The following essay was originally published in ComputorEdge on January 15, 2010, three months before Apple revealed the iPad. Although this essay refers to the iPad as the “iSlate” and described the iPad’s virtual keyboard as more customizable than it really is, the majority of this essay remains accurate, especially considering that I wrote this while so many critics were claiming that the iPad would fail. This just goes to show you the importance of keeping an open mind, looking for opportunities rather than limitations, and sticking to your beliefs despite the criticism of naysayers around you.
If you’re the type of person who wants to get a head start on all your competitors who can only see flaws and excuses instead of opportunities and potential, then that’s what this Web site can offer you to spark your own imagination and keep you ahead of the people who know everything but never do anything.
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(Originally published on January 15, 2010)
The End of an Era
“Apple’s iSlate is going to change the world as drastically as Alice stepping into Wonderland.”
by Wally Wang
The first PC era began with MS-DOS. Back then, Microsoft focused on creating the operating system and let everyone else worry about creating the software needed to make a computer work. This was a time when WordStar, WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Turbo Pascal, and dBASE III Plus dominated their markets.
These programs would likely have continued dominating their markets to this day if something didn’t change the playing field too drastically for them to react and adapt in time. Back then, that drastic paradigm shift was Windows 3.0.
Windows 3.0 proved an enormous step up in ease of use. Rather than force people to memorize cryptic commands (and even worse, type them in without making a single spelling mistake), Windows provided a graphical user interface.
In the past, people forced themselves to learn a particular program and were reluctant to change and relearn the cryptic commands of another program. Once Windows 3.0 eliminated this barrier, WordPerfect lost its stranglehold of fear that kept users stuck using WordPerfect (which is similar to the same stranglehold of fear that keeps people locked into Windows instead of switching to the Macintosh).
Besides leveling the user-interface playing field, Windows 3.0 also demolished the barrier of print drivers. One of the biggest advantages of WordPerfect was its ability to work with a huge variety of printers due to its large printer driver library. With Windows 3.0 giving all programs equal access to the same amount of print drivers, WordPerfect lost its second major advantage over rivals.
The final nail in WordPerfect’s coffin came when the world adapted Windows and wanted to use a Windows-based word processor. Without a Windows version of WordPerfect available, WordPerfect users simply switched to other Windows-based word processors. Since the only comparable choice was Microsoft Word, that’s how Microsoft Word became the leader by default.
Repeat this cycle for Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE III Plus, and you can see why Microsoft Word, Excel and Access stole the market away from WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE III Plus. By introducing Windows 3.0, Microsoft dramatically changed the computer market and made sure they were prepared, but their rivals were caught flat-footed. By the time their rivals could catch up, it was already too late.
Guess what? Apple is dropping a similar nuclear bomb on the computer industry at the end of January. While everybody focuses on turning slate computers into e-book readers, they’re missing the real purpose of slate computers, and that’s to work as fully functioning portable computers as well.
The Apple tablet, possibly called the iSlate, is set to destroy the current computer market and leave its rivals struggling to catch up. The answer has been in plain sight of the entire computer market, but they’ve been too blind to see.
In 1998, a company called FingerWorks developed a unique touchpad that allowed you to control a computer through finger gestures. In 2005, Apple quietly purchased this company. Do a quick search on Amazon for old FingerWorks products, and you’ll see what these touchpads used to look like.
Figure 1. The FingerWorks iGesture Pad that was once sold on Amazon.com.
Search for “Fingerworks user guide” on Google, and you’ll find a bunch of links leading to the now-defunct FingerWorks Web site. However, peek into the cache and you can see all the old information that was once stored on that site.
Figure 2. Peeking into Google’s cache lets you see what information the FingerWorks site used to display.
Part of that information lists the type of commands you could use with your fingers to control a computer, which includes finger commands for opening and closing applications, manipulating a cursor, and even special gestures for playing games.
Figure 3. The old FingerWorks site hints on the versatility of finger gestures.
FingerWorks’ technology is more than 10 years old, but its arrival as a touch surface for the iPhone made the iPhone look like a revolutionary device from the future, especially when compared to the Rube Goldberg contraptions of sliding keyboards, tiny screens and clumsy stylus input interfaces of older mobile phones that tried to pass themselves off as “modern technology.”
In less than a few years, the iPhone has gone from zero market share to a major competitor in every mobile phone market in the world. Windows Mobile had a huge head start against the iPhone, but Microsoft sat on its butt too long and let Windows Mobile fall behind.
Notice how every new smartphone tends to look like the iPhone? It’s because nobody has the imagination to think in the long-term future, so the Palm Pre, Nexus One and Blackberry Storm are copycats.
The genius behind FingerWorks’ technology is that it replaced multiple physical devices (keyboard, keypad, screen, etc.) with a virtual surface that could mimic anything at a larger size with full touch-gesture control to boot.
