The evolution of tablets and printers…

I used to print (plot) large images all the time. I have a plotter in my office that I still turn on from time to time, just to make sure it is still operating, but other than NOAA maps in large format I don’t print in large format anymore. I do still print in color, but I realized the other day, we (as a family) don’t print anywhere near as much as we used to print. We’ve gone from 1200 or so prints per month down to 20. The world has changed.

In that evolution printers haven’t gotten worse, they have gotten better. The quality is impressive, so when you do print, it looks perfect. But now, we print more to the screen than paper. We are down to three printers in our house, and I suspect we will probably dip down to less than three at some point in the next couple of years.

The dance of what once was.

We do have a photo printer as well, but I don’t count that one. Mostly because I use that one all the time to share pictures with various people. It is still easier to convey a picture to another person than to attempt to describe a visual event.

The evolution of what we print is interesting.

If you also consider the development of the tablet, that as well is interesting. What once was iPad only, or originally iPad is now actually kind of interesting. First off what we do with tablets intrigues me. I use mine as a laptop replacement, allowing me to have a work laptop and my home iPad and stay connected with the people I need to stay connected with. The tablet has become, like the cellular phone, more of a bridging and connection device.

Now, if we are talking my blogs, such as this, or other written works, I use a laptop. There is still something about tablet’s that doesn’t quite work. Even with full versions of office applications, the tablet reality is just that it isn’t quite there. I have in the past spent a month doing my blogs on an iPad or my Samsung Note Tablet, but I always put them away at the end of the month. They are good, but not great. My notebook is ideal for blogging.

Someday perhaps that will not be true but for now, it remains true.