tablets are not taking over

Gah!, even paul graham has bought into the "tablets are taking over" bullshit.

I'm getting sick of this assumption that anything that apple brings out will be a complete success, and will change the computing world.

Tablets (whoever is making them) are just the next step for mobile phones in becoming more like the general computing device that most people have on their desk, or their lap.

The truth is, it was mobile phones that could do more than just make calls (ie feature phones), that really changed the mobile computing world.

According to wikipedia, in 2009 83% of all phones (in the US) were feature phones. It's only when a technology is ubiquitous, that its impact is fully felt.

And now, it's official; everyone in the world has a mobile phone, a fair number being feature phones: http://hothardware.com/News/ITU-Finds-2-Billion-Internet-Users-Worldwide-5-Billion-Mobile-Subscriptions/ . Ok not actually everyone (number of subscriptions != number of subscribers), but nearly one for every person.

It was when everyone started carrying a device around which enables one to take a video of an event, and send that video to all one's friends, or tweet to the world their every single thought and action; that's when things changed.

After that point, you are merely improving the user interface, adding more power, bigger screen, faster internet connection. It's all incremental (potential) improvement from there forward, not the giant leap forward that everyone seems to think it is.

I don't think that mobile devices which are deliberately crippled by having no call/sms/mms functionality, will have much of a future. This includes all "mobile" computers. It won't be long before "phones" have the computing power to do everything a netbook can do, and at that point, most people can do all of their computing on that one device.

These mobile computing devices will still just be called "phones" by most people, because whatever the device is, you'll still be carrying it around with you in your pocket like you carry your phone now. Even if you are using it for everything except making "telephone calls".