Tablet computer

For other forms of tablet and slate computers and devices, see Tablet device (disambiguation).

File:IFA 2010 Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin 03.JPG

The Apple iPad

A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen. It often uses an onscreen virtual keyboard, a passive stylus pen, or a digital pen, rather than a physical keyboard.

Electrical devices with data input and output on a flat information display have existed as early as 1888. Throughout the 20th century many devices with these characteristics have been ideated and created whether as blueprints, prototypes or commercial products, with the Dynabook concept in 1968 being a spiritual precursor of tablets and laptops. During the 2000s Microsoft attempted to define the tablet personal computer (tablet PC) product concept as a mobile computer for field work in business, though their devices failed to achieve widespread usage mainly due to price and usability problems that made them unsuitable outside of their limited intended purpose. In April 2010 Apple Inc. released the iPad, a tablet computer with an emphasis on media consumption. The shift in purpose, together with increased usability, battery life, simplicity, lower weight and cost, and overall quality with respect to previous tablets, was perceived as defining a new class of consumer device and shaped the commercial market for tablets in the following year.

The term may also apply to a variety of form factors that differ in position of the screen with respect to a keyboard. The standard form is called slate, which does not have an integrated keyboard but may be connected to one with a wireless link or a USB port. Convertible notebook computers have an integrated keyboard that can be hidden by a swivel joint or slide joint, exposing only the screen for touch operation. Hybrids have a detachable keyboard so that the touch screen can be used as a stand-alone tablet. Booklets include two touch screens, and can be used as a notebook by displaying a virtual keyboard in one of them.

Tablet computers and tablet PCs

As of 2010, two distinctly different types of tablet computing devices exist, whose operating systems are of different origin.

Traditional tablets based on IBM-PC architecture

Main article: Tablet personal computer

A tablet personal computer (tablet PC) is a portable personal computer equipped with a touchscreen as a primary input device, and running a (modified) classic desktop OS. designed to be operated and owned by an individual. The term was made popular as a concept presented by Microsoft in 2000 and 2001 but tablet PCs now refer to any tablet-sized personal computer regardless of the (desktop) operating system

Tablet personal computers are mainly x86 based and are fully functional personal computers employing a slightly modified personal computer OS (such as Windows or Ubuntu Linux) supporting their touch-screen, instead of a traditional display, mouse and keyboard. A typical tablet personal computer needs to be stylus driven, because operating the typical desktop based OS requires a high precision to select GUI widgets, such as a the close window button.

Post-PC tablets not based on the traditional PC architecture

See also: Mobile operating system

Since mid-2010, new tablet computers have been introduced with mobile operating systems that forgo the Wintel paradigm, have a different interface instead of the traditional desktop OS, and represent a new type of computing device. These "post-PC" mobile OS tablet computer devices are normally finger driven and most frequently use capacitive touch screens with multi-touch capabilities instead of the simple resistive touchscreens of typical stylus driven systems.

The most successful of these was the Apple iPad using the iOS operating system. Samsung's Galaxy Tab and others followed, continuing the now common trends towards multi-touch and other natural user interface features, as well as flash memory solid-state storage drives and "instant on" warm-boot times; in addition, standard external USB and Bluetooth keyboards can often be used. Most frequently the operating system running a tablet computer that's not based on the traditional PC architecture is based on a Unix-like OS, such as Darwin, Linux or QNX. Some have 3G mobile telephony capabilities.

In forgoing the x86 precondition (a requisite of Windows compatibility), most tablet computers released since mid-2010 use a version of an ARM architecture processor for longer battery life versus battery weight, heretofore used in portable equipment such as MP3 players and cell phones. Especially with the introduction of the ARM Cortex family, this architecture is now powerful enough for tasks such as internet browsing, light production work and gaming.

A significant trait of tablet computers not based on the traditional PC architecture is that the main source of 3rd party software for these devices tends to be through online distribution, rather than more traditional methods of boxed software or direct sales from software vendors. These sources, known as "app stores," provide centralized catalogues of software from both 1st and 3rd parties and allow simple "one click" on-device software purchasing, installation, and updates.

