I was surfing the posts on blogging platforms the other day and came across a piece (posted as a sample, funnily enough) that had this interesting posit: tablets are so popular  because they represent a link in the development of hand-held devices. The end of that chain will be the gadgets of unprecedented power and versatility the size of smartphones and smaller (for what’s crucial is size and user utility).

That made me think of my own experience as a frequent technology user, and I think the guy who wrote it (sorry I lost the link!) could be right. Here’s why.

Once I got a decent Android smartphone (actually, it’s considered a legacy now, I guess), I quit using my iPad mini, though it seemed indispensable earlier. (In fact I’m only using it for ASR now.)

Main reason? Why, a phone is much easier to carry around than your iPad (even a mini one). It’s much handier to use for reading, too, because you can hold it in one hand and flip the pages with a thumb, which you can’t do holding a tablet. It’s always at your fingertips, always ready to take in your thoughts or update you on your emails when you have to be away from your office desk but still want to redeem the time. (In fact, this post was written while I was waiting for my younger daughter to come out of her dancing class.)

All the major tools, from Google Maps to QuickBooks to SalesForce have their mobile apps these days. Unless it’s a major project, you can always make do with a mobile app. Isn’t that incredible – to have all that computing power in the palm of your hand?!

So, for all occasional tasks and personal web surfing, handheld and powerful are the two key words that are likely to guide the evolution of all non-stationary personal gadgets.