, just put a shell app on there direct and ssh into the server and tail the app that way, keeping tabs on a long running startup process while I'm in the bathroom has never been easier

11) remote to my PC running VLC...it's awesome for this, I can seek fast forward and rewind, control volume, pause play, whatever...custom home touch panel remotes don't hold a candle to this

things I don't do

try to type non-trivial amounts of text quickly without a keyboard, which is where most of the examples from this post are about, which is weird since he's using a transformer prime...who's entire point is the keyboard dock

I've long maintained that there was no more productive time or software or device in my life than a Palm os device with Datebk6. In contrast, it was made to be productive, not novel, or distracting. Today's phones have all this horsepower, but to what outcome?

It's a fair reflection that right now we're working our way learning through the novelty and distraction app economy.

The masses don't know what else to do with tech (be productive?) because their interaction with tech (tv, radio, web) has always been about finding that next hit of novelty or distraction.

It is not my home work tool. Hell no, downgrading from three screens to one small? no.

I use low end Android phone, so I charge it only twice a week, but this means I cant use it for other purposes so well. Tablet is the thing I take with me whenever I leave house or go on a bigger trip. Battery life+ portability. Traveling abroad, maps, internet, hostels, emails, everything. It is perfect for these things, better than laptop. It is nothing I would prefer over real computer inside the house. But I prefer it every time I leave the house.

nexus 7 is my choice.

Every single comment here is how much people are using their tablet: for reading, surfing the web, watching videos, etc. I personally use my Nexus 7 every day both directions on my commute to do all those things.

However, the like the OP I'd really like to do something productive with my commute (coding, writing, whatever) and I have not found any good way to do that on my tablet. Even my 1st gen netbook is more useful for productive work.

A few areas to consider:

* When you're mobile with a laptop and used to working on multiple monitors, there's software you can use to make a tablet or "phablet" into a second monitor. This depends on you having a reasonable stand and you'll probably want it plugged in (at least if it's a phone and you want to preserve battery life), but at least one of the options (iDisplay, iOS and Android) works with either Wifi or USB as a connection.

* Offload non-essentials or things you'd like to be able to refer to - ebooks, to-do lists.

* Offload communications (email, twitter, etc.) that you might otherwise be tempted to have on your laptop - if those are on the tablet, you're not flipping over to them on your primary machine.

* (mostly phones) As a capture device, these may not be as fast or flexible as pen and paper, but where they can be great is as meta-capture devices: take notes, draw, etc., then take a picture of it in something that auto-syncs for you to process further later (e.g. convert that quick sketch into a network diagram)

I've recently brought a Transformer for upgrading my 2008 laptop. The main differences are:

- The tablet needs rooting, I could find no good development enviroment for Andoid, but Debian runs well as a userspace system. (Asus distributes the rooting software, I wouldn't even buy it otherwise.)

- The tablet has less USB ports (but has more I/O options). It still wasn't a problem, but I've already needed more than the laptop had.

- The tablet's keyboard is smaller, but better designed. Up to now, I'd say they are equivalently hard to use.

- The tablet has a slightly slower processor, but enough battery for an entire day with keyboard, or an entire working day without keyboard (the laptop lasted for 3 hours), and weights about 10% of the laptop's weight. Also, it's smaller (10" vs. 14") what is both good and bad.

- Touchscreens are simply great. It's still worse than a proper desktop, but it is much more convenient than plugging a mouse at a laptop.

- Also, you can unplug the keyboard when you just want to browse the web or read something, getting a much more convenient format and just half the weight.

I also had a keyboard, but quickly figured out that it was useless. It transformed the tablet into a laptop that only barely could do things I usually use the laptop for.

When folks ask me "What is a Tablet good for?" I tell them its a TV you can carry around. Oh and you can read books and news papers on it. Oh and you can look at pictures you've taken on it. Oh and you can video chat with someone on it. Oh and it will give you directions on how to get some where.

I have a keyboard case for those times when I need to use an ssh client to do something, I sometimes compose comments to HN on the train, but I don't really do any development on the thing.

But I also know that my finding a place for it in my work flow is completely orthogonal to my Dad doing the same. (although he immediately got an retina ipad when they came out to preview pictures he takes, its a much better preview than the display on his DSLR)

Sounds crazy but I do a lot of work in the terminal and the ipad makes a great terminal when paired with a keyboard.

It's akin to the distraction free solutions such as write room or the blocking the Internet hacks out there... With the ipad you can just have a terminal and nothing else fighting for my attention. Especially as the otherwise great Promt app logs you out so quickly so I put off checking my email as long as possible.

In short, I get more work done.

I think two tablets would make a great development environment, one running the terminal and one a browser checking the results... I do mostly web work so this is easy in the current state of affairs.

I guess I'm old school in my thinking that a screen can be totally detached from its server but then again I once admined a few hundred sun rays. The tablet to me is just the end display, if I need a unix environment I login to a unix server and do my work. When I'm at a real computer 95% of my time is spent on the terminal anyways so what is the difference if I run vi locally or if it is running in the cloud?

I sold the tablet, but I still didn't want to go back to lugging my 15" MBP around. Solution? The Samsung Chromebook. This is the perfect cheap productivity device. The keyboard and trackpad are as good as a Macbook air, it's thin and light, and it lasts a long time on a charge. With a $5/month Digital Ocean VPS to SSH into when I need to do programming, it's absolutely perfect. Never been happier with any tech purchase than I am with my Chromebook. People tend to bash Chrome OS but they haven't tried it. For people who think they should buy an iPad for "work anywhere mode", what you really want is a Chromebook.

I had a smartphone, and I was paying way too much each month to never make a phone call, to check email, navigate the city, and check wikipedia/google for conversational trivia.

I now have a Nexus 7 instead. Chucked the phone completely. I pay about $25 for metered data. GrooveIP would let me make phone calls on it, but I haven't had the need.

I even stopped hunting for apps, I've just settled on this as a great email/wiki/nav device. The bigger screen makes the experience better for all the things I use it for. Larger size means larger battery, it feels like it lasts forever. It's still pocket sized. A 6-inch mini-tablet would probably be my sweet spot, but 7 isn't too shabby.

None of my uses are "productive," but I'm also not usually "producing" anything outside of a fixed workspace. Kudos to those who prefer to write in parks or coffee houses, I prefer my full chair and desk.

Wouldn't give it up; don't see it as a fad.

If you're able to put a serious OS on your tablet, you essentially just have a tiny portable computer.

Not sure if any of that warrants a purchase but they are valid use cases for me.

Note that I don't compare it to a PC - a real computer is a lot more productive when it's around.

A proper computer wins hands down for any type of productive work.

I have an iPhone 5, I have a MacBook Air (at work and at home) and I have a Kindle. They're each very very good at what I want them for, and I rarely find myself reaching for the iPad other than Netflix...

I Now do almost all reading of technical books on a tablet simply because they're far lighter than most technical books.

This is nonsense. There will always be powernerds who want expensive keyboards and 15 million pixels of desktop. Tablets are not currently productive... for us

Now watch ordinary people using them and then look at tablet sales. Now tell me they are a fad again :)

Better, not only I haven't found any single productive use for a tablet, I haven't ever found one for a smartphone either.

I think one could buy a porable mp3 player or an ebook reader for much less money.

My computer is the thing on which I sit down and get stuck for hours and hours. If something I'd get rid of that.

What world is this guy living in? He barely mentions Apple, and the only thing that may save the tablet is Windows? That footnote of a tablet OS?

Only a tablet?

Those are MAJOR use cases of my iPad Mini. I absolutely love it.