History

Main article: History of tablet computers

Early tablets

The tablet computer and the associated special operating software is an example of pen computing technology, and thus the development of tablets has deep historical roots. The depth of these roots can be quite surprising to people who are only familiar with current commercial products. For example, the first patent for an electronic tablet used for handwriting was granted in 1888. The first patent for a system that recognized handwritten characters by analyzing the handwriting motion was granted in 1915. The first publicly-demonstrated system using a tablet and handwriting text recognition instead of a keyboard for working with a modern digital computer dates to 1956. Alan Kay attempted to formulate his Dynabook concept as a tablet as early as 1968; to this day, his concept has not yet been fully realized.

In addition to many academic and research systems, there were several companies with commercial products in the 1980s: Pencept, Communications Intelligence Corporation, and Linus were among the best known of a crowded field. Later, GO Corp. brought out the PenPoint OS operating system for a tablet product: one of the patents from GO corporation was the subject of recent infringement lawsuit concerning the Tablet PC operating system.

In 1987 Apple Computer started its tablet project, which considered release of devices of three sizes, with the one eventually released in 1993, Apple Newton, being the smallest (yet it was quite substantial device with 6" screen and 800 grams of weight).

One early implementation of a Linux tablet was the ProGear by FrontPath. The ProGear used a Transmeta chip and a resistive digitizer. The ProGear initially came with a version of Slackware Linux, but could later be bought with Windows 98.

Microsoft Tablet PC

Main article: Microsoft Tablet PC

In 1999, Microsoft attempted to re-institute the by-then decades-old tablet concept by assigning two well-known experts in the field, from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, to the project.

In 2000 Microsoft coined the term Microsoft Tablet PC for tablet PCs built to Microsoft's specification, and running a licensed specific tablet enhanced version of its Microsoft Windows OS. Microsoft Tablet PCs were targeted to address business needs mainly as note-taking devices, and as rugged devices for field work. In the health care sector, tablet computers were intended for data capture – such as registering feedback on the patient experience at the bedside.

Tablet PCs failed to gain popularity in the consumer space because of unresolved problems.

Apple's iPad

The tablet computer market was reinvigorated by Apple through the introduction of the iPad device in 2010. While the iPad places restrictions on the owner to install software thus deviating it from the PC tradition, its attention to detail for the touch interface is considered a milestone in the history of the development of the tablet computer that defined the tablet computer as a new class of portable device, different from a laptop PC or netbook. A WiFi-only model of the tablet was released in April 2010, and a WiFi+3G model was introduced about a month later, using a no-contract data plan from AT&T. Since then, the iPad 2 has launched, bringing 3G support from both AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The iPad has been characterized by some as a tablet computer that mainly focuses on media consumption such as web browsing, email, photos, videos, and e-reading, even though full-featured, Microsoft Office-compatible software for word processing (Pages), spreadsheets (Numbers), and presentations (Keynote) were released alongside the initial model. One month after the iPad's release Apple subsidiary FileMaker Inc. released a version of the Bento database software for it. With the introduction of the iPad 2 Apple also released full-featured first party software for multi-track music composition (GarageBand) and video editing (iMovie). As of the release of iOS 5 in October 2011 iPads no longer require being plugged in to a separate personal computer for initial activation and backups, eliminating one of the drawbacks of using a non-PC architecture-based tablet computer.

On May 20, 2010, IDC published a press release defining the term media tablet as personal devices with screens from 7 to 12 inches, lightweight operating systems "currently based on ARM processors" which "provide a broad range of applications and connectivity, differentiating them from primarily single-function devices such as ereaders". IDC also predicted a market growth for tablets from 7.6 million units in 2010 to more than 46 million units in 2014. More recent reports show predictions from various analysts in the range from 26 to 64 million units in 2013. On March 2, 2011 Apple announced that 15 million iPads had been sold in three fiscal quarters of 2010, double the number that IDC had predicted.

