Step 11: The Kitchen Sync
Unlike a cellphone, which has instant utility out-of-the-box, a tablet is, literally, a tabula rasa – you have to put stuff in it in order to get anything out of it. It has to be easy for consumers to acquire and load up their tablet with their photos, music, movies, and games, otherwise your tablet will be no more than a limited-function, silicon-filled plastic slab with a screen, and we already have those – they’re called Kindles. But Android mystifyingly still lacks an official iTunes-like desktop content sync client. DoubleTwist works, but it’s not nearly as seamless or fast as iTunes. If RIM wants PlayBook to appeal beyond its core base – or even to its core base – it’ll have to expand its BlackBerry Desktop Manager beyond contacts, e-mail and music to all the multimedia content that RIM is boasting the PlayBook can play. Microsoft does have the Zune marketplace, but the HP Slate runs full Windows 7, not Windows Phone 7.
Step 12: Got Apps?
Last, but definitely not least, see Step 1. What can I do with your tablet? E-book apps, the tablet equivalent of the Munchkins multitude, don’t count. Not all Android apps will work on all Android devices, especially tablets with their larger screens. RIM hasn’t said whether the PlayBook will run any of the current third-party App World apps because it won’t run the current BlackBerry OS 6, but a new OS called QNX, which means a dearth of third-party PlayBook play and work apps at launch. HP’s Slate runs Windows, but how do you get additional Windows apps on it? I hereby declare no tablet can be sold without access to a minimum of 1,000 apps, with the promise of at least 10,000 within a year. The great and powerful Oz has spoken. Now, go!
