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by Anechoic 5219 days ago
I'm sure they'd be happy to leave with an extra bonus of a tablet after that. How well does a tablet perform when its screen is caked in concrete?

Repeating part of a comment I made a few days ago:

Folks have been talking about tablets being a natural fit for the construction market, and frankly I don't see it (at least for field work). Construction sites are nasty places - dust, concrete, bentonite, slurries, oil & grease, rain, snow, heat these are not good things for an expensive tablet to be around.

Furthermore, the trades guys are hard are their equipment. When it's time to go to lunch, stuff gets thrown in the trunk bed or on the passenger seat of the truck as they rush off. Even if a tablet survives the abuse, those guys rarely lock or raise the windows of their trucks on the job, so I wouldn't expect the tablet to be there when the contractor gets back from his break.

I think the potential is there, but tablets need to become more "disposable" first. On the other hand, there may be decent acceptance from engineers and supervisors.

Also, it can't be denied that the construction industry is very staid and has much inertia against change.

I would disagree with that, construction is generally such a low-margin business that (IME) contractors are willing to try new things if it can mean lower bids or higher profit margins. But they have to be convinced first that change makes sense.
2 comments
lukeschlather 5219 days ago
>I think the potential is there, but tablets need to become more "disposable" first.

And then instead of throwing out some biodegradable/easily recyclable paper, you have a pile of plastics and rare earth metals that you are throwing out, thus obliterating the supposed "green" impetus for going paperless.

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Retric 5219 days ago
It's standard operating procedure in many palaces to drive a truck over a new mobile phone model then dunking it in a bucket of water before accepting them. There is no reason that tablet's can become at least that rugged.

Second, there are a fair number of 200$ tablets out there bumping that 50$ for a rugged case and you can make something that lasts long enough for minor increases in efficiency to quickly pay for it. So, IMO the real question is can a tablet increase the average construction workers efficiency by 2+% with good software and I think that's vary doable. (2% efficiency for someone making 10$ an hour would pay for tablet in a little over 6 months getting the average lifespan of a tablet to 6 months seems vary doable.)

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ynniv 5219 days ago
It's standard operating procedure in many palaces to drive a truck over a new mobile phone model then dunking it in a bucket of water before accepting them. There is no reason that tablet's can become at least that rugged.

Structural integrity declines exponentially. An 1/8th inch piece of glass the size of a credit card is pretty durable. That same piece of glass the size of a sheet of paper is rather delicate. On top of that, a phone screen provides a smaller target for falling debris.

So, even if touchscreen phones become popular on the jobsite, it will take significant additional engineering to get tablets there.

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