Non-Apple post-PC tablet computers

Early competitors to Apple's iPad in the market for tablet computers not based on the traditional PC architecture were the 5" Dell Streak, released in June 2010, and the original 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab, released in September 2010.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011, over 80 new tablets were announced to compete with the iPad. Companies who announced tablets included: Motorola with its Xoom tablet (Android 3.0), Samsung with a new Samsung Galaxy Tab (Android 2.2), Research in Motion demonstrating their BlackBerry Playbook, Vizio with the Via Tablet, Toshiba with the Android 3.0 – run Toshiba Thrive, and others including Asus, and the startup company Notion Ink. Many of these tablets are designed to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google's mobile operating system for tablets, while others run older versions of Android like 2.3, or a completely different OS such as the BlackBerry Playbook's QNX. Other than the Motorola Xoom, by the time most competitors managed to get devices of comparable size and price to the original iPad on the market, though, Apple in March 2011 had already released their second generation iPad 2.

Hewlett-Packard announced its TouchPad based on the WebOS system in June 2011. HP released it a month later in July, only to discontinue it after less than 49 days of sales, becoming the first casualty in the post-PC tablet computer market. The fire sale on TouchPad tablets when its price was dropped from U.S. $499 to as low as $99 after it was discontinued resulted in a surge of interest. This dramatic increase in its popularity potentially raised its market share above all other non-Apple tablets, at least temporarily.

In September 2011 Amazon.com announced the Kindle Fire, a 7" tablet deeply tied into their Kindle ebook service, Amazon Appstore, and other Amazon services for digital music, video, and other content. The Kindle Fire runs on Amazon's own custom fork of v2.3 of the Android operating system, and with its use of Amazon's cloud services for accelerated web browsing and remote storage Amazon has set it up to have very little other connection back to Google, aside from supporting Gmail as one of the several webmail services it can access. At a cost of only U.S. $199 for the Kindle Fire it has been suggested that Amazon's business strategy is to make their money on selling content through it, as well as the device acting as a storefront for physical goods sold through Amazon.

Post-PC tablet market share

According to IDC, Apple's iPad accounted for 83% of all "media tablet" sales in 2010. At the unveiling of the iPad 2 in March 2011 Steve Jobs claimed that the iPad held more than 90% market share, but the difference between the figures could be explained by the difference between the amount of hardware shipped into the channel versus the number that have been actually sold.

Quarterly Market Shares by IDC
Tablet OS			Percent
Apple iOS Q1 2011			65.7%
Apple iOS Q2 2011			68.3%
Google Android Q1 2011			34.0%
Google Android Q2 2011			26.8%
RIM QNX Q1 2011			N/A
RIM QNX Q2 2011			4.9%

As of August 2011, the iPad and iPad 2 have continued to dominate sales, outselling Android and other rival OS tablets by a ratio of eight to one. Apple's iPad held 66 percent of the global tablet market in Q1 of 2011, but the share is predicted to drop to 58 percent by the end of the year due to the influx of new products, mostly Android tablets. Technology experts suggest that Apple is getting court injunctions to stop the slide, although these injunctions are only preliminary measures as Apple has to provide more substantial evidence in subsequent court proceedings that the design of competing products infringed its patents or copied their designs in order to make any bans permanent. These cases take months or even years to come to court, unless there is no settlement, and if Apple loses it will be liable for the business lost by a competitor due to the injunction. Although risky, experts say that this kind of strategy gives time for Apple to hold off rivals and grab even greater market share with their iPad, since it is a market that is developing fast where Apple leads, regardless of the damages that they have to pay if they lose the case. Google's David Drummond complained "They (Apple) want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation."

On September 14, 2011 IDC announced that in the second calendar quarter of 2011 the market share of the iPad increased to 68.3% from 65.7% in the previous quarter, while market share for Android-based tablets decreased from 34.0% the previous quarter down to 26.8% in the second quarter. Besides being affected by the introduction of the iPad 2 in March 2011 this can also be partially attributed to the introduction of RIM's PlayBook tablet, which took 4.9% share of the market in the quarter.

On September 22, 2011 Gartner lowered their forecast for sales of tablet computers based on the Android OS by 28 percent from the previous quarter’s projection, explaining that "Android’s appeal in the tablet market has been constrained by high prices, weak user interface and limited tablet applications." Further, they state that they expect the iPad to have a "free run" through the 2011 holiday season and that Apple will "maintain a market share lead throughout our forecast period by commanding more than 50 percent of the market until 2014." Gartner revised their projection of Apple's worldwide tablet market share at the end of 2011 up to 73.4% after their previous projection of 68.7% for the year.

