Ballmer on iPad, Microsoft's Tablet Plans, and Printing

Ina Fried reports for CNet that Microsoft is hard at work on a Windows 7-based tablet to rival iPad. She reports on this comment from the Q&A:

"When you get your Windows 7 machine [the Microsoft tablet], it will print," Ballmer quipped. "Some people actually like to print every now and then."

This is a point that has been raised many times with regard to iPad. By now, it seems as if it's an unfailing indicator that someone doesn't understand the device and its possibilities. It's not a X-top machine (as in lap-top and desktop). You don't put it on top of something and then reach out to it with both hands to manipulate the keyboard and mouse or trackpad. It's a hand-held device which means that you only have one hand to use to manipulate it. There is only one thing on iPad that requires two hands, and that's taking a screenshot (simultaneously press the On/off [wake/sleep] button at the top and the Home button at the bottom--the logic is the same as the ancient Ctrl-Alt-Delete sequence which required two hands to avoid accidental reboots). Because it's almost impossible to use two hands to manipulate an iPad (unless you've propped it up on a stand or are using a wireless keyboard), most of the interface falls naturally into place.

As to printing, instead of thinking that the tablet is a flatter PC, think about how you function without printing directly to a printer. The process is pretty much like language immersion: Don't try to translate "Where is my aunt's butter knife" into the other language; instead, try to go from thought to target language words without translating through how you would say it in English. With regard to printing, just do the same thing and everything falls into place just as it does when you're using a device that requires you to hold it in (usually) your non-dominant hand. What is it you're trying to do? Sometimes you are trying to print something, but in most cases you're trying to communicate. Printing is a means of communication, not an end in and of itself.

In some ways, printing from a tablet is a crutch that lets you avoid the question iPad suggests you answer: what are you trying to communicate and to whom? Printing is still essential to most of us, but after four months of daily iPad use, it doesn't seem to be something that I miss from the iPad. Often, it seems to me that documents that are going to need to be printed are going to have to be shared between iPad and my other computers via the cloud (as in iwork.com and idisk/MobileMe).