Does the Tablet Spell the End of the Desktop?
Steve Jobs having declared the iPad as the
dawn of the “post-PC era” has sparked a fierce debate about the tablet's potential impact on the PC.
We’ve been here before. The Web spelling the end of the printed newspaper; the Kindle, and eReaders in general, spelling the end of physical books. Looking around the office, both the printed newspaper and physical books are surviving. And while the debate of printed anything dying as the result of technology continues, a new wrinkle has been brought to the forefront: technology killing technology.
Be it the Macintosh killing the PC, FireFox or Chrome killing Internet Explorer, it’s been one company against another.
While there are many who think the death of the desktop/laptop is unfounded, (Rick Georges of Futurelawyer being one), Jared Correia of the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program seems to be one of a minority arguing that tablets do, in fact, spell the end of desktops. Both present strong arguments, so let’s take a look:
Correia, in his post, “Your Pad or Mine: The Rapture Comes for Traditional Computing Devices,” provides a number of feature and function comparisons between desktops/laptops and tablets:
- Portability
- Keyboards
- Apps
- Document storage
- Security features
He observes that the tablet is “a replacement for traditional devices” instead of a new entry into the “essential business technology” field. He calls the tablet the “bridge between laptop and smartphone, and will likely end up replacing both devices.” It’s difficult to not conjure an image of a lawyer working on an iPad while simultaneously talking on a flip phone, the smartphone having been made obsolete. Except that a feature like FaceTime
for the iPad 2 seems to make the phone, in any iteration, obsolete. It’s a good guess that it will be available on all future iPad models, and that other tablets will follow suit and offer a comparable feature. It's not much of a stretch, then, to think of a Bluetooth headset in place of a flip phone, and making calls via FaceTime, Skype or a similar feature or app that has yet to come along.
Correia also makes the point that the time period between “dumping all their devices” and exclusively using a tablet will be shorter than anyone may realize. This was pointed out in a Small Firm Innovation post from Nicole Black, “My First Glimpse into the Future.” She references the iPhone first came out in 2007, and then just three years later, the first iPad. We took a look at our Apple in Law Firms Survey
results again, and at the time, November 2010, it showed 50% using iPhones and more than 20% of respondents using iPads. Almost 45% planning to purchase iPads this year. In light of Correia’s prediction, it will be interesting to see this year’s results.
In the end, Correia sees the advancement of tablets, in terms of use and technological development, bringing an end to the PC as we know it.
Georges of Futurelawyer, however, thinks “The Death of the Desktop is Being Greatly Exaggerated.”
Georges found himself thinking about the various tasks he can’t do on his Android tablet, but can do on his Windows 7 computer, including:
- Scanning and storing client correspondence.
- Creating cover sheets using Zipforms.
- Converting digital copy of correspondence into other formats using PDF Converted Plus or Omnipage Professional 18.
- Scanned receipts with Neatworks scanner.
- Receipts automatically tallied and stored by Neatworks software.
He sums up his point neatly: “I could go on, but I think the conclusion is obvious. You need a desktop OS to do a lot of this stuff.” In other words, the desktop computer is still the law office workhorse. The tablet, while useful in some regards due to its mobility, it's not a fit replacement for the desktop.
Drawing a conclusion at this point is tricky, but it seems as if the future of tablets in the law office depends on two things: comfort level of lawyers when it comes to working completely from a tablet, and technological advancement. The more tech-savvy lawyers, and the younger generation, may feel more comfortable working from tablets, but will that spur enough of the technological development Correia predicts? Only time will tell.
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Cloud computing is a hot topic both inside and outside the legal community, and a common cloud service that law firms are exploring is online computer backup. You know it’s important to back up your law practice’s computers, but if you’re like most you’re probably not doing it as thoroughly, securely or cost-effectively as you could be. Backing up to external hard drives, CDs, flash drives and other physical devices is a time consuming, manual process that is both error-prone and potentially insecure.