In October 2011 at the Launch Pad conference Ryan Block from gadget site gdgt showed slides identifying the makeup of the site's users who bought tablets in 2011 consisting of 76% iPad (39% iPad 2, 37% original iPad), 6% HP TouchPad, and no other tablet at over 4%. He noted that the numbers did not include previous purchases of the iPad or other tablets in 2010. In a breakdown by platform he showed a chart indicating Apple's iOS at 76%, Google's Android at 17%, HP's webOS at 6%, and RIM's PlayBook OS at 2%.

According to Forbes & eMarketer, Advertisers will spend nearly $1.23 billion on mobile advertising in 2011 in the US, up from $743 million last year.By 2015, the US mobile advertising market is set to reach almost $4.4 billion. This includes spending on display ads (such as banners, rich media and video), search and messaging-based advertising, and covers ads viewed on both mobile phones and tablets.

Touch user interface

Samsung Galaxy Tab

A key and common component among tablet computers is touch input. This allows the user to navigate easily and intuitively and type with a virtual keyboard on the screen.

A tablet presents a more natural user interface to the user than a command line interface or the traditional mouse driven WIMP interface . The event processing of the operating system must respond to touches rather than clicks of a keyboard or mouse, which allows integrated hand-eye operation, a natural part of the somatosensory system. Although the device implementation differs from more traditional PCs or laptops, tablets are disrupting the current vendor sales by weakening traditional laptop PC sales in favor of the current tablet computers. This is even more true of the "finger driven multi-touch" interface of the more recent tablet computers, which often emulate the way actual objects behave.

Handwriting recognition

Chinese characters like this one meaning "person" can be written by handwriting recognition (, Mandarin: rén, Korean: in, Japanese: jin, nin; hito, Cantonese: jan4). The character has two strokes, the first shown here in dark, and the second in red. The black area represents the starting position of the writing instrument.

Because tablet personal computers normally use a stylus, they quite often implement handwriting recognition, while other tablet computers with finger driven screens do not. Finger driven screens however are potentially better suited for inputting "variable width stroke based" characters, like Chinese/Japanese/Korean writing, due to their built in capability of "pressure sensing". However at the moment not much of this potential is already used, and as a result even on tablet computers Chinese users often use a (virtual) keyboard for input.

Touchscreen hardware

Touchscreens are usually one of two forms;

• Resistive: Resistive touchscreens are passive and can respond to any kind of pressure on the screen. They allow a high level of precision (which may be needed, when the touch screen tries to emulate a mouse for precision pointing, which in Tablet personal computers is common) but may require calibration to be accurate. Because of the high resolution of detection, a stylus or fingernail is often used for resistive screens. Although some possibility exist for implementing multi-touch on a resistive touch-screen, the possibilities are quite limited. As modern tablet computers tend to heavily lean on the use of multi-touch, this technology has faded out on high-end devices where it has been replaced by capacitive touchscreens.

• Capacitive: Capacitive touchscreens tend to be less accurate, but more responsive than resistive screens. Because they require a conductive material, such as a finger tip, for input, they are not common among (stylus using) Tablet PCs but are more prominent on the smaller scale "tablet computer" devices for ease of use, which generally do not use a stylus, and need multi-touch capabilities.

Other touch technology used in tablets include:

• Palm recognition. It prevents inadvertent palms or other contacts from disrupting the pen's input.

• Multi-touch capabilities, which can recognize multiple simultaneous finger touches, allowing for enhanced manipulation of on-screen objects.

Some professional-grade Tablet PCs use pressure sensitive films that additionally allows pressure sensitivity such as those on graphics tablets.

Concurrently capacitive touch-screens, which use finger tip detection can often detect the size of the touched area, and can make some conclusions to the pressure force used, for a similar result.

