ONT OUCHMAGAZINE

How Star TrekPredictedthe iPad

BIG TABLET ROUNDUP9 Reasons the Killer Tablet App is the Browser

Microsoft Surface 2 at CES

Motorola XOOM

Hands-on Review

M AY/JUNE 11

ONTOUCHM A G A Z I N E

E X E C U T I V E E D I T O R

A U T H O R99 Things: 9 Reasons Why the

Killer Tablet App is the Browser

A U T H O RHow star trek Predicted

the iPad 23 Years Ago

A U T H O RMotorla Xoom: Hands on

with the World’s First Android Tablet

A U T H O RWhy Touch Devices will Replace Laptops in College Classrooms

G R A P H I C A RT I S TThe Big Tablet Roundup

C O N T R I B U T I N G E D I T O R

William Millar

Jason Baptiste

Chris Foresman

Corinne Iozzio

Gianna Walton

William Millar

Gene Parmesan

D E S I G N & P U B L I S H I N G

William Millar

Produced for Joseph Quackenbush’s Typography III class at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. All images copyright their respective owners. Design © 2011, William Millar. Text set in Univers LT Std, Futura Std, Microgramma, and Briem Akademi Std.

M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 1

ONTOUCHM A G A Z I N E

E X E C U T I V E E D I T O R

A U T H O R99 Things: 9 Reasons Why the

Killer Tablet App is the Browser

A U T H O RHow star trek Predicted

the iPad 23 Years Ago

A U T H O RMotorla Xoom: Hands on

with the World’s First Android Tablet

A U T H O RWhy Touch Devices will Replace Laptops in College Classrooms

G R A P H I C A RT I S TThe Big Tablet Roundup

C O N T R I B U T I N G E D I T O R

William Millar

Jason Baptiste

Chris Foresman

Corinne Iozzio

Gianna Walton

William Millar

Gene Parmesan

D E S I G N & P U B L I S H I N G

William Millar

Produced for Joseph Quackenbush’s Typography III class at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. All images copyright their respective owners. Design © 2011, William Millar. Text set in Univers LT Std, Futura Std, Microgramma, and Briem Akademi Std.

M A Y / J U N E 2 0 1 1

MAY/JUNE

99THINGS9 Reasons Why the Killer Tablet App is the Browser

START UPA look at the current state of the tablet industry

JUST INWe take a look at the newest devices on the market

ONTOUCH

20 11SU

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.34” .34”.51” .54” .40”.50”.32”

BAROMETER

BUT WHY?!

INMY

TABLET?Barometers are instruments that measure atmospheric pressure—essentially the weight of the column of air bet-ween you and the top of the atmosphere.

As you'd expect, atmospheric pressure decreases rapidly as you ascend in the atmosphere. In fact, it drops pretty quickly—reducing to about half its sea-level value just 5.5kmup in the air. As a result, atmospheric pressure readings are used to detect altitude.

iOS

webOS

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ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMBw/ TouchWizUX

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

i OS 4. 3

WEBOS 3.0

BLACKBERRY TABLET OS

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G A L A X Y TA B L E T S

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I PA D

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1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core ARM A5

Dual Core Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon @ 1.2 GHz

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

ARM Cortex A9 dual-core @ 1GHz

PROCESSORTA B L E T

AVAILABLE APPS

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X O O M I PA D TO U C H PA D G -S L AT E GALAXY 8.9 P L AY B O O K

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E 20 11

fig. A WHY TOUCH DEVICES WILL REPLACE LAPTOPS IN COLLEGE CLASSROOMS

56

fig. B TABLET ROUNDUP 58fig. C LAST WORDS 67

F1 FEATURE 1

F2 F E A T U R E 2

A

BC

MOTOROLA

XOOM:HANDS ON WITH

THE WORLD’S

F IRST REAL

ANDROID PHONE

HOW

STAR TREK

PREDICTED

THE IPAD

23 YEARS

AGO

42

28

9ont.ch/11may99t

The tablet market is exploding and exceeding everyone’s wildest dreams. Apple is in the lead, but the Android tablets along with many others are on their way. In an interview back in January, I stated that “apps are bullshit for content”. I thought it would be good to clarify that statement and explain my reasoning why the future of content on tablet devices is not going to be delivevtted through apps, but through one killer app: the browser.

2 READERS ARE ALREADY GOING TO THE SITE Readers are already trained to go

to a publication’s website. Why should they be funneled through a website, told to download an app, and then navigate to an article?

3 HTML5 IS CAPABLE TO DELIV-ER APP-LIKE EXPERIENCES Publishers want to deliver a great

experience that can take advantage of what’s possible on tablet devices. The solution 9 months ago was to create apps that are essentially glori� ed PDFs and cost a ton of money. The new solution is to use HTML5 to provide the same type of experi-ence and on the web.

