A tablet personal computer or tablet PC is a tablet-sized computer that also has the key features of a full-size personal computer. A tablet PC is essentially a small laptop computer, equipped with a rotatable touchscreen as an additional input device, and running a standard (or lightly adapted) PC operating system like Windows or Linux.

The term was made popular with the Microsoft Tablet PC concept presented by Microsoft in 2001. Today, the term tablet is also used to refer to computer-like devices operated primarily by a touch screen but not intended to run general PC operating systems or applications.

System software

Microsoft Windows

Following Windows for Pen Computing, Microsoft has been developing support for tablets running Windows under the Microsoft Tablet PC name. According to a 2001 Microsoft definition of the term, "Microsoft Tablet PCs" are pen-based, fully functional x86 PCs with handwriting and voice recognition functionality. Tablet PCs use the same hardware as normal laptops but add support for pen input. For specialized support for pen input, Microsoft released Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Today there is no tablet specific version of Windows but instead support is built in to both Home and Business versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Tablets running Windows get the added functionality of using the touchscreen for mouse input, hand writing recognition, and gesture support. Following Tablet PC, Microsoft announced the UMPC initiative in 2006 which brought Windows tablets to a smaller, touch-centric form factor. This was relaunched in 2010 as Slate PC, to promote tablets running Windows 7, ahead of Apple's iPad launch. Slate PCs are expected to benefit from mobile hardware advances derived from the success of the netbooks.

While many tablet manufacturers are moving to the ARM architecture with lighter operating systems, Microsoft has stood firmly by Windows. Though Microsoft has Windows CE for ARM support it has kept its target market for the smartphone industry with Windows Mobile and the new Windows CE 6 based Windows Phone 7. Some manufacturers, however, still have shown prototypes of Windows CE-based tablets running a custom shell.

The succession of Windows Vista has meant that Tablet PC functionality no longer requires a separate edition; with the exception of Home Basic and Starter, Tablet PC support is built into all editions of Windows Vista. This extends the handwriting recognition, ink collection, and additional input methods to any computer running Vista even if the input device is an external digitizer, a touch screen, or even a regular mouse. Vista also supports multi-touch functions and gestures (originally developed for the Microsoft Surface version of Vista) and is now usable by the public with the release of multi-touch tablets. Windows Vista also significantly improved handwriting recognition functionality with the introduction of a handwriting recognition personalization tool as well as an automatic handwriting learning tool.

Tablet functionality is available in all editions of Windows 7 except the Starter edition. It introduces a new Math Input Panel that recognizes handwritten math expressions and formulas, and integrates with other programs. Windows 7 also significantly improved pen input and handwriting recognition by becoming faster, more accurate, and supportive of more languages, including East Asian writing systems. Personalized custom dictionaries help with the recognition of specialized vocabulary (like medical and technical terms), and text prediction speeds up the input process to make note-taking faster. Multi-touch technology is also available on some tablet PCs, enabling more advanced interaction using touch gestures with your fingers the same way a mouse is used. Despite such advances, problems may arise with tablet functions of the OS, when, for instance, touch screen drivers are recognized as PS/2 mouse input rather than a touch input device. In such instances tablet functions may be unavailable or severely restricted in functionality.

Windows 7 touch capability is built with Microsoft Surface technologies. This is a gesture and touch-centric UI enhancement that works with most current touch computers. Windows has a history of tablet technology including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. Tablet PC Edition is a superset of Windows XP Professional, the difference being tablet functionality, including alternate text input (Tablet PC Input Panel) and basic drivers for support of tablet PC specific hardware. Requirements to install Tablet PC Edition include a tablet digitizer or touchscreen device, and hardware control buttons including a Ctrl-Alt-Delete SAS (Secure Attention Sequence) shortcut button, scrolling buttons, and at least one user-configurable application button.

Windows applications

Applications developed for the tablet PC cater to the form factor and functionality available on the platform. Many forms of applications incorporate a pen-friendly user interface and/or the ability to hand write directly in the document or interface.

A brief description of the applications included follows:

;Experience Pack

Ink Desktop: an Active Desktop control designed to run in the background and allow the user to write directly on the desktop.

Snipping Tool: a screen capture application which allows the tablet pen to be used to select a portion of the screen and then annotate it and save as a file or send in an email.

Ink Art: a painting application developed by Ambient Design originally as ArtRage, licensed to Microsoft for release to Tablet PC users.

Ink Crossword: a crossword application developed to mirror the experience of a paper crossword puzzle on a tablet PC.

Media Transfer: a synchronization utility designed to download music, pictures, and videos from computers in the same network.

;Education Pack

Ink Flash Cards: an application designed to assist memorization by using a flashcard approach, enabling the user to hand write their own flash cards and display them back in a slide show.

Equation Writer: a recognition tool specializing in converting handwritten mathematical equations to a computer-generated image for pasting into other documents.

GoBinder Lite: an organization and note-taking application developed by Agilix Labs.

Hexic Deluxe: a game with a tablet PC specific gesture enabled for easier use with the tablet.