Other features

• Accelerometer: An accelerometer is a unit that detects the physical movements of the tablet. This allows greater flexibility of use since tablets do not necessarily have a fixed direction of use. The accelerometer can also be used to detect the orientation of the tablet relative to the center of the earth, but can also detect movement of the tablet, both of which can be used as an alternative control interface for a tablet's software.
• Ambient light and proximity sensors are additional "senses", that can provide controlling input for the tablet.
• Storage drive: Large tablets use storage drives similar to laptops, while smaller ones tend to use drives similar to MP3 Players or have on-board flash memory. They also often have ports for removable storage such as Secure Digital cards. Due to the nature of the use of tablets, solid-state memory is often preferable due to its better resistance to damage during movement.
• Wireless: Because tablets by design are mobile computers, wireless connections are less restrictive to motion than wired connections. Wi-Fi connectivity has become ubiquitous among tablets. Bluetooth is commonly used for connecting peripherals and communicating with local devices in place of a wired USB connection.
• 3D: Following mobile phone, there are also 3D slate tablet with dual lens at the back of the tablet and also provided with blue-red glasses.

Form factors

Tablet computers come in a range of sizes, currently ranging from tablet PCs to PDAs. Tablet personal computers tend to be as large as laptops and often are the largest usable size for mobile tablet computing while the new generation of tablet computers can be (much) smaller and use a RISC (ARM or MIPS) CPU, and in size can border on PDAs.

Booklet

Booklet computers are dual-touchscreen tablet computers that fold like a book. Typical booklet computers are equipped with multi-touch screens and pen writing recognition capabilities. They are designed to be used as digital day planners, Internet surfing devices, project planners, music players, and displays for video, live TV, and e-reading.

Slate

Slate computers, which resemble writing slates, are tablet computers without a dedicated keyboard. For text input, users rely on handwriting recognition via an active digitizer, touching an on-screen keyboard using fingertips or a stylus, or using an external keyboard that can usually be attached via a wireless or USB connection.

Slate computers typically incorporate small (8.4–14.1 inches (21–36 cm)) LCD screens and have been popular in vertical markets such as health care, education, hospitality, aviation (pilot documentation and maps), and field work. Applications for field work often require a tablet computer that has rugged specifications that ensure long life by resisting heat, humidity, and drop/vibration damage. This added focus on mobility and/or ruggedness often leads to elimination of moving parts that could hinder these qualities.

Convertible

A Lenovo X61 in slate mode

Convertible notebooks have a base body with an attached keyboard. They more closely resemble modern laptops, and are usually heavier and larger than slates.

Typically, the base of a convertible attaches to the display at a single joint called a swivel hinge or rotating hinge. The joint allows the screen to rotate through 180° and fold down on top of the keyboard to provide a flat writing surface. This design, although the most common, creates a physical point of weakness on the notebook.

Some manufacturers have attempted to overcome these weak points. The Panasonic Toughbook 19, for example, is advertised as a more durable convertible notebook. One model by Acer (the TravelMate C210) has a sliding design in which the screen slides up from the slate-like position and locks into place to provide the laptop mode.

Sliding screens were presented at CES 2011. The first product to use it is the Samsung Sliding PC7 Series, a tablet with Intel Atom hardware and a unique sliding screen that allows the product to be used as a laptop or slate tablet when the screen is locked in place covering the whole keyboard. The concept still has to prove its reliability, but is intended to combine the virtues of tablet PCs with those of notebooks. Also presented was the upcoming Inspiron Duo from Dell, which rotates the screen horizontally when opened. Convertibles like that with hardware specs of a netbook are called netvertibles.

Hybrid

Hybrids, a term coined by users of the HP/Compaq TC1000 and TC1100 series, share the features of the slate and convertible by using a detachable keyboard that operates in a similar fashion to a convertible when attached. Hybrids are not to be confused with slate models with detachable keyboards; detachable keyboards for pure slate models do not rotate to allow the tablet to rest on it like a convertible.

System architecture

See also: Comparison of tablet PCs and Comparison of ARM tablets

Two major computer architectures compete in the tablet market, x86 and ARM architecture. x86, including x86-64, is popular on tablet PCs due to its use on laptops which can share common software and hardware and which can run a version of Windows. There are also non-PC based x86 tablets like the JooJoo. ARM gained popularity following the success of the iPad. ARM is more power and cost efficient for mobile computing and is gaining popularity for smaller tablets from other manufacturers such as Samsung with the Galaxy Tab which runs on Android.