HTML5 can’t do the crazy game enabled capabilities but it certainly can do many of the fast content effects seen in native content apps. Transforms, fonts, and more make it possible that the web can be indistinguishable from native apps. It’s hard, don’t get me wrong, but it’s now possible.

4 FIXING THE “STUFF TO DO” PROBLEM When you buy a tablet, you’re given

a new device and need “stuff to do”. Apps clearly � ll that void by allowing you to play games, consume content, and more. Sure you already browse the web, but you download apps because you know they are made for that device. Sadly, most of the web is not made for tablets… yet. By mak-ing the web tablet and touch friendly, it in-creases the value of tablets tremendously.

“APPS ARE BULLSHIT FORCONTENT”

REASONS WHY THE KILLERTABLET APP IS THE BROWSER

99TN E V E R E N O U G H L I S T S

NINET Y-NINE THINGS

ON THE WEB,

PUBLISHERS CAN

CHOOSE THE

ADS THEY WANT,

DISPLAY THE

CONTENT THEY

WANT, AND GIVE

UP A MUCH

SMALLER PIECE

OF THE PIE.

1REFERRAL TRAFFIC IS LOST WITH APPS The majority of a content owner’s

traf� c comes from referral traf� c such as search, share, and email. That traf� c has and always will go back to the website itself. Even if a link is opened in the Twitter app, it is still showing that content in a UI web view. It’s close to impossible to have that traf� c open up in a native app, which would require a user has it installed already. Sure, it could prompt the reader to download the app, but that is a painful ex-perience. If publishers create apps instead of focusing on the web they throw out half of their traf� c .

ONTOUCH14

99T

5 HOMESCREEN FATIGUE Readers will only keep so manyapps on their homescreen at one

given time. You’re also competing against apps that will never go away such as ASafari, YouTube, mail, and more on a reader’s homescreen along with apps like Angry Birds and Instagram, that aren’t even content apps.

6 CONSISTENT CROSS DEVICE EXPERIENCE By focusing on the web, you can

create a consistent cross device experi-ence. It’s hard to create apps that will work across all touch devices, if not nearly impossible. By focusing on the web, you know that a reader will have the same consistent experience whether they are on iPad, the Xoom, or the TouchPad. The web is also a write once, deploy everywhere environment, where apps are not.

7 THE WEB WAS MEANT FOR URLSThe web was meant to have each

individual piece of content have a perma-nent place in history. With apps there is no foot in the ground for a piece of content. If you want to directly link to a piece of con-tent inside of an app, how do you do that? You can’t. The web was built upon URLs and people sharing and linking to them. If apps were to dominate the world, we’d lose that structure.

8APP STORES DON’T PROVIDE REAL DISTRIBUTION Publishers think that app stores are

the holy grail for traf� c and distribution, when they are in reality driving very little

“new distribution”. App stores have horrible discovery. The best way to discover new content apps is through a pure search query. Odds are though, that if you love a media property enough to search for it in an app store, you already visit the site. You are not a new reader. Social sharing provides real distribution.

9 FOLLOW THE MONEY Apps and the keepers of the plat-form ultimately decide what a

publisher can or cannot do. How much can they take for subscriptions? What data can they collect? When can they push an update? Going through intermediary app stores puts the decisions they can make from a business perspective in the hands of others. Those decisions, especially around monetization are the lifeblood of any publisher. Putting that control in the hands of a select few is scary and literally gives away the power they have. The most alarming is Apple’s decision to take a 30% cut of all subscriptions and making that a mandatory option. On the web, publishers can choose the ads they want, display the content they want, and give up a much smaller piece of the pie.

So where do apps make sense in the tablet world? With applications that exist PRIMARILY as an app, not as a supple-mental app to a website. Examples:

Flipboard and Angry Birds make total sense as apps. They take advantage of what can be done natively and don’t have web counterparts.

All content apps such as CNN, Huf� ngton Post, and more are just extensions of a website, where their real traf� c exists. They should not be apps. The same can be seen with apps such as basecamp and their recent HTML5 version of the site for touch devices.

It’s not a question of if, after talking to pub-lishers of all sizes, but a question of when.

TRANSFORMS,

FONTS, AND MORE

MAKE IT POSSIBLE

THAT THE WEB

CAN BE INDISTIN-

GUISHABLE FROM

NATIVE APPS. IT’S

HARD—DON’T GET

ME WRONG—BUT

IT’S NOW POSSIBLE.

MAY/JUNE 15

O ne interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next

Generation—one that separated it from the original

series and most of the early � lms—was its widespread use of

smooth, � at, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-

D. This touch interface was also used for numerous portable

devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices.

These mobile computing terminals bear a striking resemblance to

Apple’s iPad—a mobile computing device largely de� ned by its

smooth, � at touchscreen interface.