Linux

One early implementation of a Linux tablet was the ProGear by FrontPath. The ProGear used a Transmeta chip and a resistive digitizer. The ProGear initially came with a version of Slackware Linux, but could later be bought with Windows 98. Because these computers are general purpose IBM PC compatible machines, they can run many different operating systems. However, the device is no longer for sale and FrontPath has ceased operations. It is important to note that many touch screen sub-notebook computers can run any of several Linux distributions with little customization.

X.org now supports screen rotation and tablet input through Wacom drivers, and handwriting recognition software from both the Qt-based Qtopia and GTK+-based Internet Tablet OS provide promising free and open source systems for future development.

Open source note taking software in Linux includes applications such as Xournal (which supports PDF file annotation), Gournal (a Gnome based note taking application), and the Java-based Jarnal (which supports handwriting recognition as a built-in function). Before the advent of the aforementioned software, many users had to rely on on-screen keyboards and alternative text input methods like Dasher. There is a stand alone handwriting recognition program available, CellWriter, in which users must write letters separately in a grid.

A number of Linux based OS projects are dedicated to tablet PCs. Since all these are open source, they are freely available and can be run or ported to devices that conform to the tablet PC design. Maemo (rebranded MeeGo in 2010), a Debian Linux based graphical user environment, was developed for the Nokia Internet Tablet devices (770, N800, N810 & N900). It is currently in generation 5, and has a vast array of applications available in both official and user supported repositories. The Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, as well as the Intel sponsored Moblin project, both have touchscreen support integrated into their user interfaces. Canonical Ltd has hinted at better supporting tablets with the Unity UI for Ubuntu 10.10.

TabletKiosk currently offers a hybrid digitizer / touch device running openSUSE Linux. It is the first device with this feature to support Linux.

Android and Chrome OS

Google's Linux-based Android operating system has been targeted by manufacturers for the tablet computer market following its success on smartphones due to its open nature and support for ARM systems, but some systems, like Toshiba's AC100 are more closely related to a tablet PC.

There is talk of tablet support from Google coming to its web-centric Chrome OS.

Some vendors such as Motorola are delaying deployment of their tablet computers until 2011, after Android is reworked to include more tablet features. Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is the latest version of the Android platform. It is optimized specifically for devices with larger screen sizes, mainly tablets, and has access to the Android Market. Android is the software stack for mobile devices that includes operating system, middleware and key applications.

webOS

Initially developed by Palm in January 2009 as the Palm OS, webOS was purchased by HP to be their proprietary operating system running on the Linux kernel. Versions 1.0 to 2.1 of webOS uses the patched Linux 2.6.24 kernel. HP has continued to develop the webOS platform for use in multiple products, including smartphones, tablet PCs, and printers. HP announced plans on March 2011 for a version of webOS by the end of 2011 to run within the Microsoft Windows operating system to be used in HP desktop and notebook computers in 2012.

HP TouchPad, the first addition to HP's tablet family, has been shipped out with versions 3.0.2. Version 3.0.2 gives the tablet support for multitasking, applications, and HP Synergy. HP have also claimed in its webcatalog to support over 200 apps with its release.

On August 18, 2011, HP announced that it would discontinue production of all webOS devices.

MeeGo

Nokia entered the tablet space with the Nokia 770 running Maemo, a Debian-based Linux distribution custom-made for their Internet Tablet line. The product line continued with the N900 which is the first to add phone capabilities. Intel, following the launch of the UMPC, started the Mobile Internet Device initiative, which took the same hardware and combined it with a Linux operating system custom-built for portable tablets. Intel co-developed the lightweight Moblin operating system following the successful launch of the Atom CPU series on netbooks.

MeeGo is a new operating system developed by Intel and Nokia supports Netbooks, Smartphones and tablet PCs. In 2010, Nokia and Intel combined the Maemo and Moblin projects to form MeeGo. The first MeeGo powered tablet PC is the Neofonie WeTab. The WeTab uses an extended version of the MeeGo operating system called WeTab OS. WeTab OS adds runtimes for Android and Adobe AIR and provides a proprietary user interface optimized for the WeTab device.

Apple

Mac OS X

Apple iPad and iPhone are not tablet PCs they are tablet devices. As the iPad and iPhone use an embedded operating system such as those found in PDAs and cell phones, they do not support full feature microcomputer operating systems.

Apple has never sold a tablet PC-style computer running Mac OS X, although OS X does have support for handwriting recognition via Inkwell. However, Apple sells the iOS-based iPad, introduced in 2010 and iPad 2, released in 2011.

Before the introduction of the iPad, Axiotron introduced the Modbook, a heavily modified Apple MacBook, Mac OS X-based tablet computer at Macworld in 2007. The Modbook used Apple's Inkwell handwriting and gesture recognition, and used digitization hardware from Wacom. To support the digitizer on the integrated tablet, the Modbook was supplied with a third-party driver called TabletMagic. Wacom does not provide drivers for this device.

Display size trends

Although tablet PCs are usually larger than tablet computers, they tend to be based on relatively small laptop designs, with screen sizes from 11" to 14" .

Timeline of tablet PC history

See also

Personal digital assistant

Comparison of tablet PCs

Graphics tablet

Mobile Internet Device

Nettop

Pen computing

Smartbook

Tablet computer

Ultra-Mobile PC

References

External links

Microsoft Center for Research on Pen-Centric Computing

Category:Tablet PC Category:Personal computers Category:Personal computing

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