The gesture technology of FingerWorks made its debut with the iPhone, but its technology has filtered down to the multitouch trackpad of the latest MacBook Pro laptop computers and the Magic Mouse.
What’s next? Obviously, FingerWorks’ technology is going to power the iSlate. The iSlate isn’t just going to be a larger iPod touch or another e-book reader. It’s going to be a fully functional portable computer that uses a virtual screen that can mimic a keyboard, trackpad and screen on a single surface.
The genius of creating a keyboard virtually on a flat surface is that you can redesign the keyboard to your comfort level. For example, a physical keyboard takes up space and forces you to adapt to its key placement. Don’t like the size of the cursor keys or the location of the Backspace key? With a physical keyboard, you’re out of luck. With the virtual keyboard on the iSlate, you can rearrange the keys to place them where you want them to appear. Make the keys bigger or smaller, wider or taller.
To see what a flat-virtual keyboard can look like, check out this YouTube video of a FingerWorks touch pad, or check out the comments from happy users on Amazon.com.
Figure 4. A virtual keyboard can place keys in more natural positions for your hands.
Here’s another problem with physical keyboards. Manufacturers need to create one keyboard for the United States market, a second keyboard for the Mexican market, and a third keyboard for the French-Canadian market. A virtual keyboard eliminates all that.
Just reprogram your virtual keyboard on your iSlate and you can have a Spanish, Russian, Greek, or French keyboard at your fingertips. Rearrange the keys to adjust to your hand placement and you also minimize the risk of repetitive stress injury, which can occur when you hold your hands in a fixed position on a physical keyboard or mouse for too long.
One barrier to using a keyboard on a slate is that the keys will appear flat on a two-dimensional surface and provide little tactile feedback. It won’t take long to get used to this, but to train people to see keyboards as two-dimensional surfaces with low tactile feedback, Apple has already introduced its odd, flat, two-dimensional keyboards for their laptop computers along with their desktop computers.
Figure 5. The nearly flat surfaces of Apple keyboards is training people to get used to typing on an iSlate.
If you already use a recent Macintosh, you’re practically already trained to see, use and accept a two-dimensional keyboard. When the iSlate arrives, Macintosh users will not only be the first to buy it, but they’ll be the first to adapt to it with few training problems.
To further reduce physical stress when typing, you’ll be able to switch between the traditional QWERTY keyboard layout to the more efficient Dvorak keyboard layout. There’s a good chance others will design even more optimum keyboard layouts that you can choose, and your iSlate will switch to it virtually as easily as displaying a new Web page. Any computer that still uses a physical keyboard will look as antiquated as a manual typewriter next to a word processor.
Want to play a game? Switch to a special game-playing keyboard. Need to write a letter? Switch to a regular keyboard. Need to crunch numbers. Switch to a larger numeric keypad. Instead of forcing yourself to work within the confines of a physical keyboard, you’ll now be free to choose the most efficient keyboard layout for what you want to do at the time.
Dump your mouse and forget about a trackpad since your virtual keyboard surface will double as a gesture-tracking device to detect whether you’re typing something or moving the pointer. Rather than clutter the iSlate with a separate trackpad and keyboard, you’ll just have a screen that performs the multiple functions of everything.
Eventually FingerWorks’ technology is going to filter to the Macintosh as well. Imagine your current MacBook laptop with a virtual keyboard in place of its current physical keyboard and trackpad. Think of replacing your ordinary mouse and keyboard with a single virtual slate to control your iMac. This virtual keyboard will make every Macintosh look like a futuristic computer, while every Windows-based PC will look like a quaint museum piece in comparison.
Of course, you need software to take full advantage of these touch gestures, and once again Apple has been preparing us for this historical moment since the introduction of iWork. While Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, along with a host of other companies introduced slate PC designs, none of them offer any type of input control like FingerWorks’ technology and nobody has software specially designed to take advantage of the slate’s form factor.
With the iSlate, you’ll get a multi-touch version of the entire iWork suite. Now you’ll be able to write letters through Pages, crunch numbers with Numbers, and create and give presentations through Keynote all through the iSlate. What other programs are going to be capable of running on the iSlate and be touch-gesture controlled from day one? Not Microsoft Office. It’s going to be iWork.
The touch surface and gesture-controls of the iSlate are simply going to blow every other company’s pitiful tablet wannabees into the dustbins of failure. For twice the price of a typical netbook, you’ll get a million times more functionality with the iSlate.
By the way, the iSlate can also function as an e-book reader, which is what everyone’s been focused on for all this time anyway. By thinking the iSlate will be a fancy e-book reader, all these tablet PC rivals were aiming at the wrong target for years, and now they have no hope of ever catching up. It’s like Apple has a two hour head start in a bicycle race, while Microsoft and everyone else is still at the starting line trying to ride a plastic Big Wheel tricycle.
Here’s who’s going to be hurt the most. First, Microsoft is going to get killed with the iSlate since they won’t have anything comparable for the next few years, and by then it will be too late. (That can be the motto for Windows 8. “Windows 8 is three years too late.”)
