Form Factor Trends

How many screens do we need in our lives? SmartPhone, TV, Laptop, Tablet and ..?

 

Early Jan 2011, I had an opportunity to attend an awesome panel discussion at CES about “Gadgets Everywhere and the Role of Wireless”. The discussion brought forth some interesting predictions of future that got me thinking. The panel seemed to agree that the tablet is the 4^th and “final” screen in user’s lives. Well, that “final” screen sounds like a familiar phrase as experts indeed had called mobile (or smartphone) as the final screen few years ago. That leaves us with a question: really how many screens do users need?

For the past few months, I have been using all the 4 screens in my life. Let’s for a moment, leave the TV screen aside - as an inevitable screen for every family to watch and enjoy contents together. That leaves us with 3 “personal” screens. So do we need them all?

Recently, when I started using the tablet, I had thought I will use the other 2 devices a bit “less”, paving the way for zeroing down on the best 2 of 3 that fulfilled all my needs. However, interestingly I did find a place for all 3 personal screens. and boy, did they fit their place each so well! I started using the tablet for a few applications where the laptop and smartphone were “less efficient” or simply “inadequate”. For example, the tablet was still as portable as the Smatphone but made the content-watching much better, with their bigger and better screens. The ready-to-consume contents viz. Books, Videos/movies and Pics play and look much better on the tablets. And unlike the heavier laptop, it did make me free from “desk” and entered the other rooms of my home. You could hold it like a “bedside book” for reading. You could make it stand for playing a movie. But the most amazing thing with the touch interface is that it almost minimizes the learning curve for non-computer-literates like my 3year old son or my parents. All they had to do to watch a content was to simply touch what they want to play. That for me is cool. Now the “Intent” takes over “methods”. This is how it should always have been. No need to read user manual or need any hand holding. Someone recently said at a conference: “The user manual is merely a list of design failures”. So true! If a consumer facing product’s interface is intuitive, it should just unbox and be ready to serve.

So are tablets already to take over laptops or smartphones? Not so fast. Like many other people, I am not a tablet-typer. So it is tough to create any docs or contents with tablets. Nor do they have a good MS-Office or productivity app suite for my office work. (It may change once the Googles or Apples of the world will solve that or if MS Windows tablets take off again). So yes, tablets are here to stay but not ready to kick the laptops out yet. There is a ton of opportunity to make the tablet more usable and enjoyable with software solutions (apps). That’s where the innovation will continue happening. With its portability combined with HW components like GPS and other HW components providing user context, the possibilities are endless.

There is a prediction that the tablets will become the only “away from home” consumption device. I agree. TV will remain unchallenged at home. Laptops will be around for a while at work and work-from-home. I especially like the idea that the tablet will be the device to enjoy while “leaning back” (content consumption) and laptop is for “leaning forward” (content creation). To take this idea further, TV will be a device to enjoy with family while relaxing “feet up” and the smartphone is a device to use while on the go (“feet on”). Unless we stop getting in some of these positions, all these screens are here to stay. So yes, my guess is 4 is a maximum. Only way from here is to go down to 3 or may be a 2 with some more evolutions of HW/SW. What’s your take?