H O W S T A R T R E KPREDICTED

THE

iPAD

S T A R T R E K

24 YEARS AGO

PREDICTED

The P.A.D.D.,

imagined by

Jeffries and his

team, has many

similarities to

Apple’s iPad

“PEOPLE WOULD

COME TO ME AND

SAY, ‘WHAT

HAPPENS IF I NEED

TO DO THIS?’ AND I

REAIZED THE

PROPER ANSWER FOR

THAT WAS, ‘ IT ’S IN

THE SOFTWARE.’”

To understand the thinking that led to the design of the Star Trek PADD, we spoke to some of the people involved in production of ST:TNG (as well as other Star Trek TV series and � lms), including Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. All three were involved in various as-pects of production art for Star Trek properties, including graphic design, set design, prop design, visual effects, art direction, and more. We also discussed their impressions of the iPad and how eerily similar it is to their vision of 24th century technology, how science � ction often in� uences technology, and what they believe is the future of human-machine interaction.

According to Michael Okuda, original Star Trek art director Matt Jefferies had practically no budget. “He had to invent an inexpensive, but believable solution,” he told Ars. “The spacecraft of the day, such as the Gemini capsules, were jammed full of toggle switches and gauges. If he had had the money to buy those things, the Enterprise would have looked a lot like that.”

Because Jefferies was forced by budget re-straints to be creative, however, the original Enterprise bridge was relatively sparse and simplistic. “Because he did such a brilliant job visualizing it, I think the original Star Trek still holds up today reasonably well,” Okuda said.

Similar budget constraints meant creative solutions were required for ST:TNG as well. “We had a much lower budget than the feature � lms did,” Okuda told Ars. “So, for example, I looked at the production process of making a control panel, and I said, ‘How can I make this as inexpensive as possible?’ Having made those decisions, ‘now what can I do to make it as futuristic as posible?’”

What could be simpler to make than a � at surface with no knobs, buttons, switches, or other details? Okuda designed a user interface dom-

inated by large type and sweeping, curved rectangles. The style was � rst employed in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home for the Enterprise-A, and came to be referred to as OKUDAGRAMS. The graphics could be created on transparent colored sheets very cheaply, though as ST:TNG progressed, control panels increasingly used video or added post-production animations.“The initial motivation for that was in fact cost,”

Okuda explained. “Doing it purely as a graphic was considerably less expensive than buying electronic components. But very quickly we began to realize—as we � gured out how these things would work and how someone would operate them, people would come to me and say, ‘What happens if I need to do this?’ Perhaps it was some action I hadn’t thought of, and we didn’t have a speci� c control for that. And I realized the proper answer to that was, ‘It’s in the software.’ All the things we needed could be software-de� nable.”

What Okuda realized is that with physical hard-ware interfaces, each function has to be designed into the interface from the beginning. But by imag-ining that software could re-con� gure the interface as needed, the writers were able to

MAY/JUNE 31

FROM “ELECTRONIC

CLIPBOARD” TO PADD

T he Star Trek � lms, beginning with 1979’s Star Trek: The

Motion Picture, had sizable budgets for set design, props,

and special effects. However, the original Star Trek series

from the 1960s didn’t have the resources to � ll starships

with buttons, knobs, and video displays.

“WE ALWAYS FELT THAT THE CLASSIC OKUDA

T-BAR GRAPHIC WAS MALLEABLE, AND THAT

YOU COULD STRETCH AND REARRANGE IT TO

SUIT YOUR TASK, JUST L IKE THE IPAD,”

imagine any function that needed to advance the plot, and the production artists could create a

“software” interface to perform the speci� c action.Since the props weren’t functional, no real code

needed to be written. “We were free to imagine, ‘What if you do this? Or what if you just touched that and it became a helm panel?’” Okuda said.

Still, the design of the user interface on the various control panels was in� uenced by user experience considerations. “What I tried to do was create something that, at a distance, looked like it had a macro-level organization,” Okuda told Ars, “and when you got closer, there appeared to be an additional overlay of organi-zation on top of that. The viewer would imagine, looking at it, ‘If I study this close enough, I could � gure out how to � y a starship.’”

Avid viewers may remember that of� cers on the original Star Trek took notes or signed off on

Interface in ST: TNG was designed to look

very complex, but seAnsible enough that

the viewer would feel that “[they] could

� gure out how to � y a starship.”

orders using what were referred to as “electronic clipboards.” These rather bulky-looking (by today’s standards) boxes had a sloped top with a large area for writing with an attached stylus, as well as a few light-up buttons. Lt. Uhura often used one in her role as communications of� cer.

For ST:TNG and beyond, Star� eet used touch-screen PADDs. The thin, handheld devices used the same interface as the control panels and Awe wanted to make them sleeker, slimmer, and way more advanced than the electronic clip-boards were on the original series,” Okuda said.

But PADDs were much more powerful than electronic note pads. “We realized that with the networking capabilities we had postulated for the ship, and given the [hypothetical] � exibility of the software, you should be able to � y the ship from the PADD,” Okuda said.

ONTOUCH32

MAY/JUNE

Controls on ST:TENG were large malleable surfaces with interactive graphics. Visual motifs included colorful objects, a big black back-ground, rounded corners, and pastel colors.

