Oct 22, 2009 Posted by David Torcivia on Oct 22, 2009 in Featured Articles, General

Righting the Hype

Newsweek recently ran an article entitle The Hype is Right discussing the rumors and implication of Apple’s new tablet PC (yes an mac is still a personal computer). This tablet, or iTablet as Daniel Lyons calls it, operates on the same concept as the iPhone. It is [rumored to be] a small (if you consider a 7-10 inch device small) screen with multi-touch capabilities – much like an iPhone on steroids or your laptop after a hefty diet. The point of the device is not to make phone calls and listen to music or to process documents and edit videos (though it will likely be able to do these things albeit not as proficiently as an iPhone or laptop) but simply to surf the web. Herein lies the crux of Lyons’

excitement over the device, it’s “always on” internet philosophy. Incidentally, this is also where he – at least initially- begins to run into problems.

It is worth noting here that the capabilities of this tablet are not known and simply based upon widely agreed upon requirements and rumors but nothing is known for sure.

Lyons focuses on the internet capabilities of the tablet in particular the “always on” feature of a connection to the web. He neglects to mention that this constant connection to the net will not be a feature of the tablet but simply a capability. The net has toll booths to reach the “always on” lane – wireless carriers. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint namely are the gatekeepers of the web. If you want the ability to have the internet at your finger tips 24/7 (ignoring network problems) anywhere (that service is offered) at high speeds (in even less places than service is offered) then be prepared to write monthly checks of $50 and upwards for this privilege. Here is the first problem with Lyons’ argument. The introduction of a new device does not magically destroy the greatest barrier to ubiquitous internet: cost. Until internet is available everywhere (rural areas discounted for the sake of argument) at high speeds instead of the crawling 3G we see now (3G ranges from 385Kbps, slower than the lowest tier of DSL, to 7.2Mbps though this speed is hardly ever obtained). This is dramatically worse in actual practice than the consistent speeds a hard line grants you at your home. Until true high speed wireless internet is available, and new format called WiMAX seems to be the answer to this cry, internet browsing will remain painfully slow.

Further stymieing the would-be media consumer is the draconian data caps these carriers institute. It is not uncommon to be limited to only 3GB of transfer over the course of a month. That’s about 125 youtube videos or just over 4 a day. When you factor in images, audio, and longer videos, the amount of daily surfing you can perform without surpassing your cap and paying hefty overage charges is minuscule. Data caps will prevent new media if they persist in their current form. Even worse than mobile data capping is the

Last and most prominent is the problem of coverage. While the major carriers have done a commendable job blanketing the large cities in their wireless access systems, coverage is wildly inconsistent and prone to dropout. Some locations will receive the full benefit 3G+ speeds while others are reduced to 1G sub dial-up browsing making media consumption essentially impossible.

Second, the rumored price of the tablet generally centers around $800. $800 is a lot for a device only slightly more portable than a laptop at a considerable decrease in power. Again, this raises a problem of ubiquity. Should a new media system arise, it must be ubiquitously available. An $800 access fee is unreasonable for such a luxury.

Too expensive is what sums up the rumored Tablet. It will attempt to create a niche between a laptop and a phone but will be priced beyond many laptops (a casualty of the “apple-tax”). Too expensive to purchase, too expensive to gain it’s most important feature: a constant connection.

Lyons, despite his misguided insistence the Apple tablet will trigger this paradigm shift, makes a good point on the future of media. Video is becoming increasingly important to the ADHD culture of online consumption. YouTube serves over 1 billion videos to users every day and streaming video represents over 50% of all internet traffic. Online news consumption has increased as well strengthening the idea we aren’t consuming less information but rather simply changing where we get it from.

Lyons describes the current state of online media simply as the availability of media online: TV shows on Hulu, news on nytimes.com. This is phase one of the internet, the variety show of radio brought to television. He stops there simply predicting we are on the precipice of the start of stage 2 declaring he cannot know what this new era holds for us instead looking towards the storytellers of grade school who are growing up in this new media world. This change is undeniably coming but I’d like to offer some further insights into what this new media may be built off of in an upcoming article. Stay tuned or perhaps it would be more appropriate to type keep refreshing.