Is there no one with any creativity in the tech industry anymore? It’s bad enough that Microsoft and the entire tech press has taken to calling tablet computers “Slates” now, based on an unlikely Apple rumor. Now, word on the street is that netbooks that run on mobile OSes like Android are being dubbed “Smartbooks.” Get it? It’s a netbook that runs on a smartphone OS. Cute.
Ars Technica wrote up a piece about many of the “smartbooks” being showcased at CES this week. The complaint is that the current crop “lacks polish.” Well, of course it does. These are machines being designed BEFORE their manufacturers can copy Apple’s version.
There are now two main types of these devices out there on the market. Ones that run full-fledged desktop OSes like Windows or Linux, and ones that run mobile phone OSes like Android (which, in essence is just Linux, too, albeit a pared-down Linux). Neither of these strategies works, of course, because in one case you’re trying to shoehorn a much too-powerful OS into a small form factor and low-speed processor, comparatively, and in the other case you’re taking an interface designed for a tiny screen and many other limitations and running it on a much bigger machine with more power.
The tablet/mid-size form-factor machine that Apple introduces in a few weeks is very likely to do neither of these things, as [John Gruber](http://daringfireball.net/2009/12/the_tablet) suggested a while ago. I agree wholeheartedly with him. Apple’s Tablet (whatever it’s called) will have a UI designed specifically for it. That’s the reason why Apple will be successful where others fail. It’s the “polish” that’s missing from all these other devices at CES this week.
Tech companies are still making the mistake Microsoft has continually made over the past decade. You can’t just take the product you’ve already made, put it in a new box and expect people will buy it. You need to start every product discussion with “Why does this thing need to exist?” Then, by all means, utilize what you have that already fits that purpose, but also be ready to create something new whenever what you already have doesn’t fit that function. The core of OS X was a great foundation for a phone OS. Desktop OS X’s UI was not a good UI for a phone. So Apple leveraged what it had for the core, and created its own new UI. The tablet will be no different.
