QOur school system will buy iPad tablet computers for junior and senior high school students this fall.
This seems misguided to me, since these students ought to be using a PC with a keyboard to adapt to college life. I also wonder whether the apps used on an iPad will work on a laptop that a student takes to college.
DAVID HERZER, Willmar, Minn.
ANo, the apps for an iPad won't work on another type of computer. But that doesn't necessarily mean that tablet computers are a waste of money, or that your school ought to be buying laptops instead.
Your school is one of many that are embracing tablet computers for their potential as highly portable electronic textbooks and multimedia teaching devices (see startribune.com/a1340 and startribune.com/a1342.) While it remains to be seen whether tablet computers will improve teaching, it seems likely that a student's college experience is going to involve tablet computers as much as laptops.
That doesn't mean you don't have a good point about the practicality of laptops. Today's tablets are more limited in capability than a laptop (they don't come with physical keyboards, for example.) And, when it comes to software, the iPad is an island of incompatibility.
But tablet computing is changing rapidly. Software compatibility between tablets and other computers will improve later this year when Microsoft introduces its Windows 8 operating system, which is designed to be used on both touch-screen tablets and conventional PCs.
The iPad's future is less predictable. Now less than three years old, it's a product still in its infancy.
