Talking tablets with Bob Stein: ‘A consumption device’
By: calendar iconNovember 30th, 2010 a 10:30am

Tablets have become a popular device for consuming content – whether it’s reading magazines, watching movies on a flight, playing games on the go or sharing stories with people from your sofa.

As part of our RedBoard series about how tablets are changing the way we live, work and play, we asked Bob Stein, Co-Director of the Institute for the Future of the Book, five questions about his tablet use and what’s next for this technology.  He sees the tablet as a device designed for consuming content.

1. How do you use your tablet?

As a consumption device. surfing the web via FlipBoard and Facebook, reading email (and writing short replies), watching video, listening to music, reading books, playing expressive games (e.g. SoundDrop, my current favorite)

2. What has surprised you most about the device?

I always expected that when “the tablet” arrived it would be a new form factor for an all purpose consumption/production device. However, with the arrival of the iPad, Apple separated consuming from creating.

3. What are your predictions for tablets in 2011?

There are going to be lots of new models and the Android-based tablets are going to begin challenging the iPad’s dominance in the market.

4. If you were sent to a desert island and could take one device, would it be a tablet or another device? Which one and why?

If there is internet connectivity I want a Macbook Air because I can use it to create as well as consume. If no internet connectivity, i would reject the iPad with it’s limited memory in favor of the Mac Powerbook with the largest hard drive so I can load it with books, music and video.

5. What’s your one must-have app?

Kindle reader for iPad

Stein will be part of a panel entitled “Tablets and the Media” at Rogers TabLife TO on December 3rd.

You can learn more about the event at tablife.ca. We’ll have full coverage of Rogers TabLife TO here on RedBoard on December 3rd and shortly after the event.

Richard Bloom is a regular contributor to RedBoard.

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  1. Ted Avery says: November 30th, 2010 a 10:49am

    The idea that tablets are consumption devices only is a myth that is being disproved on a regular basis by visual artists, musicians, and writers. John Gruber covers these a lot in his blog. Here’s a search pulling up a handful of examples.
    http://daringfireball.net/search?q=ipad+consumption

    The fact of the matter is iOS is a powerful operating system that can allow for any kind of application through the app store. If you are scared off because it lacks a keyboard, connect one via bluetooth and get writing, maybe using Apple’s own iWork app. If anything, iOS has more potential for creation because of the unique uses of the touch screen, such as an art app. As the OS develops overtime, it will begin to overlap with the Mac OS desktop counterpart more and more and the lines that some people are trying to draw will become more and more blurry.

  2. Will Robertson says: December 1st, 2010 a 11:41pm

    Must agree with Ted, I think that tablets should definitely not be cast aside as consumption only devices. Initially when the iPad was released that seems to be the general concensus, but as people have used it more and more, I think they generally find themselves creating.

    Personally I have switched to trying to use it for everything I do. As a student I do a wide variety of things (lecture notes, long reports, complex financial spreadsheets, drawings/diagrams, coding, and writing) and the iPad has been my machine of choice for all of these things for the past 5 months.

    I look forward to hearing you talk at TabLife!