“I think that anything that has no apparent mechanism yet delivers a big punch is either futuristic or, if you are from the Middle Ages, magic,” Drexler explained. Advanced alien devices on the original Trek series often had no discernible mechanism. So touch interfaces seem like magic. It’s also slightly eerie, as you have the sensation that this thing is aware of you.”

Even Okuda was impressed with how natural and � uid the interface of the iPad feels in use. Actions that involved complex post-production effects on a PADD actually seem easy on an iPad, he said. “There are a lot of things that are very easy to do in a prop, but actually very dif� cult to do in reality,” he told Ars. “For example, pinch to zoom—that was relatively dif� cult to do even as

a visual effect. It’s implemented brilliantly on the iPad and the iPhone.”

Drexler said that to him, the iPad is “eerily similar” to the PADDs used in Star Trek. “We always felt that the classic Okuda T-bar graphic was malleable, and that you could stretch and rearrange it to suit your task, just like the iPad,” he said. “The PADD never had a keyboard as part of its casing, just like the iPad. Its geometry is almost exactly the same—the corner radius, the thickness, and overall rectangular shape.”“It’s uncanny to have a PADD that really works,”

Drexler said, unlike the non-functional props made for the TV series and later � lms. “The iPad is the true Star Trek dream,” Drexler told Ars.

STAR TREK DREAMS

L ike the PADD, Apple’s iPad and other iOS devices are designed largely around the idea that the software de� nes how the device can be used. “Nothing compares to the almost alive interface of the iPad,” Doug Drexler told Ars. An ardent reader of science � ction from the age of 10, the iPad’s touch interface was something he had long expected. “I think my attitude was, ‘It’s about time!’” he said.

MAY/JUNE 33

“IT’S UNCANNY TO

HAVE A PADD THAT

REALLY WORKS. THE

IPAD IS THE TRUE

STAR TREK DREAM.”

“One thing that informed not just the PADD, but the overall technology, was that Gene Rodden-berry wanted the new Enterprise to be visibly more advanced then the original Enterprise,” Okuda said. “Roddenberry had the wisdom to realize that ‘advanced’ didn’t mean ‘more compli-cated.’ He actually wanted things to be much simpler. So we took that to mean that it was clean-er, better user interfaces, fewer buttons, fewer things to learn how to operate,” he told Ars.

Touch is a natural interaction for users, and lends itself to greater ease of use. Executed well, it can make devices more accessible, in a shorter period of time, to a wider user base. “The average user can pick up an iPhone or an iPad, and with 30 seconds of instruction, they can use it,” Okuda said. “Maybe not in great detail, but for them it’s still a functional device.”

Early personal computers weren’t known for ease of use. “I grew up with IBM PCs, using them, and being comfortable with the DOS operating system,” Okuda said. “But at the same time, I was frustrated with the fact that I had to think the same way the designers and programmers did.”

A QUANTUM LEAP

Okuda identi� ed ease of use as a driving

factor behind technology that the produc-

tion team envisioned for the future—a driving

factor that Roddenberry himself considered

essential.

ONTOUCH34

The iPad optimizes a malleable interface, personal size, and natural gestures to provide a seamless user experience.

The Mac changed all that, Okuda told Ars. “The very � rst time I saw the Apple Macintosh, it was an astonishing quantum breakthrough. Here was someone beating their brains into guaca-mole in order to make this machine easy for me to use,” he said.

Denise Okuda, Michael’s wife, didn’t come from an art or technology background before working on Star Trek. She became more involved in design and art direction with Michael’s help and her comfort using a Mac. “When I � rst sat down at a DOS-based computer, I wanted nothing to do with them,” she explained. “That changed when I used a Macintosh for the � rst

time. Within a few minutes I could learn how to use it; that was my ‘ah-ha moment.’”

Both Michael and Denise felt the same “ah-ha moment” when using an iPad. “The iPad, that kind of interface, represents a quantum leap over the interface in the original Mac,” Michael told Ars.

Okuda expressed frustration that so many other devices had been designed for the technology and not the user. By way of example, he de-scribed how easily his parents would typically give up after trying out some new technology.

“Yet, you hand them something simple like an iPad, and the learning curve is very short and thepayoff is almost immedate,” he said.

TODAY: SCIENCE FICTION,TOMORROW: REALITY

The same general concepts behind the PADD doubtless had some in� uence in the eventual development of the iPad. But science � ction often inspires new technology, and many devices that we now take for granted appeared in Star Trek.

CONTINUE READINGON PAGE 89

MAY/JUNE 35

ON REVIEW

OOM

WITH THE FIRST

REAL ANDROIDTABLET

motorola

We’ve been anxiously awaiting the

Motorola Xoom’s arrival ever since we groped it at

CES. The � rst dual-core tablet! The � rst tablet to use

Android’s tablet-only Honeycomb OS! The � rst Android

tablet that doesn’t immediately make us think “look at that

giant phone!” And, yeah, the � rst legitimate iPad competitor,

period. What we found was a great tablet--not a “promising”

product, but a tablet that is seriously fast, fun to use,

well-designed, and very pretty (when was the last

time you heard “pretty” applied to Android?

