Mike Gunderloy wants to know where the Tablet PC killer apps are? Ah, this is an age-old question.
It really depends on who you are and what you do. Take the average college student, for instance. They take lots of freeform notes (with text, equations, graphs, etc), work in many different locations (dorm, library, coffee shop), are often away from home and want to stay in touch with others (Skype, chat), live off of Google and want to stay connected (WiFi access all the time), and read, read, read. All of these fit very nicely with a Tablet PC–more so than a traditional notebook.
Students are catching on. Check out TabletPCBuzz and this new student-oriented blog.
In terms of the rest of us, are there killer uses of a Tablet PC? For me, yes. I’ve always been a heavy paper thinker. I draw things out. Make lists. Make lists of lists. These are perfect to do in OneNote and Journal. No need to waste paper. And everything is searchable, easily mailable, and trivial to copy/paste.
But it’s not just about the ink. The mobility makes a big difference. As I’ve blogged about before, Skype on a Tablet is amazing. It’s kind of like having a cordless speaker phone for free. It is a killer app to me. I also like the ability to work wherever I am. Sometimes it’s boring sitting in one spot. 🙂 If so, I can go to the back room and work. Or I can sit on the couch. It makes my workday a bit more pleasant. That’s worth a lot to me. And maybe I’m getting old, but when I go somewhere I’d rather carry my four pound Tablet than my old, eight pound notebook.