Operating systems and vendors

Tablets, like regular computers, can run a number of operating systems. These come in two classes, namely traditional desktop-based operating systems and post-PC mobile-based ("phone-like") operating systems.

For the former class popular OS's are Microsoft Windows, and a range of Linux distributions. HP is developing enterprise-level tablets under Windows and consumer-oriented tablets under webOS. In the latter class the popular variants include Apple iOS, and Google Android. Manufacturers are also testing the market for products with Windows CE, Chrome OS, and so forth.

Boot times for iPads are one-half the boot times for current Windows 7 netbooks, which can take over 50 seconds to display the login prompt. The BIOS initialization for a PC, which has remained unchanged since the invention of the PC, can still take 25 seconds.

Traditional Tablet PC operating systems

Microsoft

Main article: Microsoft Tablet PC

Following Windows for Pen Computing, Microsoft has been developing support for tablets runnings Windows under the Microsoft Tablet PC name. According to a 2001 Microsoft definition of the term, "Microsoft Tablet PCs" are pen-based, fully functional x86 PCs with handwriting and voice recognition functionality. Tablet PCs use the same hardware as normal laptops but add support for pen input. For specialized support for pen input, Microsoft released Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Today there is no tablet specific version of Windows but instead support is built in to both Home and Business versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Tablets running Windows get the added functionality of using the touchscreen for mouse input, hand writing recognition, and gesture support. Following Tablet PC, Microsoft announced the UMPC initiative in 2006 which brought Windows tablets to a smaller, touch-centric form factor. This was relaunched in 2010 as Slate PC, to promote tablets running Windows 7, ahead of Apple's iPad launch. Slate PCs are expected to benefit from mobile hardware advances derived from the success of the netbooks.

Microsoft has since announced Windows 8 which will have features designed for touch input, while running on both PCs and ARM architecture.

While many tablet manufacturers are moving to the ARM architecture with lighter operating systems, Microsoft has stood firm to Windows. Though Microsoft has Windows CE for ARM support it has kept its target market for the smartphone industry with Windows Mobile and the new Windows CE 6 based Windows Phone 7. Some manufacturers, however, still have shown prototypes of Windows CE-based tablets running a custom shell. To date, the full Windows 7 does not yet support ARM architecture.

Linux

One early implementation of a Linux tablet was the ProGear by FrontPath. The ProGear used a Transmeta chip and a resistive digitizer. The ProGear initially came with a version of Slackware Linux, but could later be bought with Windows 98. Because these computers are general purpose IBM PC compatible machines, they can run many different operating systems. However, the device is no longer for sale and FrontPath has ceased operations. It is important to note that many touch screen sub-notebook computers can run any of several Linux distributions with little customization.

X.org now supports screen rotation and tablet input through Wacom drivers, and handwriting recognition software from both the Qt-based Qtopia and GTK+-based Internet Tablet OS provide promising free and open source systems for future development. KDE's Plasma Active is graphical environments for tablet.

Open source note taking software in Linux includes applications such as Xournal (which supports PDF file annotation), Gournal (a Gnome based note taking application), and the Java-based Jarnal (which supports handwriting recognition as a built-in function). Before the advent of the aforementioned software, many users had to rely on on-screen keyboards and alternative text input methods like Dasher. There is a stand alone handwriting recognition program available, CellWriter, which requires users to write letters separately in a grid.

A number of Linux based OS projects are dedicated to tablet PCs. Since all these are open source, they are freely available and can be run or ported to devices that conform to the tablet PC design. Maemo (rebranded MeeGo in 2010), a Debian Linux based graphical user environment, was developed for the Nokia Internet Tablet devices (770, N800, N810 & N900). It is currently in generation 5, and has a vast array of applications available in both official and user supported repositories. The Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, as well as the Intel sponsored Moblin project, both have touchscreen support integrated into their user interfaces. Canonical has hinted at better supporting tablets with the Unity UI for Ubuntu 10.10.

TabletKiosk currently offers a hybrid digitizer / touch device running openSUSE Linux. It is the first device with this feature to support Linux.

