Might be a brief UHub outage today

If you have a smartphone and a laptop, what's the point of a tablet?

LOL! A tablet is as useful as a magazine, a boardgame, or a clipboard. It's large enough to display much the same volume and detail of information as a regular monitor and is mobile enough that you can use it in anywhere in the house without much conscious effort - recipes while in the kitchen, project info in the workshop, UHub on the couch in the living room. And it's easy to share - it's not at all unusual for one of us to be reading something online, and to either pass along or simply turn the device to show the others present some interesting image or article. Unwieldy to do that with a laptop, and inconvenient to do it with one's smartphone.

Additionally, as a family it turns out that the tablet is incredibly handy when we travel - we use it to play family boardgames while we pass the time at a cafe or restaurant, display usefully large maps while traveling, and it offers an endless collection of picturebooks and movies that we can enjoy together when away from home. All of those uses involve us looking and interacting with each other as well as the digital device - unlike most of the smartphone users around us, ensconced in their little private digital fiefdoms.

... or you don't travel with them.

We bought an iPad just for travelling (which includes long local roadtrips). It's the one device that we can keep WarriorGirl engaged in and not going insane; I installed a bunch of old books (as in out-of-print and hard to find) and old games (think MYST).

No, I don't use it every day, but some of my daughter's apps (Team Umizoomi math and Dora The Explorer ready to read) do get used almost daily.

There are two members of my family who use tablets every day: my 81 year old Dad and my 4 year old nephew.

My Dad wants to check email, watch YouTube videos, listen to music and read books on his Kindle app. A laptop is too much for him to handle (he's not exactly quick on the uptake when it comes to newfangled technology) and a smartphone is way too small for him.

My 4 year old nephew has an iPad because he has autism and there are lots of great apps for kids with autism.

I have one because it's fun on the subway. I can read, watch a movie or tv show. I learned a lesson last night about watching movies. I was engrossed in one and got on an Ashmont train instead of Braintree. I was surprised to look up and see a sign that said "Fields Corner." Oops.