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Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

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Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#3

Post by Yaggo »

Fully agree with Jobs. Hand writing recognization may have sounded fine idea, and is rather easy to properly implement, but the thing is that hand-writing is dying skill. Although I learnt to hand-write in childhood and did it for 15 years, nowdays I absolutely prefer typewriting (keyboard). My one-yeard-old daughter will be native typewriter. Speed recognization doesn't currently work (good enough), and if it did, speaking cannot fully replace typing because of privacy issues etc.

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#4

Post by yequalsx »

Yaggo wrote: post #3

Fully agree with Jobs. Hand writing recognization may have sounded fine idea, and is rather easy to properly implement, but the thing is that hand-writing is dying skill. Although I learnt to hand-write in childhood and did it for 15 years, nowdays I absolutely prefer typewriting (keyboard). My one-yeard-old daughter will be native typewriter. Speed recognization doesn't currently work (good enough), and if it did, s…

I would love it if it had digital ink. Handwriting recognition means nothing to me but the ability to digitally add handwritten notes would make me buy the iPad. I was disappointed with the cancellation of the Courier.

If the iPad had digital ink and the ability to digitally markup documents with ink it would be the killer educational device.

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#5

Post by heresy »

He's right, though amusing that some of the arguments he mentions against a tablet were levelled against the iPad :)

Personally, paper is still great for its flexibility, but I hardly write on it.

I use it to scribble drawings of how things fit together, or jot down notes as I debug a tricky problem, run over algorithms in my head, etc.

I want Caprica style digital paper for scribbling on that still allows me to persist heaps of data without needing lots of notepads.

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#7

Post by jleyank »

yequalsx wrote: post #4
Yaggo wrote: post #3

Fully agree with Jobs. Hand writing recognization may have sounded fine idea, and is rather easy to properly implement, but the thing is that hand-writing is dying skill. Although I learnt to hand-write in childhood and did it for 15 years, nowdays I absolutely prefer typewriting (keyboard). My one-yeard-old daughter will be native typewriter. Speed recognization doesn't currently work (good enough), and if it did, s…

I would love it if it had digital ink. Handwriting recognition means nothing to me but the ability to digitally add handwritten notes would make me buy the iPad. I was disappointed with the cancellation of the Courier. If the iPad had digital ink and the ability to digitally markup documents with ink it would be the killer educational device.

Concur.

I block print, and carry a notebook everywhere. So, having something that I can use in my "accustomed fashion" that would also be searchable via handwriting recognition would be a big win.

I also work in an industry where drawing geometric shapes are commonplace (chemical modeling). Yeah, you can do it with your finger, but sometimes the detail work is important and one's finger is a bit broad. Thus, working with a fine point/stylus would be an application win.

Is this a big enough market segment to matter? Not at this instant, because they're selling every one they make with NO difficulty. Would be nice to see something once the sales ramp down a bit, though.

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#8

Post by pohl »

yan wrote: post #2

"We’re not the greatest to sell to the Fortune 500 and there’s 500 of them, 500 CIOs that are orifices that you have to go through to get to the Fortune 500."

Just think of all the employees that roll-up to those 500 CIOs who just had themselves a little giggle.

My favorite quote from the interview was "...one day we realized that death would eventually take care of this."

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#9

Post by JunkDNA »

I find this interesting from a historical perspective. You can really see the thought process that led to the design decisions on the iPhone and iPad: Get desktop sync right, optimize for user consumption of data, avoid handwriting recognition (since it's inefficient anyway), the PDA is dead (instead, a phone has to have PDA features).

I also like the subtle way Jobs deflects the issue of whether or not tablet devices would be great for reading. He cracks a little joke and redirects the discussion.

Re: Steve Jobs' Prescience (Or: Who Wants A Stylus?)

#10

Post by sethg »

Yaggo wrote: post #3

Fully agree with Jobs. Hand writing recognization may have sounded fine idea, and is rather easy to properly implement, but the thing is that hand-writing is dying skill. Although I learnt to hand-write in childhood and did it for 15 years, nowdays I absolutely prefer typewriting (keyboard). My one-yeard-old daughter will be native typewriter. Speed recognization doesn't currently work (good enough), and if it did, s…

Do handwriting interfaces have more traction in China, Japan, and Korea?
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