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Why Everyone Has High Hopes For Apple Tablet
waderoush writes "The deafening roar of anticipation around Apple's expected 'iSlate' announcement on January 27 is strange, to say the least, given the public's utter apathy about tablet computers to date. What's going on? Xconomy's analysis makes three points. 1) Previous tablet makers have shown little imagination around UIs and how a touchscreen changes things. 2) With the iPhone, Apple has shown what's possible in this regard. 3) There's latent demand for a mobile computing device that's smaller and lighter than a laptop but has more screen real estate than a smartphone — something reminiscent of a Star Trek tricorder or PADD. Hence the hopes for the iSlate — which are so high that it may be difficult for even Apple to meet them."
I think it's safe to say the Apple Fanboys have high hopes, but Apple has a number of things going against them:
1) Android quickly catching up with Apple in terms of usefulness and it's working across a large set of diverse devices. ChromeOS will only make Apple's problem worse
2) If the expected price of $1000 is to be believed, it'll be a real turn off for anyone looking for a low cost MID. You can buy two (or three) netbooks for that price.
3) Let's be clear, if it's not e-ink or similar, this is in no way competition for the Kindle/Nook/Sony eReader
Ok here is my take on it...
If it can't fit in my pocket then I won't be buying it. I would like a device that is like old scrolls and roll out. Folding it neatly into my shirt pocket when I don't use it. At most four times larger than a ball point pen.
Anything else is stone-age.
Sit it on your lap at an angle. It's a self contained unit like a phone so there
is no need to have a bulky monitor mounted vertically that's attached to some big
box on the floor. You don't use this sort of device like a PC. It's not a PC.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I really just want an iPhone/iPod Touch on steroids
Why? Seriously, I would like to know. What would you use it for? A very large music player? A web browser that has no keyboard and likely is only useable in your house where you (presumably) have a desktop/laptop. Movies might be a good idea for it... I really don't know what this is supposed to be used for.
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The majority of PAD users aren't going to give 2 flips for photoshop, per se. For the most part, they'll be doing what people do now. Email, IM, shopping, surfing. Writing and now, reading.
You fail to realize that it has an influence on the people who aren't artists. Average people look at Macs and PC's and think that Macs are the fun computers and PCs are the work computers, why is that?
Because the people who WORK on the Macs are the people who draw for a living, compose music, make videos, etc. They are the people who have the jobs Cubible Joe wish he could have (and are obviously successful enough at it to afford apple products).
This "Niche Market" is what drives alot of other people to Apple.
Apple knew they'd be releasing after CES, so they had to play the expectation game to depress sales of competing products. Would you buy a tablet now if you knew that a company that has a track record of being a game changer is going to release a tablet? We know the design will be elegant, and we know through patent searches their tablet could have some interesting features. What will it do? Think of what market they haven't disrupted? That is a clue to the possible functions of the tablet. Will they even release a tablet? We won't know until the Steve says "one more thing."
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A problem that utterly destroyed the work of amateurs like DaVinci, Michaelangelo, and Raphael, right?
Well, yes, it can, and more -- by zooming in. And also by utilizing technologies such as bezier and spline curves. Methinks thou protests a bit too much. Also, even if you are stuck with the type of drawing you describe, it doesn't mean that others will be.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I can't honestly see anyone investing much more energy in handwriting recognition. Who writes anything anymore? Not to mention the added irritations of a stylus, loosing it, using something else, scratching the screen, etc.
On screen keyboard instead please.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
Congratulations, you got to show off your uber-geekiness by bringing up a bunch of esoteric examples that the article missed. Gold star for you. Now, do you have anything to say regarding the actual *points* in the article?
>Apple enters the market with their own device, which has a bunch of features that may or may not have been seen in other devices, but on the whole is a very well integrated package. Somehow, they saw a way to make the product work.
This really shows a lack of knowledge of Apple's history.
1. The Newton. Palm made this work. Not Apple. Later on Apple copied the Treo format (phone + PDA) Palm made popular and merged it with a virtual keyboard.
2. Apple Pippin. Failed game/multimedia console. Nintendo64 and PS2 got it right.
3. Power Mac G4 Cube. Failed on the market. Infamous for cracking case. Now, there's no shortage of small cube PCs. The PC world got this right.
4. Apple QuickTake. Failed digital camera. Everyone gets this right.
5. Macintosh TV. Failed TV/PC combo. Now TV is just a PCI card away or done with steaming/downloading.
6. Apple's "Hockey Puck" USB Mouse. No one gets this right because its such a bad idea.
7. eMate. Low cost Newton based PC. OLPC and others get this right.
