Unless you’ve been on Neptune the last few weeks (you’ll need to show us your check-ins to prove it), you’re almost assuredly aware of the iPad, Apple’s supersized iPod Touch. Assuming that Apple will sell millions of these things (regardless of whether people need them or not), and other companies also release portable, multi-touch tablets throughout the course of the year (Lenovo for one has our mouths watering with their U1 Hybrid, and the Google Chrome OS tablet rumors are starting to heat up), tablet computing will be disruptive to a number of online verticals, including we believe, the location space. Here are a few reasons why.

More mobility

If tablets can offer a fair amount of computing power (we’re not sure this is the case with the iPad) they are likely to replace laptops/netbooks when people are away from home/office. Why? Frankly, because they are cooler and lighter. We (Location Meme) accept it as human that people are vain. People are going to want to be seen with their tablet, which means that they will bring it with them when the go out (esp during the day – we doubt many people will be bringing their tablets to nightclubs). Further assuming that given the choice between interacting with the much large screened tablet over their cellphones, people will use their tablets to check-in at a location, which alone will change the location space. But more to the point, when they do check-in, tablets will offer…

Better Interaction With a Location

Let’s assume for one minute that Apple comes to its senses and adds a camera to the iPad (and Steve Jobs willing the iPod Touch). We all know that augmented reality (AR) apps are just getting going, and it is a no-brainer to conceive that tablets are the true future of AR. Crowd a lot of augmented info onto a 3.5″ screen and things get cluttered fast – change that form factor to a 10″ screen and things get a lot clearer and easier to use (not to say that good AR apps can’t exist on smartphones too). There are too many application ideas to list here, but imagine stepping into an IKEA with your tablet, checking in, then then using the tablet to do anything from get directions around the store, to pointing your camera at a couch you like and overlaying different fabric colors onto it, to – yes, the holy grail – purchasing and checking out right on your tablet.

While the above reasons are important, the most important reason that tablets are going to change the location space for companies such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Google and Loopt is…

Tablets will make us more social on the go

Please understand, we are not trying to hype tablets in this post. We see the tablet space as an evolution not a revolution (the iPhone was a revolution) – in fact, as many pundits have noted, tablets have been around for awhile already. But the 2010 tablets (the Twenty Ten Tablets? TTT?) seem to us to be an evolutionary step in computing, especially mobile computing, and every such step in this direction has made us more social on the go. Tablets will allow users to see great looking maps of where their friends and interesting places are, as well as deeply interact with location apps. AR will explode on tablets (once those pesky cameras are installed), and AR is all about location. Finally, and most importantly, tablets will allow us to bring more of the web with us on the go. Apps are great, the more easy and usable access we have to the web as a whole, the more we can truly interact with the millions of websites that don’t have apps, and this above all else, is where tablets are going to change the location space.