Intel and Nokia

The Nokia N800

Nokia entered the tablet space with the Nokia 770 running Maemo, a Debian-based Linux distribution custom-made for their Internet tablet line. The product line continued with the N900 which is the first to add phone capabilities.

Intel, following the launch of the UMPC, started the Mobile Internet Device initiative, which took the same hardware and combined it with a Linux operating system custom-built for portable tablets. Intel co-developed the lightweight Moblin operating system following the successful launch of the Atom CPU series on netbooks. Intel is also setting tablet goals for Atom, going forward from 2010.

MeeGo

Main articles: Maemo and MeeGo

MeeGo is a new Linux-based operating system developed by Intel and Nokia that supports Netbooks, Smartphones and Tablet PCs. In 2010, Nokia and Intel combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to form MeeGo. The first tablet using MeeGo is the Neofonie WeTab launched September 2010 in Germany. The WeTab uses an extended version of the MeeGo operating system called WeTab OS. WeTab OS adds runtimes for Android and Adobe AIR and provides a proprietary user interface optimized for the WeTab device. On 27 September 2011 it was announced by the Linux Foundation that MeeGo will be replaced in 2012 by Tizen, an open source mobile operating system.

Post-PC operating systems

See also: Mobile operating system

Tablets not following the personal computer (PC) tradition use operating systems in the style of those developed for PDAs and smartphones.

iPad

Main articles: iOS (Apple), iPad, and ModBook

File:IPad in Case.jpg

The iPad in its case

The iPad runs a version of iOS which was first created for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Although built on the same underlying Unix implementation as MacOS, the operating system differs radically at the graphical user interface level. iOS is designed for finger based use and has none of the tiny features which required a stylus on earlier tablets. Apple introduced responsive multi touch gestures, like moving two fingers apart to zoom in. iOS is built for the ARM architecture which uses less power, and so gives better battery life, than Intel devices required by Windows tablets. Previous to the iPad's launch, there were long standing rumors of an Apple tablet, though they were often about a product running Mac OS X and being in line with Apple's Macintosh computers. This became partially true when a 3rd party offered customized Macbooks with pen input, known as the Modbook.

Previous to Apple's commercialization of the iPad, Axiotron introduced at Macworld in 2007 an aftermarket, heavily modified Apple MacBook called Modbook, a Mac OS X-based tablet personal computer. The Modbook uses Apple's Inkwell for handwriting and gesture recognition, and use digitization hardware from Wacom. To get Mac OS X to talk to the digitizer on the integrated tablet, the Modbook is supplied with a third-party driver called TabletMagic; Wacom does not provide driver support for this device.

Blackberry

The BlackBerry PlayBook is a tablet computer announced in September 2010 which runs the BlackBerry Tablet OS. The OS is based on the QNX system that Research in Motion acquired in early 2010. Delivery to developers and enterprise customers is expected in October 2010. The BlackBerry PlayBook was officially released to US and Canadian consumers on April 19, 2011.

Android

Main articles: Android (operating system) and Google Chrome OS

Google's linux-based Android operating system has been targeted by manufacturers for the tablet space following its success on smartphones due to its open nature and support for low-cost ARM systems much like Apple's iOS. In 2010, there have been numerous announcements of such tablets. However, much of Android's tablet initiative comes from manufacturers as Google primarily focuses its development on smartphones and restricts the App Market from non-phone devices. There is, moreover, talk of tablet support from Google coming to its web-centric Chrome OS. Some vendors such as Motorola and Lenovo are delaying deployment of their tablet computers until 2011, after Android is reworked to include more tablet features.

HP

HP's webOS: Hewlett Packard announced the TouchPad running webOS 3.0 on a 1.2Ghz Snapdragon CPU would be released in June 2011. On Thursday August 18, 2011, HP announced the discontinuation of the Touchpad, due to sluggish sales. The fate of any webOS-based software remains open, as HP casts about for some possible resolution.

One Laptop per Child organization

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) organization is developing a new version of the OLPC, strongly resembling a tablet computer, called the OLPC XO-3, running its "Sugar" operating system, based on Linux. The new XO-3 will be based on ARM technology from Marvell.