Apple tries a lot of things and they fail more often than they succeed. The idea that theyre the ones who can fix the tablet market is a bit of stretch. Heck, I like tablets, but I understand their limitations, especially in regards to keyboards/inputs. Perhaps it will have something like the iwheel.
The major problem I have with the mac in regard to this is look at the chunk of documentation that requires you to hold down meta keys to access the second mouse button context menu - or even if your not using the context menus you still have to have a lot of hands to use the apple/option keys to access stuff - its very involved.
Back when the powerbook only had the one ctrl button on the left hand side of the keyboard made for a miserable experience actually just using the OS - essentially it requires two hands to use the track pad whereas my PC its not nearly as involved (which meant - you couldn't have the powerbook sitting on the side of your desk - you pretty much had to use it square in front of you to get any work done). I have no idea if they fixed this in newer apple laptops (putting another ctrl button on the right hand side - which would be a cludge at best), but its the major reason I'll never ever ever get another Apple laptop - that and the overheat issues with the macbook pro.
Oddly enough all this could be solved by putting another button on the trackpad ;).
>Who writes anything anymore?
Mathematicians, Engineers, Physicists, and basically anyone in a technical field of work or study have to resort to writing because inserting mathematical or engineering symbology on-the-fly while typing is very tedious at best.
I love typing, and I am very fast at it, and it worked great for all of my liberal arts studies.
But for the real work, I have to use pencil and paper.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
This was always a sticking point for me in the Mac vs Windows debate. Windows users complain about the one button mouse as if it's a crippling feature, when in fact, the MacOS UI was designed with a one button mouse. Granted, once you go to third party apps like, say, photoshop or UT2004, you're longing for the right click, I suppose, but it does make it a less cumbersome interface for MacOS itself, as well as apps designed for the environment to have only the one button.
I work tech support for a windows heavy environment, and the bottom end users are so mind bogglingly confused about the two buttons that it's laughable.
"Click on the icon"
"Right click or left click?"
"If I say click, I just mean left click"
"Ok, it brought up a menu.."
"No, you right clicked on it, use the left button"
"Oh.. Now i have a properties window"
"No, you left clicked the menu.. not the icon.. close that and start over"
"Ok, I have the menu up again, now what? I right click on properties?"
"... bring it in, I'll do it"
Yes, I completely agree.
I used to have a sign above my workbench, with various "rates"
Bench Work: $50/hr
Bench Work, while you wait: $60/hr
Bench Work, you watching me: $75/hr
Bench Work, you helping me: $100/hr
I was serious about it too. The fact of the matter is, me doing the work is one thing, me training/teaching is another. And I explained it as such. You want my expertise, then you're gonna have to pay for it.
What I do is not difficult, it just takes knowing what to do and when to do it (or not do it). It took a great deal of effort on my part to learn everything I know.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
1) Previous tablet makers have shown little imagination around UIs and how a touchscreen changes things.
Previously, a tablet maker had to write drivers and shitty little programs to make their touchscreen work with an existing OS. However, you can't really make a tablet work well using a windowing system designed for a mouse and keyboard; you just can't. Buttons work well, but titlebars don't, menus often don't (concealed by your hand), things like alt texts don't, you can't mouse over screen edges to make hidden menus pop up or do similar things, there are trouble with any parts of the system when you have to get the pointer to something a few pixels wide, etc. So unless improved features are built into the OS, or you hack an open windowing system like X/KDE/Gnome to accommodate it, using existing OSes is a bad idea.
It requires someone like Apple or Microsoft to modify a full OS enough to really natively support a tablet, and Microsoft doesn't get that sort of thing. They're decent at making things work and they don't look terrible, but they don't innovate, and I think they know it as much as anyone. Apple is the only one who could reasonably be expected to completely rethink their OS enough to accommodate a new paradigm like that.
Part of Apple's problem is that they've never been able to admit when they're wrong. They were wrong with the 1 button mouse. They've been wrong many times. They often get away with their mis-steps because, even though they're not practical, they're appealing and attractive (G4 cube).
The one button mouse is the equivalent of having training wheels on your bike. Everyone can ride a bike with training wheels. Well, then why do we make bikes without training wheels? They're limiting after you make the initial leap of learning balance. The one button mouse is great for those who have never used a computer, but then the limitations start to kick in. The fact that they've just recently released the mighty mouse (which again seems to be a mis-step) is their way of realizing their mouse might not cut the mustard with modern users needing more control over their computer. The fact that everyone I know who owns a Mac uses a Microsoft or Logitech mouse speaks volumes....and a lot of these people are old school mac folk too.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."