HANDS ON

the

go

odGOOGLE APP S

We already knew that Google was pushing panel-based app formatting for Honeycomb. When you � rst open Gmail, for instance, it may look just like it does in iOS, but the experience is much more seamless. In message view, the left-most column of the screen houses a list of items in a folder (say, your inbox), while the right two-thirds displays an expanded, threaded conversation view; if you ask me, the Honeycomb format trounces even web-based Gmail. In both Mail and Gmail accounts, the main folder-view allows you to drag-and-drop messages in and out of fold-ers. The Maps app has a similar layout; instead of imposing a search pane and results over the entire screen (as in cellphone Android), it keeps a list of place entries to the leftmost third of the screen, so you can see a snapshot of the location and its, well, location, side-by-side, just as you would on the web.

what’s newThe 10-inch Xoom is both the � rst tablet to hit stores that runs the Hon-eycomb version of Android, which Google has designed speci� cally for larger screens, and the � rst boasting a dual-core processor (Nvidia’s Tegra 2) to handle heaps of tasks at once. (This will become the standard soon; BlackBerry’s Playbook and likely the next iPad will also have dual-core processors.) Google has shown off the Xoom as the � agship of this new generation of Android devices: the � rst true Android tablet, running the � rst true Android tablet OS.

ONTOUCH50

the

go

od

C A MERAThe camera refresh in Honeycomb is long overdue. When using the rear-facing camera, the captured image takes up about two-thirds of the screen, with the image controls remaining handy on the right, letting you adjust white balance, � ash, color palate and scene modes without bouncing in and out of pop-up menus. One click (or tap, or whatever) also swaps between the rear-facing � ve-mega-pixel sensor and the front-facing two-megapixel sensor.

TABBED BROW SING

Waiting for a Chrome tablet? Here’s a worthy substitute. If you know the Chrome browser, you know what’s

going on here. Honeycomb’s web browser is delightfully powerful, a supercharged version of the Android

browser that has much more in common with the desktop Chrome browser than Google’s previous mobile

efforts. You can keep several tabs open simultaneously, including “incognito” tabs that keep your history pri-

vate. I was sure when I opened the New York Times, CNN, ESPN PopSci.com and others all at once that there

would be substantial lag when toggling from window to window, but that was happily not the case. It also

syncs with your Chrome bookmarks and automatically logs into the primary Google account on the Xoom,

so you can hop right into any Web apps.

BUT TON-LESS -NESS

Google has touted Honeycomb as a button-free experience, which made me skeptical at � rst (I like the one-

click-to-home on the iPad and other iOS devices), but I was quickly proven wrong. In video playback, for

one, there’s nothing to see but screen; and it only takes a quick tap on the lower or upper edges to pop the

navigation and menus back up. The same goes for reading ebooks: ain’t nuthin’ but the page in front of you.

There is one physical key, though, it’s just not on the face; in fact, the placement of the power/lock button on

the upper-left corner of the device’s back is unusual but near-perfectly placed, right where your pointer � nger

falls when gripping the slab.

HARDWAREHoneycomb aside, the Xoom is the most well-thought-out tablet I’ve ever tinkered with. While it ships as a 3G and Wi� device, a SIM card slot on the top will allow it to con-nect to ultra-fast 4G once the Verizon LTE network rolls out later this year. Its memory is also expandable up to 64GB via MicroSD card (it ships with a hefty 32GB). Its dual-core 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor is also well up to the chal-lenges presented by multitasking media; I never noticed as much as a blip in any of my playback or load times, and everyday use was buttery smooth.

MAY/JUNE 51

84NOTIFIC ATIONS A ND SE T TINGS

Honeycomb has taken the noti� cations bar from the tippity top of the

screen and moved it down to the lower righthand corner. From here,

no matter what app you’re in, you can see when there’s any activity

anywhere else on the device. A new Google Talk message, for example,

pops up in its own small box alongside a thumbnail image of whoever

sent it. The same goes for emails and tweets, though they’re accompa-

nied by the app logo, instead of a face, and it’s a nice use of the larger

screen real estate compared to a smartphone.

Tapping the digital clock opens a full list of noti� cations, and lets you

delete them one by one or as a group. From this window, you can

also access all the system settings, something which you (annoyingly)

could only do from the homescreen before.