Developing software for tablet computers

See also: Mobile development

The new class of devices heralded by the iPad has spurred the tendency of a walled garden approach where the vendor reserves rights as to what can be installed. The software development kits for these platforms are restricted and the vendor must approve the final application for distribution to users. These restrictions allow the hardware vendor to control the kind of software that can be used and the content that can be seen in the devices; this can be used to reduce the impact of malware on the platform and to provide material of approved content rating, and also to exclude software and content from competing vendors. The walled garden approach to application development has proven to be a competitive advantage for the iPad over HP's Touchpad, triggering HP's withdrawal from the industry, due in large part to sluggish Touchpad sales, after only 49 days on the market.

Proponents of open source software deem that these restrictions on software installation and lack of administrator rights make this category one that, in their view, cannot be properly named personal computers. But there are newer mobile operating system based tablet computers that don't use the walled garden concept, and are like personal computers in this regard.

Comparison with laptop computers

The advantages and disadvantages of tablet computers are highly subjective measures. What appeals to one user may be exactly what disappoints another. The following are commonly cited opinions of tablet computers versus laptops:

Advantages

• Usage in environments not conducive to a keyboard and mouse such as lying in bed, standing, or handling with a single hand.
• Lighter weight, lower power models can function similarly to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle.
• Touch environment makes navigation easier than conventional use of keyboard and mouse or touch pad in certain contexts such as image manipulation, musical, or mouse oriented games.
• Digital painting and image editing are more precise and intuitive than painting or sketching with a mouse.
• The ability for easier or faster entry of diagrams, mathematical notations, and symbols.
• Allows, with the proper software, universal input, independent from different keyboard localizations.
• Some users find it more direct and pleasant to use a stylus, pen or finger to point and tap on objects, rather than use a mouse or touchpad, which are not directly connected to the pointer on screen.
• Recently a very cheap tablet "Aakash" has been launched in India for just $35 with a lot of advanced features.

Disadvantages

• Higher price – convertible tablet computers can cost significantly more than non-tablet portable PCs although this premium has been predicted to fall.
• Input speed – handwriting or typing on a virtual keyboard can be significantly slower than typing speed on a conventional keyboard, the latter of which can be as high as 50–150 WPM; however, Slideit, Swype and other technologies are offered in an effort to narrow the gap.
• Ergonomics – a tablet computer, or a folded slate PC, does not provide room for a wrist rest. In addition, the user will need to move his or her arm constantly while writing.
• Weaker video capabilities – Most tablet computers are equipped with embedded graphics processors instead of discrete graphics cards. In July 2010, the only tablet PC with a discrete graphics card was the HP TouchSmart tm2t, which has the ATI Mobility Radeon HD5450 as an optional extra.
• Business-oriented tablet personal computers have been slow sellers from 2001 to date.
• Screen risk – Tablet computers are handled more than conventional laptops, yet many are built on similar frames; in addition, since their screens also serve as input devices, they run a higher risk of screen damage from impacts and misuse.
• Hinge risk – A convertible tablet computer's screen hinge is often required to rotate around two axes, unlike a normal laptop screen, subsequently increasing the number of possible mechanical and electrical (digitizer and video cables, embedded WiFi antennas, etc.) failure points.
• Smaller display and lack of keyboard.

Tablets in developing countries

OLPC XO-3, a tablet computer concept

The low hardware requirements and easy operation of tablet computers has made it subject to various design studies for use in developing countries, furthermore it will reduce digital gap between the have and the have not. Prototype tablet computers such as the Aakash have been projected to cost $35 with subsidy, according to researchers in India which shall be soon available for the masses as the cheapest tablet working on Android with full functionality; however the bill of materials currently comes to $47 and will be avalaible soon at retail shops at $60. For the initial government will give for free to students 100,000 unit tablets.

Before it, One laptop per child (OLPC) plans to introduce a tablet computer for $100. Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman of OLPC, has invited the Indian researchers to MIT to begin sharing the OLPC design resources for their tablet computers. OLPC has been awarded a grant for an interim step to their next generation tablet, OLPC XO-3.

See also

• Comparison of tablet PCs
• Smartbook
• Ultra-Mobile PC

External links

• What makes a tablet a tablet? (FAQ) CNET.com May 28, 2010