As David Canton wrote in his blog earlier today, we are potentially on the verge of a breakthrough year for tablet computing. Finally, after years of hearing the prediction, there may be the right operating systems and technology to support this long heralded form factor.

I still remember the first Vadem Clio that I played around with nearly a decade ago. It promised the instant on/off, touch screen and full colour support that I’ve always felt were essential to the tablet computing experience. Microsoft was on the right track with the Windows CE/Windows Mobile operating system. (The O/S fell off the rails in later years IMHO and routinely crashed the 3 generations of HP iPaq devices I used).

Later when I got into corporate IT I bought myself one of the first Windows XP Tablet Edition ‘laptops’ to hit the market. In fact my employer at the time was gracious enough to allow me to purchase three different models as part of a feasibility study we were conducting. All but one were ‘pure’ tablets, no keyboard included (although a USB keyboard was supplied by one of the vendors for desktop use).

Despite the promise of a suitable tablet experience, it never lived up to the billing. As a glorified laptop the battery life was insufficient, the system took too long to boot up for spontaneous note-taking and the ‘digi-pen’ proved to be too cumbersome to operate efficiently.

Fast-forward to Apple’s rumoured announcements regarding a series of new portable devices. Are we on the verge of any potential game changers?

I have to admit that I’ve become a bit of an Apple fanboy over the past 3 months since the purchase of my first MacBook Pro earlier this summer. While I love the MBP, I still find that around the house what is ever present is my iPod Touch.

Aside from the small screen impairing the readability of text, I can do 75+% of what I need to do at home in a given day on the device. I can make simple updates to our web site, interact on Twitter, stay on top of Facebook, check my e-mail, catch up on podcasts, do online banking, etc.

The one shortcoming is the inability to read documents efficiently. Now if I had an iPod Touch with a 8″ screen, that would be a game changer for me. Reading our e-Edition and our new mobile lfpress.com web site suddenly becomes feasible. I may not need to get our paper delivered to my home each day. The less expensive e-Edition would likely suffice.

And as for all the PDFs I need to read through each day, piece of cake on that size screen.

I guess the tweaks in Snow Leopard will have to tide me over until the new range of portable devices hits the market over the next 6 months.

@SteveatLFPress