(http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/500x_hello-tablet.jpg) (http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/4/2010/01/hello-tablet.jpg)Some people want the Apple Tablet (http://gizmodo.com/tag/appletablet/) to run Mac OS X's user interface (http://gizmodo.com/tag/userinterface/). Others think its UI will be something exotic. Both camps are wrong: The iPhone started a UI revolution, and the tablet is just step two. Here's why.
If you are talking hardware, you can speculate about many different features (http://gizmodo.com/5451391/guess-the-apple-tablet-features-win-one-for-yourself). But when it comes to the fabled Apple Tablet (http://gizmodo.com/5336204/apple-tablet-the-wet-dream-concept), there are basically three user interface camps at war. On one side there are the people who think that a traditional GUI—one built on windows, folders and the old desktop metaphor—is the only way to go for a tablet. You know, like with the Microsoft Windows-based tablets, and the new crop of touchscreen laptops.
In another camp, there are the ones who are dreaming about magic 3D interfaces (http://gizmodo.com/5203315/bumptop-3d-physics+enabled-desktop-now-available-going-multitouch-for-windows-7) and other experimental stuff, thinking that Apple would come up with a wondrous new interface that nobody can imagine now, one that will bring universal love, world peace and pancakes for everyone—even while Apple and thousands of experts have explored every UI option imaginable for decades.
And then there's the third camp, in which I have pitched my tent, who says that the interface will just be an evolution of an existing user interface, one without folders and windows, but with applications that take over the entire screen. A "modal" user interface that has been proven in the market battlefield, and that has brought a new form of computing to every normal, non-computer-expert consumer.
Read more: The Apple Tablet Interface Must Be Like This (http://gizmodo.com/5452501/the-apple-tablet-interface-must-be-like-this)