tablets and eReaders

Make the new look like the old - please.   Retro is used as a style term, but it really is a desire, (no matter what age we’re at) to return to some prior period when life was simpler. And frankly, tech was easier to use.  We have radios with dials, remote controls with bigger (still inadequate) buttons. Why not a smart phone with a traditional hold-in-the-hand receiver?   Hey, no kidding, someone invented it! Native Union’s Pop Phone Handset – plugs into any smart phone or tablet.   And eliminates the requirement to put a hockey puck sized device next to your ear.

With tablets, eReaders and smart phones, will individual home broadband matter? I wonder why more isn’t written about rural broadband and FCC initiatives that are intended to expand broadband access at the same time tablet, eReader and smart phone use is exploding?  A data plan for your smart phone or tablet is portable. Some eReaders have built-in 3G cellular services that enable downloading of (some) free books. Carriers may soon lose interest in promoting low-cost broadband for seniors if they ever really cared about it at all. This may soon make the deployment of tablets, smart phones (currently kind of dumb) and eReaders the best way to bring older adults online and connected to family, friends and services.

To type or not to type – that is the tablet question. A long time ago in a cubicle far, far away, one fingered poking at keys sent a clear message – this person can’t touch type. Must have missed the high school typing class in favor of shop.  I knew many one-fingered programmers, back in the day – they advanced to management quickly to avoid exposure as the typing frauds they were. They weren’t big on writing longhand letters, and voluminous e-mails were not strengths. But authors, journalists and now bloggers (all 156 million of them) know that their strength is in paragraphs with punch AND punctuation, clauses, and…even upper-lower case. But with tablets and smart phones, the era of richness in typed text may be near an end – watch the swiping users to know of what I speak.