Anyone depending on Microsoft Windows to run their desktop, laptop, netbook, or slate PCs is going to get killed as well. Within two or three years, Dell Computer’s stock should be trading in the single digits and on its way into total irrelevance. Hewlett-Packard will survive a little longer with its printer business, but its computer business is as good as gone.
Microsoft will try to cobble together a response, but remember, Steve Jobs has reportedly already killed the Apple iSlate two or three times already. That means technically, the new iSlate is probably a third-generation model that’s going to be working near perfectly, while anything Microsoft hurriedly slaps together will be a beta, 1.0 release that won’t work as well, won’t feel as elegant, and won’t have the supporting software to back it up for another few years. Plus, Microsoft has to hope that its multiple hardware partners can slap something together that might actually run Microsoft’s software halfway decently without looking like an obvious copycat and cheap imitation in the process.
Microsoft will likely start promoting Windows 7 with touch-gesture technology and promise full touch gesture support in Windows 8, but will anyone want to wait for a half-baked solution when a more elegant one will be available from Apple right now?
Kiss Microsoft good-bye. Windows simply can’t compete against the iSlate operating system and with every iSlate user using iWork, that spells the end for Microsoft Office as well. Apple’s iSlate has the potential of pulling the rug out from under Microsoft’s two cash cows (Windows and Microsoft Office), which means all of Microsoft’s other projects, like Bing and the XBox, will have to actually learn to support themselves without relying on cash infusions from Microsoft’s other divisions.
Windows 3.0 killed every major MS-DOS heavyweight, and the touch-surface technology of the iSlate and FingerWorks has the potential to do the same to the current Windows heavyweights.
Microsoft can’t compete by cramming Windows 7 into everything from a netbook and a slate PC to a full-blown desktop and laptop computer, and Dell can’t do anything more than package pre-assembled parts.
The only thriving market for the PC industry is the netbook market, but given a choice between a cheap, throwaway netbook or an elegant iSlate, the netbook market is going to nosedive straight into the ground and take companies like Asus, Acer, Dell and MSI with them.
After the PC makers go belly-up, next will be the interface manufacturers like Logitech and (here we go again) Microsoft, because physical keyboards, trackballs and mice are going to be obsolete compared to the touch surface of a virtual keyboard.
The software market will start everyone off on a level playing field again, except iWork will gobble up the office suite market. Can Adobe adapt fast enough and provide a touch-gesture version of Photoshop? If not, a new company that nobody has ever heard of before could jump into the gap and help kill Adobe.
The iSlate will likely use the same software distribution model as the iPhone’s app store, which makes finding software easy and helps prevent malicious software like viruses, Trojan horses and spyware from infecting a computer. With the threat of viruses, worms and Trojan horses minimized for the iSlate, what will security companies like Symantec and McAfee do besides cater to their ever-shrinking customer base still firmly wedded to the ancient technology of Windows?
Intuit still can’t get a Macintosh version of Quicken out, so a new company has a chance to capture the money-management market for the iSlate. Any company that gets most of their revenue from the Windows market is going to be in trouble, so that might mean kissing Intuit good-bye.
If you’re still doubtful that entire groups of companies can get wiped out by a single technological change, perhaps you’d like to consider the fate of Mustang Software, which was once the leader of BBS software before the Internet demolished the entire BBS software market.
The PC era is over. Apple’s iSlate is going to change the world as drastically as Alice stepping into Wonderland. If you don’t want to get run over by technological change, here’s what you need to do right now.
First, get a Macintosh and start using Apple’s flat keyboards to get used to typing on a two-dimensional surface. If you get an iMac, make sure you get the Magic Mouse so you can get comfortable using touch gestures to scroll. If you’re using a MacBook, use the models that come with the touchpad that recognizes three and four finger swipes.
Second, start using iWork as your office suite software. Once everyone starts using the mobile version of iWork on the iSlate, it will only be natural to use iWork on your ordinary Macintosh computer, so get used to the menu commands and features now.
Third, if you’re a computer programmer, start studying Objective-C, which is the programming language for all of Apple’s products. If you’re using something like C#, you’re already locked into the Windows world so get out now and learn Objective-C.
Of course, there will always be work for people who know C#, but there will also be plenty of work for anyone who knows COBOL too. If you want to deal with legacy systems, stick with COBOL and C# (another Microsoft product). Otherwise, Objective-C is the future.
The impact of Apple’s iSlate tablet device isn’t the form factor, but the finger-controlled touch surface. With more than 10 years of experience through the acquisition of FingerWorks and plenty of patents to protect its designs, Apple has defined a whole new computing paradigm that nobody else will be able to mimic successfully. Windows PCs represent the old era. The iSlate and touch-screen gestures represent the new era.
Which era do you want to be a part of? Starting today, the PC vs. Mac debate is officially over. Apple has already won.