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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?)

#41

Post by moxiemk1 »

sethg wrote: post #10
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?

I've noticed that a number of personal translator devices (still a popular category of device, despite the capabilities of cell phones) have handwriting interfaces.

(The "in Korea, handwriting interfaces are for old people" meme is struggling to escape, but I need to keep telling myself this isn't slashdot. People are actually intelligent here)

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

#42

Post by kurumo »

froo wrote: post #18
warfangle wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one reason I'd want a stylus on the iPad (or any other tablet device), and it's not for handwriting. It's for sketching. Diagrams, wireframes, or just a squirrel in the park. Give me a simple sketching program - think Painter Light. Let it synch to a repository on my desktop. Let me use the tablet as an actual tablet via bluetooth when I'm actually at my desk. I would probably pay bank for that.

You can get stylus' for apple's touch devices, I recently ordered one for my iPad. It's called a Pogo Sketch I plan to use my iPad for doodling and whatnot of a night time in bed, aswell as reading and general media consumption - its really my "bed time" screen device.

I have the Pogo stylus. The problem with it, or rather with ArtStudio, Sketchpad, Brushes and all the stylus note-taking apps is the same: you cannot rest your hand on the screen. It registers touches from the hand instead of the stylus. That makes all of these apps pretty much useless as far as I am concerned: it is quite inconvenient to draw or write using these applications, even though some of them are extremely impressive otherwise. This, frankly, boggles my mind - granted the screen sensor API is closed, but is it not possible to do velocity distribution thresholding on different touch events, or maybe something more sophisticated, a Kalman filter or something, to distinguish these touches and ignore the 'stationary' ones?

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

#43

Post by jsz0 »

tibbon wrote: post #15

One of the better comments by Jobs, "It’s really true, if you’ve got a bunch of rich guys who can afford their third computer — you know, they’ve got a desktop, they’ve got a portable and now they’re gonna have one of these to read with… that’s your market!" I've got my iPhone, I've got my Macbook Pro, I've got my gaming systems (and we have a few Kindles floating around the house)... I need the iPad because?

You may not need or want one. I think the bigger point is our ideas about portability are evolving. In the late 80s people who wanted a portable computer were happy with 10-15lbs machines that were basically portable desktops. Throughout the 90s we started to get something that looked like a modern laptop but still too heavy an expensive for most people to carry around. In the mid-00s we get the modern version of a laptop. ~5-8lbs, wireless connectivity, fairly inexpensive. In the last few years we're seeing the shift towards even smaller machines. Inexpensive <5lbs net books with wireless connectivity standard. So maybe the next step is <2lbs tablets. The trend of evolution is pretty clear: Smaller, more connected, lighter, cheaper, better battery life. For lots of people a MacBook Pro is no longer the ideal of portability. It's a heavy integrated desktop that has to be plugged in every 3 or 4 hours to keep working.

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

#44

Post by maercsrats »

tibbon wrote: post #15

One of the better comments by Jobs, "It’s really true, if you’ve got a bunch of rich guys who can afford their third computer — you know, they’ve got a desktop, they’ve got a portable and now they’re gonna have one of these to read with… that’s your market!" I've got my iPhone, I've got my Macbook Pro, I've got my gaming systems (and we have a few Kindles floating around the house)... I need the iPad because?

In my case, I was caught in the flood of Nashville and lost all my electronics. The next day I bought an ipad to do email, get on the internet, play a few games and read whatever books I had saved in dropbox or my work computer. I even was able to find some youtube videos on how to (try) and repair some of my stuff. Still couldn't save my motorcycle, though. The ipad has been fantastic and only $500.

There is the argument of "Why not just buy a netbook for $200?" To that question, I suggest you go try out an ipad and remember that you aren't going to do any coding on it. It's a pretty fantastic machine.

That being said, I am a computer programmer in a Vanderbilt research department. At some point I will have to pick up a laptop just to do some real coding work (and SC2 when it drops). For everything else, I love my ipad.

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

#45

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

Another concurrence, also about the Courier. I don't like typing on a touchscreen, and I actually enjoy handwriting - I think people underrate the degree to which it aids information retention and clear writing.

