The tablet marketplace exemplifies a lot that’s wrong with American business.

Start with the original Windows tablets. Great concept, lousy execution, ridiculously overpriced.

The concept itself was clearly superior to the iPad, assuming your goal is to do real work. With a Windows tablet you could use a stylus to write into the applications you use anyway. You know. Work.

Why does a stylus matter, other than as a matter of personal preference?

Because the subject is tablets. Smartphones are small enough that you can hold them and thumb-type without difficulty. Laptops are designed to rest on a surface to allow typing.

Tablets? They should be useful while held, as well as when they rest on a surface. That means one hand has to hold it. That means either one-handed typing, or writing on the screen.

That’s why the original Windows tablets were conceptually superior to the iPad for doing real work. Too bad they were done so badly.