RECENT APP S A ND MULTITA SK ING

Beside the virtual Home and Back buttons, which persistently appear at the bottom-left

corner of the screen, is the Recent Apps list, which expands into a stack of the last � ve

apps used alongside a thumbnail of the last screen you were on. This column made tog-

gling between apps almost instantaneous; I, for example, hopped quickly between Maps

(where I was hunting for a nearby restaurant) and an email--a task which would have

taken a healthy amount of double-clicking the home button on an iPad to accomplish.

co

nti

nu

ed

the good

K E Y BOARDThe on-screen keyboard is as close to a match for the iPad as I’ve ever used. The keys are well spaced and plenty large. My only complaint would be that the Alt options are only available on a handful of punctuation keys; rather than a long-press on the Q to pull up the numeral 1, you have to switch back and forth between views--a trick Honeycomb should have borrowed from its immediate Android predecessor FroYo, for sure.

WIDGE TSI’ve always found widgets on smartphone Android to be too overwhelming for the small screen. To get any useful at-a-glance information from, say, your Twitter feed, the widget itself must bogart an entire homescreen. Not so in Honeycomb, which Google has positioned as a champion of widgetry. YouTube thumbnails, my Twitter feed, tiled Web bookmarks, and the native music player all � t com-fortably on one pane.

ONTOUCH52

the

ba

d

TOO MUCH CLICK INGHoneycomb relies more on the user to do the navigating than iOS does. I found myself endlessly back-clicking in and out of screens (if I left the Gmail app while changing its preferences, hopping back to Gmail from the homescreen or another app would drop me off at the preferences screen, not the inbox), and Honeycomb leaves all the decisions about what to see completely up to the user--something that’s especially a drag when trying to play back video.

The most prominent example is the YouTube app: At � rst glance the Honeycomb YouTube channel blows the iPad out of the water, presenting a circular gallery of the most popular and top-rated clips. Click though into any of those videos, though, and the shine starts to come off the apple; rather than taking advantage of its screen size (and processing oomph) and launching a fullscreen video, Honeycomb’s pages instead feel more like YouTube’s website; the video is tiled in a three-inch box in the upper-lefthand corner, with metadata below and related links to the right. It takes an extra click to explode into fullscreen, even though that’s what most users would want to happen.

I also sometimes found it tricky to � gure out how to adjust various settings within apps. There are multiple places where you might � nd the buttons to let you do things--there’s the taskbar at the top of the screen, which changes not only app to app but also within apps depending on what you’re do-ing, but there’s also a menu button that pops up on the bottom every once in awhile, and then there’s the ability to long-press sometimes but not other times. It never confused me for too long, but there are de� nitely times when you think, “Now how do I do this...?”

DESK TOP S Y NCThere’s still a lot about Honeycomb that feels manual next to iOS, with desktop syncing being a perfect example. Despite the refresh to the tablet music interface, the desktop cli-ent experience is still clunky, though admittedly easier than previous Android versions. A quick download of the Mac-only Android File Transfer software led to nothing more than a directory of folders living on our Xoom. Syncing libraries then became a long game of drag-and-drop in 4GB chunks. The control of putting � les only where you want them is nice, but babysitting it, not as much. We’ll admit, we’re spoiled by the autonomy iTunes takes on, syncing � les on its own in the background. It’s likely that third-party solutions, like the media software DoubleTwist, could make this a less manual experience.

APP SAndroid tablets need Android tablet apps. Hopefully, that’ll come in time, but at the moment, there are precious few apps (and the continued absence of a Net� ix app) in the redesigned Honeycomb Android Market that are expressly designed for Honeycomb. Not even major apps like Facebook, Kindle, and Twitter are ready, which makes the platform as a whole feel slightly half-baked. Regular Android apps work on the Xoom, but as any iPad owner who’s tried to run an iPhone app will tell you, it’s not a par-ticularly fun experience. Smartphone Android apps look zoomed-in and blurry on the Xoom, and require the use of the Menu button that’s manda-tory on Android phones but has been eliminated from the Xoom. (Luckily, Honeycomb can just add a virtual menu button next to Home and Back, but it’s still awkward and inconsis-tent with the rest of Honeycomb.) It’s unfair to brand the Honeycomb app situation “bad,” since the thing hadn’t even hit the market at time of testing, but it’s something about which cus-tomers need to be aware.

MAY/JUNE 53

alone them talking to their devices,” she said. While voice may very well be one possible input method, she believes there will still be some kind of silent input method that won’t disrupt the environment. Otherwise, she said, “you can get into problems when you put technology above people.”

Michael also noted that voice input is generally inef-� cient. “Natural language is, I think, going to have some signi� cant limitations.” Still, what new frontiers are out there for interacting with computing devices? Okuda believes that removing the touch requirement will bring new advances in gesture-based control.

“Once you don’t have to touch the screen,” he told Ars, “I think another window is going to open up.”

Something similar to the 3D gestures used to manipu-late video and other data in the � lm Minority Report could become commonplace, though perhaps not while standing in front of a huge translucent display. “That looks good on camera,” Okuda said, “but I think when the technology is available, there will be a way to put it in a desk or something to make it workable.”

Drexler referenced another sci-� � lm, The Termina-tor, for his more succinct prognostication: “interactive ocular HUD.”