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

#46

Post by froo »

kurumo wrote: post #42
froo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get stylus' for apple's touch devices, I recently ordered one for my iPad. It's called a Pogo Sketch I plan to use my iPad for doodling and whatnot of a night time in bed, aswell as reading and general media consumption - its really my "bed time" screen device.

I have the Pogo stylus. The problem with it, or rather with ArtStudio, Sketchpad, Brushes and all the stylus note-taking apps is the same: you cannot rest your hand on the screen. It registers touches from the hand instead of the stylus. That makes all of these apps pretty much useless as far as I am concerned: it is quite inconvenient to draw or write using these applications, even though some of them are extremely…

I use a SmudgeGuard with my Wacom Cintiq - I suppose the same thing would work for the iPad. I haven't received my iPad yet to test it out.

EDIT - link

http://www.smudgeguard.com/

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

#47

Post by muhfuhkuh »

krschultz wrote: post #29
JMiao wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's better at most non-geeky things than your macbook pro. i know because i own both.

Is it $500 better? Compare a Macbook Pro to another laptop that is $500 cheaper. I'd argue there is $500 worth of value there. Is there $500 worth of value for the iPad over the Macbook Pro? I can think of a lot of things to do with $500 that would be better for me than buying an iPad.

>Is there $500 worth of value for the iPad over the Macbook Pro?

If you're not working while you're on vacation, yet need to stay connected, that $500 will make you feel like a million dollars.

I took my iPad on our vacation in Vancouver late April. It was the only electronic device aside from my cell phone that we took. Rocking that thing loaded with movies and TV episodes on a plane was unbelievably convenient (and try getting a netbook with an IPS screen at that price point). At the condo after walking around the city or hiking in the North, I'd shoot off some emails or map out where we wanted to go next and enter it into Navigon app for the next day.

Not lugging a $2000 MBP around on a vacation is reason enough to celebrate :)

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

#48

Post by snom370 »

krschultz wrote: post #28
JunkDNA wrote: post #9

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 device…

It's funny because the desktop syncing is probably the worst part of the ecosystem. They didn't even attempt to make it work on Linux (fine, its a niche, but they also actively made it more difficult for open source software to work with newer models) and iTunes for Windows is one of the crappiest pieces of software on Windows, and that's saying something.

I'd say desktop syncing is a really great part of the ecosystem, since it means that I can buy a new iPhone and be completely up and running again in less than an hour. Upgrading the software is a breeze, which is something you can't say about Nokia phones (last time I tried). I'd agree that iTunes on Windows sucks, but that's not too surprising given that they are running it inside of their cross-platform Objective C/Cocoa thingy.

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

#49

Post by snom370 »

viraptor wrote: post #26
JMiao wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you ever use a stylus? painfully unsexy in a pocket protector kind of way. the stylus was a big reason why app interfaces were so terrible. it allowed lazy manufacturers to strap a pressure-sensitive screen onto a notebook and call it a tablet pc. crappy hardware disinterests great software developers.

Stylus is not more at fault of terrible UI than anything else. Designers simply did not design for the fingers in the first place. If they were told to design the other way, they would do it. The mere presence of the stylus did not have to change anything. I actually like using stylus and don't see anything unsexy about it.

True, it didn't _have_ to change anything, but since it was there, there was no pressure to make dedicated applications and user interfaces that worked well with touch. With a stylus, you can use normal desktop applications even though it's sub-obtimal.

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

#50

Post by roofone »

krschultz wrote: post #29
JMiao wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's better at most non-geeky things than your macbook pro. i know because i own both.

Is it $500 better? Compare a Macbook Pro to another laptop that is $500 cheaper. I'd argue there is $500 worth of value there. Is there $500 worth of value for the iPad over the Macbook Pro? I can think of a lot of things to do with $500 that would be better for me than buying an iPad.

> Compare a Macbook Pro to another laptop that is $500 cheaper. I'd argue there is $500 worth of value there.

Curiousity piqued: what makes it worth $500 more?

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