

Study shows tablets are mostly used for mails, games, social networking,& search - denzil_correa
http://research.google.com/pubs/pub38135.html

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jiggy2011
"mails, games, social networking,& search"

Isn't that what computers in general are mostly used for?

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ThomasQue
My reaction too, then I realized that's what people do when they have an
internet access. But they do some other things if the device lets them : on a
desktop computer, they use office software and on a phone... they call and
send SMS. To me a tablet is essentially the least capable internet connected
device.

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51Cards
aka Consumption, consumption, consumption. I think this has been known to be
the best use for tablets for awhile now. Not saying you can't create with a
tablet but the cases where it is the best device for content creation are
fairly few and far between IMO.

Not saying any of the above is bad. Most people do exactly the above on the
web, consume content while contributing small bits here and there (a photo, a
tweet, etc.) Hence the popularity of the tablet format.

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cake
Only 33 participants, I don't think that it is statistically significative.

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drd
I agree, normally in a research the size of sample should be proportional to
the size of the population. The sample size of 33 doesn’t say anything while
the size of population is a few million. Specially, when it is easy to access
this population, this is not a research on a rare type of disease.

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bluetidepro
This would make complete sense based on the majority of popular apps on the
various app stores. The next big thing I would imagine we will see is using
tablets for books/reading, notes/note-taking, and educational usage. Also, I
would imagine this will change drastically when the demographics of users
start to get more wide. For example, when price points get lower and lower
(but the advancements increase) and you start seeing tablets being a much more
plausible computer replacement.

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DGCA
I don't think price is what keeps people from buying tablets, since a decent
one can be had for $200. I think what keeps certain people, and I would say
this is a large number, from buying tablets is that they don't see a need for
one. Tablets aren't meant to do the same tasks as a desktop/laptop that is why
they won't replace them.

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ricardobeat
Wow, took a whole 5 minutes until we got to the tablet vs desktop debate.

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TeMPOraL
As a tablet owner who had high expectations when buying one, I - to my dismay
- found out that it's mostly useless. I mean, it's a great device for
consuming news and playing games, but other than that it hardly has any
practical / creative application that a PC wouldn't do better.

I understand that it's a new and young technology, but it hurts me to see that
something that could be much more, goes in the direction of wasting people's
time with games and apps that Do Only One Thing, But Do Them Poory. That's why
what I would like to see is a debate about how to make tablets more practical;
how those big, handheld, multitouch screens can be used for making the world a
better place.

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marshray
My experience is similar to yours. What would you do to make tablets better?

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TeMPOraL
I'm not sure yet; this thought that something is seriously wrong occured to me
very recently and I didn't have free time to pursue it yet. As for what would
I do is first of all, to explore the problem more, which is what I plan to do
soon.

Anyway, some initial thoughts I had:

\- consuming is still broken on tablets, at least on Android ones. Most of the
apps out there are written for smartphones, and do not make use of neither
screen space, nor the multitouch capabilities [0]. There are few exceptions,
including third third party clients for Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, and also
official GMail and Calendar app. And maybe maps. Pretty much everything else
is still made for phones.

\- tablets could be used as an additional input devices; the big advantage of
them over typical input hardware is an reconfigurable interface[1] and ability
to handle more finger operations. In particular, I have some drawings of an
helper interface for 3D software in my notebook. The idea is to use tablet as
an additional interface for zooming, panning and rotating the scene in a
similar manner people use "spaceballs" for. I plan to test this idea soon, so
I'll post it to HN alongside with all lessons learned in the process.

\- I think that some ideas from Bret Victor's "Magic Ink"[2] about context-
sensual data graphics could be explored more on tablets. Also exploring data
that is in graphical form strikes me as something tablets could be much better
for than mouse and keyboard.

\- tablets are nice to carry around (as opposed to laptops), so I see some
hope that as the physical environment around us gets more and more
computerized, a tablet device may become the most convenient way to interact
with it when you need a bigger screen than a smartphone can provide.

That's pretty much it; for now it's just me and the feeling that "surely a
hand-held, big, multi-touch enabled screen with Wi-Fi and lots of processing
power _must_ have some better uses than playing Angry Birds and browsing
Reddit".

[0] - I know, phones have multitouch as well, but with small screens, there's
not really much place to make those touches comfortably.