Whatever the advances, though, focusing on the end user will be the driving force behind the true innova-tions. “As devices get more powerful, hopefully we will

continue to see things being considered in terms of the user’s time and learning curve, rather than the power of the machine,” Okuda said. “The complexity should be abstracted, synthesized down to the simplest possible interface for instant grati� cation, with the shortest pos-sible learning curve—that is the wave of the future. At least, it should be,” Okuda told Ars.

 “G oing back to the original series, when you look at 45 years ago, look at the communicator they

used,” Denise Okuda said. “It’s really mind-blowing when you look at things today, like the iPad—we were using those on Star Trek,” she told Ars.

Drexler sees examples of real-life technology that were likely in� uenced by technology used on Star Trek practically everywhere. “Swiss army knife-like cell phones, impossibly thin wall-sized TV screens, GPS de-vices that nag you with voice, body scanners at airports, voice recognition, remotely operated � ghter planes, surgical robots,” he said.

But all three are convinced that more advanced user interaction is just around the corner. Drexler mentioned

voice recognition, something used extensively in Star Trek to communicate with a ship’s computer. The iPhone has the somewhat limited Voice Control feature, and Android-powered smartphones can use voice to input text anywhere in the system. Voice will be an impor-tant input method, especially for those aren’t able to type or otherwise use their hand, but neither Denise nor Michael Okuda think natural language will be the evolution of human-machine interaction.

Denise noted that in public, giving voice commands to a device would in many cases be considered rude.

“I don’t want to hear people’s phone conversations, let

“THE COMPLEXITY SHOULD BE ABSTRACTED — SYNTHESIZED DOWN TO

THE SIMPLEST POSSIBLE INTERFACE FOR INSTANT GRATIFICATION”

MAY/JUNE 55

0”

2”

4”

6”

9”

10”

0”

2”

4”

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9”

10”

THICKNESS

SCREEN SIZE

WEIGHT

PRICE

DE

VI

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10.1” × 6.8”9.8” × 7.3”

9.5” × 7.3”9.4” × 7.5” 9.6” × 5.9”

9.1” × 6.2”

7.6” × 5.1”

7”8.9”8.9”9.7”9.7”10.1”10.1”

vs. vs. vs. vs. vs. vs.

$499$599 $499

$599

$469$569

$499–829

$499–699

$599$599

1.31 lbs

1.61 lbs

1.34 lbs1.50 lbs

1.39 lbs

1.04 lbs0.90 lbs

0” .5”0” .5”0” .5”0” .5”0” .5” 0” .5” 0” .5”

.34” .34”.51” .54” .40”.50”.32”

G A L A X Y 1 0 . 1SAMSUNG MOTOROLA APPLE HP SAMSUNG BLACKBERRYLG

X O O M I PA D TO U C H PA D G -S L AT E GALAXY 8.9 P L AY B O O K

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E

0”

2”

4”

6”

9”

10”

0”

2”

4”

6”

9”

10”

THICKNESS

SCREEN SIZE

WEIGHT

PRICE

DE

VI

CE

S

IZ

E

10.1” × 6.8”9.8” × 7.3”

9.5” × 7.3”9.4” × 7.5” 9.6” × 5.9”

9.1” × 6.2”

7.6” × 5.1”

7”8.9”8.9”9.7”9.7”10.1”10.1”

vs. vs. vs. vs. vs. vs.

$499$599 $499

$599

$469$569

$499–829

$499–699

$599$599

1.31 lbs

1.61 lbs

1.34 lbs1.50 lbs

1.39 lbs

1.04 lbs0.90 lbs

0” .5”0” .5”0” .5”0” .5”0” .5” 0” .5” 0” .5”

.34” .34”.51” .54” .40”.50”.32”

G A L A X Y 1 0 . 1SAMSUNG MOTOROLA APPLE HP SAMSUNG BLACKBERRYLG

X O O M I PA D TO U C H PA D G -S L AT E GALAXY 8.9 P L AY B O O K

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E BAROMETER

BUT WHY?!

INMY

TABLET?Barometers are instruments that measure atmospheric pressure—essentially the weight of the column of air bet-ween you and the top of the atmosphere.

As you'd expect, atmospheric pressure decreases rapidly as you ascend in the atmosphere. In fact, it drops pretty quickly—reducing to about half its sea-level value just 5.5kmup in the air. As a result, atmospheric pressure readings are used to detect altitude.

iOS

webOS

200,000

200,000

350,000

200,000

6,000

4,000

MANUFACTURER OPERATING SYSTEM CARRIERCAMERAS STORAGE

FRONT BACK

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AT LAUNCH

SORT OF(FULL SUPPORT COMING SOON)

FLASH SUPPORT

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

(SOON)

(SOON)

(SOON)

(TBD)

(TBD)

