Compared to running apps on a smartphone or, more aptly, an iPad, the app experience on the Samsung Chromebook Plus is distinctly subpar.

If you buy the Chromebook Plus and intend to use it mainly as a Chromebook, I expect you'll have a good experience. But if you plan to rely heavily on Android apps, you're basically buying into the start of a journey, replete with odd-looking presentations of familiar apps, bugs and crashes.

When I first reviewed the iPad, I wrote that, to succeed, 'It will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative.'

I believe that tablets - and especially the iPad - are extremely versatile and productive tools for consumers, schools and businesses and are better for many tasks than the PC or the smartphone.

I wrote a lot about the need for an information appliance. I think we've pretty much arrived at one: the iPad. A child could figure out how to use it quickly. Compare it to a DOS computer or even an Apple II; it's no longer nearly as much of a hassle or a mystery.

I was very proud to be at 'The Wall Street Journal'. I have nothing bad to say about it. I had a great run there. In what turned out to be the final years of my tenure there, 'AllThingsD' occupied me more and more and was much more fun.