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| The iTablet cometh Will Apple's iTablet lead media companies out of a wilderness of non-paying customers?For the video content makers nervously biting their fingernails over how soon filesharing of films and TV is going to wipe out their revenues, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week offered wonderful news 窶 TV, like film, is going 3D. And you know what 3D means? Can't be filmed by a camcorder in a cinema and copied endlessly; can't just be grabbed from the set-top box and redistributed on torrent sites. Or if it is, it will look even worse than a fifth-generation VHS copy (remember those?).And then there was the AR Drone, a mini-helicopter that can be controlled by an iPhone, which is sure to be banging into walls in advertising agencies around London hours after it goes on sale; and an unbreakable mobile phone (you can hammer nails with it).But the hype, the noise, the lights 窶ｦ CES is peculiarly named because although it calls itself a "consumer electronics" show, its keynote opening speech comes from Microsoft 窶 which has failed woefully year after year to come up with any consumer electronics people want to buy, apart from two- button mice and, OK, the Xbox (though it's lost pots and pots of money on it).This year it was Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, who signally failed to set the event, or the world, on fire. Meanwhile, all over the place computer companies were showing off their wares, which will make barely any difference to anyone's lives except those of their desperate makers. Will a laptop with a transparent screen (so you can be distracted by people walking behind it as well as reflections) really transform our experience of work or leisure?Instead, the susurrus behind CES was about tablet computers 窶 large screen, no keyboard, touch interface. Although Ballmer referred to them in his speech, and a number of companies (including Lenovo and HP) showed them off, and the Que e-reader (from a British company) wowed some, the focus was not on them but on Apple 窶 which never exhibits at CES. Until last year, Apple had its own show that conflicted directly, and its much-expected tablet is due this month. That expectation was all but confirmed by a story carefully leaked to the Wall Street Journal last Monday, detailing a possible price, and suggesting that "people briefed by Apple also say that the company believes it could redefine the way consumers interact with a variety of content".It's the latter phrase that has media companies 窶 producers of books, newspapers, films, TV, music, and especially, for some reason, newspapers 窶 gasping like parched travellers in a desert. They look at the success of the iPhone (which, before its announcement, had mobile phone makers laughing: Apple? A computer company? Make a phone?) and gasp: let the iTablet lead us out of this wilderness of non-paying customers!This ignores the question of how you'll have to redesign or repurpose your content to fit Apple's as yet unseen device (is it just a big iPhone? Is it also 3D?) 窶 a question that has troubled Ben Hammersley of Wired UK, who points out on his blog (http://bit.ly/wiredUK) that present workflows for most magazines simply don't countenance the idea of a hyperlinked, perhaps video- and audio-enabled end product; they're trying to produce something for print. The iTablet (or whatever) will mess that up badly.So be careful what you wish for from CES. It has given you the DVD, which you've loved. It has given you Blu-ray, which has not quite taken over the world. It has given you high-definition TV, and now it's giving you 3D films and TV. But it never gave you the iPhone, and won't give you the iTablet. Shows are one thing. But the decisions that really change the game are made in the shops and homes.Even so, one of those iPhone helicopters would be nice. Just saying.Charles Arthur is the Guardian's technology editorNewspapers & magazinesConsumer Electronics Show (CES)NewspapersTelevision industryWall Street JournalAppleMicrosoftFile sharingiPhoneSteve BallmerMedia businessCharles Arthurguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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