Tablets for consumption, cloudbooks for creation

Tablets and cloudbooks are mobile devices of the mobile/cloud computing world.

Tablets are small, flat, keyboardless devices with a touchscreen, processor, storage, and an internet connection. The Apple iPad is possibly the most well-known tablet. The Microsoft Surface is possibly the second most well-known. Other manufacturers offer tablets with Google's Android.

Cloudbooks are light, thin laptops. They contain a screen (possibly a touchscreen, but touch isn't a requirement), processor, storage, and internet connection, and the one thing that separates them from tablets: a keyboard. They look and feel like laptop computers, yet they are not laptops in the usual sense. They have a low-end processor and a custom operating system designed to do one thing: run a browser. The most well-known cloudbook computers are Google's Chromebooks.

I'm using the term "cloudbook" here to refer to the generic lightweight, low-powered, single-purpose laptop computer. A simple search shows that the phrase "cloudbook" (or a variation on capitalization) has been used for specific products, including an x86 laptop, a brand of e-books, a cloud services broker, and even an accounting system! Acer uses the name "cloudbook" for its, um, cloudbook devices.

Tablets and cloudbooks serve two different purposes. Tablets are designed for the consumption of data and cloudbooks are designed for the creation of data.

Tablets allow for the installation of apps, and there are apps for all sorts of things. Apps to play games. Apps to play music. Apps to chat with friends. Apps for e-mail (generally effective for reading e-mail and writing brief responses). Apps for Twitter. Apps for navigation.

Cloudbooks allow for the installation of apps too, although it is the browser that allows for apps and not the underlying operating system. On a Chromebook, it is Chrome that manages the apps. Google confuses the issue by listing web-based applications such as its Docs word processor and Sheets spreadsheet as "apps". The separation of web-based apps and browser-based apps is made more complex by Google's creation of duplicate apps for each environment to support off-line work. For off-line work, you must have a local (browser-based) app.

The apps for cloudbooks are oriented toward the composition of data: word processor, spreadsheet, editing photographs, and more.

I must point out that these differences are in orientation and not complete capabilities. One can consume data on a cloudbook. One can, with the appropriate tools and effort, create on a tablet. The two types of devices are not exclusive. In my view it is easier to consume on a tablet and easier to create on a cloudbook.

Tablets are already popular. I expect that cloudbooks will be popular with people who need to create and manage data. Two groups I expect to use cloudbooks are developers and system administrators. Cloudbooks are a convenient size for portability and capable enough to connect to cloud-based development services such as Cloud9, Codeanywhere, Cloud IDE, or Sourcekit.