NETWORK

TBD

TBD

WI-FI ONLY3G/4G MODELS

ANNOUNCED—

RELEASE DATE TBD

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

3 M P 2 M P

5 M P 2 M P

0 . 9 M P 0 . 3 M P

1 . 3 M P N / A

2 M P5 M P

5 M PSTEREO-SCOPIC 3D

3 M P 2 M P

iOS

webOS

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMBw/ TouchWizUX

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

i OS 4. 3

WEBOS 3.0

BLACKBERRY TABLET OS

SAMSUNG

APPLE

HP

LG

MOTOROLA

R.I.M. BLACKBERRY

G A L A X Y TA B L E T S

X O O M

8.9 & 10.1

I PA D

TO U C H PA D

G - S L AT E

P L AY B O O K

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core ARM A5

Dual Core Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon @ 1.2 GHz

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

ARM Cortex A9 dual-core @ 1GHz

PROCESSORTA B L E T

AVAILABLE APPS

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E BAROMETER

BUT WHY?!

INMY

TABLET?Barometers are instruments that measure atmospheric pressure—essentially the weight of the column of air bet-ween you and the top of the atmosphere.

As you'd expect, atmospheric pressure decreases rapidly as you ascend in the atmosphere. In fact, it drops pretty quickly—reducing to about half its sea-level value just 5.5kmup in the air. As a result, atmospheric pressure readings are used to detect altitude.

iOS

webOS

200,000

200,000

350,000

200,000

6,000

4,000

MANUFACTURER OPERATING SYSTEM CARRIERCAMERAS STORAGE

FRONT BACK

A

L

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L

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SORT OF(FULL SUPPORT COMING SOON)

FLASH SUPPORT

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

(SOON)

(SOON)

(SOON)

(TBD)

(TBD)

NETWORK

TBD

TBD

WI-FI ONLY3G/4G MODELS

ANNOUNCED—

RELEASE DATE TBD

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

3 M P 2 M P

5 M P 2 M P

0 . 9 M P 0 . 3 M P

1 . 3 M P N / A

2 M P5 M P

5 M PSTEREO-SCOPIC 3D

3 M P 2 M P

iOS

webOS

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMBw/ TouchWizUX

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

i OS 4. 3

WEBOS 3.0

BLACKBERRY TABLET OS

SAMSUNG

APPLE

HP

LG

MOTOROLA

R.I.M. BLACKBERRY

G A L A X Y TA B L E T S

X O O M

8.9 & 10.1

I PA D

TO U C H PA D

G - S L AT E

P L AY B O O K

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core ARM A5

Dual Core Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon @ 1.2 GHz

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

ARM Cortex A9 dual-core @ 1GHz

PROCESSORTA B L E T

AVAILABLE APPS

TABLET ROUNDUPBIGT H E BAROMETER

BUT WHY?!

INMY

TABLET?Barometers are instruments that measure atmospheric pressure—essentially the weight of the column of air bet-ween you and the top of the atmosphere.

As you'd expect, atmospheric pressure decreases rapidly as you ascend in the atmosphere. In fact, it drops pretty quickly—reducing to about half its sea-level value just 5.5kmup in the air. As a result, atmospheric pressure readings are used to detect altitude.

iOS

webOS

200,000

200,000

350,000

200,000

6,000

4,000

MANUFACTURER OPERATING SYSTEM CARRIERCAMERAS STORAGE

FRONT BACK

A

L

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G

B

M

A

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LG

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L

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COMING SOON

AT LAUNCH

SORT OF(FULL SUPPORT COMING SOON)

FLASH SUPPORT

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

4G3G

(SOON)

(SOON)

(SOON)

(TBD)

(TBD)

NETWORK

TBD

TBD

WI-FI ONLY3G/4G MODELS

ANNOUNCED—

RELEASE DATE TBD

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

16 GB

32 GB

64 GB

3 M P 2 M P

5 M P 2 M P

0 . 9 M P 0 . 3 M P

1 . 3 M P N / A

2 M P5 M P

5 M PSTEREO-SCOPIC 3D

3 M P 2 M P

iOS

webOS

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMBw/ TouchWizUX

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

ANDROID 3.0HONEYCOMB

i OS 4. 3

WEBOS 3.0

BLACKBERRY TABLET OS

SAMSUNG

APPLE

HP

LG

MOTOROLA

R.I.M. BLACKBERRY

G A L A X Y TA B L E T S

X O O M

8.9 & 10.1

I PA D

TO U C H PA D

G - S L AT E

P L AY B O O K

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

1 GHz dual-core ARM A5

Dual Core Qualcomm APQ8060 Snapdragon @ 1.2 GHz

1 GHz dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2

ARM Cortex A9 dual-core @ 1GHz

PROCESSORTA B L E T

AVAILABLE APPS

ONT OUCHMAGAZINE

We Don’t Need Tablets, So Why Are We Gobbling Them Up?

MICROSOFT

SURFACECES Preview

M A RCH/A PRIL 11

IPAD–A BLIND USER’S PERSPECTIVEGoogle updates to Honeycomb 3.1