;)
Screen Size Is What Matters
Monday, February 10, 2014 at 06:47AM As I wrote here, what's differentiating for me in terms of what device I use at a particular instant-in-time is not manufacturer or operating system, but rather screen size:
Nearly any contemporary smartphone will get the job done; the hardwares have converged in terms of features and capabilities, and the several mobile OSes and app ecosystems are very close to identical.
What's important to me at the moment is the size of the screen --
Note 3
- smartphone, for use any- and everywhere;
- tablet, hanging around the house, traveling, and certain work settings;
- laptop, traveling and certain work settings;
- laptop connected to huge monitor, office and home office.
Every device is connected to the network. all data lives on the network and is synchronized across devices (Google, Dropbox), and the core apps -- Gmail, Evernote, etc. -- function pretty much the same on every device.
In this piece in Walt Mossberg's <re/code> (he left The Wall Street Journal to start this), Andreessen Horowitz's Zal Bilimoria casts this perspective like so:
Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over
February 6, 2014
Back in 2011, I was having an all-consuming love affair with tablets. At the time, I was the first-ever head of mobile at Netflix. I saw tablets in my sleep, running apps that would control homes, entertain billions and dutifully chug away at work. Tablets, I was convinced, were a third device category, a tweener that would fill the vacuum between a phone and a laptop. I knew that was asking a lot — at the time, however, I didn’t know just how much.
iPad
I wasn’t the only one swooning in the presence of the iPad and its imitators. Everyone was getting in on the love fest. The typically sober analysts over at Gartner were going ballistic with their shipment predictions for the iPad, and a flurry of soon-to-be-launched Android tablets. Amazon (Kindle Fire), Barnes & Noble (Nook Tablet), HP (TouchPad running webOS) and even BlackBerry (PlayBook) all rushed into the market to take on Apple, which commanded 70 percent of the tablet market one year after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad. On the software side, startups like Flipboard, tech giants like Adobe and even large enterprises like Genentech were quickly assembling teams to take advantage of this new platform.
Now — three years and 225 million tablets later — I’m starting to see how misplaced that passion was.
The tablet couldn’t possibly shoulder all the expectations people had for it. Not a replacement for your laptop or phone — but kinda. Something you kick back with in the living room, fire up at work and also carry with you everywhere — sort of. Yes, tablets have sold in large numbers, but rather than being a constant companion, like we envisioned, most tablets today sit idle on coffee tables and nightstands. Simply put, our love for them is dying.
Article continues at link.
Now that my smartphone is a so-called phablet -- I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, with a 5.7" screen -- I hardly ever use my tablet.
williamgarrity | tagged Hardware, Smartphone, Tablet 