[1] - that, on the other hand has a drawback of hindering the ability to learn
to use them intuitively if we start reconfiguring those interfaces too much,
but I guess it's just a tradeoff.

[2] - <http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/>

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ricardobeat
From my past experiences I don't think an Android tablet is even comparable to
an iPad unless it's one of the latest models.

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TeMPOraL
Does Asus Transformer TF300T (with Android 4.1) qualify? That's what I got,
and I find it awesome in use (except of being generally a bit useless, of
which I wrote above).

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ricardobeat
Awesome but useless? It either is good at something or it isn't. An iPad is
very good for reading, browsing, email, twitter, etc., often better than a
laptop, and most apps make good use of the screen space. The android tablets
running 4.1 I've played with are not _that_ terrible either, certainly good
enough for web browsing, email and games.

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sebslomski
Is there anything besides that in the consumer market?

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stephengillie
_mails, games, social networking, search_

In the consumer market - the market for consumers - that is, those who consume
(content) - what other content categories can be named?

What about the "creator" market? From apps to videos to photochops to blog
posts to video gaming blog posts?

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duiker101
So....all the things the other portable devices are used for? what else did
you expected?

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DGCA
Did you read the study? Don't just comment on headlines.

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typicalrunt
The table of activities in the study confirms my worries about tablets: that
they are primarily used for consumption. I'm noticing a trend amongst people
(in general) to whom I speak with that they are no longer _creating_ and
instead _consuming_. This is akin to the mis-interpreted version of "Turn On,
Tune In, and Drop Out" [1] where your devices turn you into a zombie.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_on,_tune_in,_drop_out>

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nuje
As a new Nexus 7 owner my favourite tablet feature is: I can do my Android
stuff without worrying about running my phone out of battery. Now if it only
fit in my pocket...

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Splines
I'm tepid on the Surface RT but I'm really looking forwards to the Surface Pro
- finally a tablet that I can attach a controller to.

IMO Microsoft missed a bit by not integrating the 360 wireless adapter into
the chassis, but I suppose it wasn't a priority.

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doyoulikeworms
Honestly, I can't think of much else tablets can do except for web browsing.

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marshray
They're awesome for maps/navigation.

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hnriot
The actual article has a table with more than the title submitted would
suggest, it also includes playing music, lightweight content creation
(probably micro blogging would be my guess), managing finances and all the
other things that people routinely use a computer (or any format) for. The
missing category was programming but since the "study" had 33 participants
it's utterly useless anyway.

Their conclusion validates what is common knowledge, that tablets can pretty
much do anytimg any other computer can and people use them for everything. I
was a little surprised to see managing finances because my experience is that
I have seen people do this with their phone and laptops but not tablets. The
main reason I think is that the tablet goes places laptops wouldn't do as
conveniently and (my friends at least) trust the cellula data privacy more
than coffee shop wifi privacy.

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kennon
I think it'll be interesting to see if there are households who have a tablet
but not a desktop/laptop. Until that happens, it still feels like a luxury
product.

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ZeroGravitas
My elderly (75) in-laws are one such household, and I think that's spreading
in their demographic.

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marshray
What this seems to be suggesting is that tablets are not replacing PCs,
they're more like a portable WebTV. :-P

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josteink
So basically the "People are not buying PCs, they are buying iPads"-meme
should stop here then?

Good good.

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swombat
On the contrary. Mail, games, social networking and search are 90+% of what
most normal people do with a computer. So people are buying iPads instead of
computers because they work better for the most common use cases.

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WayneDB
Do you have a citation for that?

According to Nielsen, Americans spend about 35% on "Other", so I'd like to
know where your 90% figure comes from.

Page 3 here - <http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/social/>

Older numbers from 2010 -
[http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-
ameri...](http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/what-americans-do-
online-social-media-and-games-dominate-activity/)

At the very least, I think the meme is inaccurate.

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nmcfarl
Not commenting on anything else here, anecdotally the meme is very accurate.

All of my relatives in their 50's and older (and their friends) bought cheap
netbooks 5 years ago, and every last one of them is replacing them with iPads
as they break, etc. This is I think, oddly, the majority of the iPad owners I
know (the rest are young(ish) geeks, like me, for whom the iPad is a 3rd or
5th device.)

From my perspective this meme is dead on.

