Rumours of a debut tablet computer from Nokia sparked plenty of interest earlier in the week, and now Nokia’s head of design has confirmed that there is indeed a tablet in the works.
Marko Ahtisaari is Nokia’s top designer, and has been responsible for many of the great products that the company has released recently, including the Nokia N9 and the Lumia 800. Speaking recently with a Finnish magazine, Ahtisaari confirmed that the company is working on a tablet computer.
The interview with Kauppalehti Optio, the Finnish publication, lightly touches on Nokia’s ideas for a tablet. Although the magazine has since edited it out of the article, which can be found online, we’re told Nokia’s design chief explained how much time he spends designing the tablet, which he put at around a third of his time. An extract from the article can be read below:
You’ll see couples in coffee shops who’ve been together 10-15 years both sat with their heads down, operating their devices. We need to give people their head up again. The ability to keep social interaction with the people that they’re physically with. That means a better ability to use the devices single-handed and them requiring less of our attention for peripheral interactions. Notifications, for example, could be much improved so they require much less from us.
The second big influence for the most competitive devices will be the way they are able to harness the collective intelligence of their users… Smartphone users create a lot of data. We can use that data to make the devices more intelligent: for example, to avoid traffic jams and create alternative routes… But it’s not just maps, as we have more sensors on the device we can answer almost any question. The research on collective intelligence says that it needs a large, independent, diverse group of people to solve problems – that’s what we’ve got.
We’re intrigued to see what Nokia will come up with, and the idea of making a tablet that is ideal for single-handed use. This is likely to mean a device that squares up smaller when compared to the likes of the iPad and Transformer Prime, with their 9.7 and 10.1-inch screens. Weight would also be a key factor affecting how well a tablet can be held in one hand, and Nokia has a great way of achieving this with the lightweight polycarbonate bodies it uses in the N9 and Lumia 800.
Last week’s rumours point towards a Nokia tablet landing within the last 3 months of this year at the earliest. We’re excited to learn more about the Finnish manufacturer has in store for us.
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Via: Reuters, PhoneArena