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Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

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Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#161

Post by ChuckMcM »

dragontamer wrote: post #116
ChuckMcM wrote: post #106

There is an interesting commonality here, everyone "grew up" with computers. Tablets aren't computers, they are smart displays, and that dissonance seems to grind sometimes. The Kindle/Nook concept of a tablet is pretty straightforward, keep it as cheap as possible and let be your portal into a bunch of pre-created content. I used my iPad and my Nook HD this way, I've got 45 books I carry around in my messenger bag t…

Some of us wish for Tablets to be more than just a portable screen. Fortunately for those of us who wish to push the boundaries of computing, some companies are willing to go in that direction. Content Creation Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE Surface Pro obviously, but the concept of a highly-accurate stylus has become standard in Galaxy Note and Galaxy Tab as well. Android now supports multiple u…

I see where you are going with that.

One of the challenges of stylus' and tablets are the technology just isn't there. I've not tried the Note yet but the Wacom stylus on the IREX Illiad V2 has been the closest thing to what I want, my current best approximation is the JotScript and its not there yet in terms of lag or accuracy. So much to get right, and so cheap to just use a pen to draw in a notebook.

I agree with you that there is probably some sort of evolution that will work, but its not there yet for me.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#162

Post by hosh »

Xerox PARC. "tabs, pads, and boards." They've experimented with these form factors. Back in the '90s.

One thing they said back then, pads -- that is, tablets -- are not something you carried around as a personal device like your phone. It would be more like the tablets on Star Trek: The Next Generation. You left it in the room. You logged in with your credentials (using your tab, the phone; or I suppose now, it would be iBeacon). When you are done with the work, you left it in the room and go elsewhere.

So you don't use it like a laptop or a phone. Duh.

It also means that, at some point, we should see multi-user tablets where settings, files, etc. sync over the cloud, combined with sub-$99 tablets, that's when this kind of a workflow will start emerging.

There's a similar romantic notion related to boards -- smart TVs. Eventually, I suspect the use-cases will converge on that old Xerox PARC research. It's when we start getting interactions among the three form factors we'll start to see some interesting things.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#163

Post by w1ntermute »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #157
w1ntermute wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You sound like most tech journalists two or three years ago, when the original Galaxy Note came out. They were sure embarrassed a couple months later when they turned out to be completely wrong about how popular it would be. Try getting out of the iPhone bubble for a while - you'll find that in the real world, phablets are not just something that you make fun of.

I don't have an iphone. I have an Android phone which is larger (65mm width) than an iphone 5, but decidedly smaller than a phablet. My phone is just on the edge of one-hand usability (I can mostly manage it but sometimes things get pretty awkward) and I often wish I had something iphone-sized instead, but choice is pretty limited among smaller Android phones (they exist, but tend to be old/slow/etc). People I know w…

Have you considered that one-handed usability isn't a defining property of smartphones?

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#164

Post by mritun »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #161
dragontamer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us wish for Tablets to be more than just a portable screen. Fortunately for those of us who wish to push the boundaries of computing, some companies are willing to go in that direction. Content Creation Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCKWn1zjejE Surface Pro obviously, but the concept of a highly-accurate stylus has become standard in Galaxy Note and Galaxy Tab as well. Android now supports multiple u…

I see where you are going with that. One of the challenges of stylus' and tablets are the technology just isn't there. I've not tried the Note yet but the Wacom stylus on the IREX Illiad V2 has been the closest thing to what I want, my current best approximation is the JotScript and its not there yet in terms of lag or accuracy. So much to get right, and so cheap to just use a pen to draw in a notebook. I agree with…

Then try it. Samsung Note series has Wacom digitizer inside and stylus support is really good.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#166

Post by zmmmmm »

I kind of agree and disagree. I think tablets are here to stay and will be the dominant form of computing device. As their price hits Along the same lines, I think Apple has harmed the long term success for tablets by refusing to embrace a stylus (I seem to remember "if you see a stylus you failed" type remark?). After acquiring a Note 3 it truly transforms the device - it's the "other half" of interaction that I have been missing. I could never bring myself to type on a tablet in a meeting. Whether it's just a social construct or not, I don't know - but I can write without feeling rude, but not type. So many things I can sketch out with the "real" stylus but could never do with a capacitive version. I have realized that my Note3 is the perfect device for doing math. I mark up PDFs. I pull it out any time I need more accuracy than the touch interface will provide. I'm seriously contemplating now buying an 8" note just for the stylus function.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#167

Post by stcredzero »

rhizome wrote: post #90
NathanKP wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how I use my tablet too. I use my computer all day writing code, so when its time to relax with some Netflix, or an ebook I grab my tablet instead. Its perfect for laying on the couch or in bed. A phone definitely works in that case as well, but the tiny screen isn't as nice for reading and watching video. Not to mention by the end of the day my phone is usually mostly dead and its time to put it on t…

Since the era of zoomable text on phones appears to be over, tablets have a bright future.

Why the frack do they keep doing that!?

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#168

Post by coldtea »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #135
coldtea wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never really got tablets - too big to be portable and crippled by the lack of usable input devices. Surfing and reading on the crapper. No need for input devices. Well, and tons of other stuff besides, depending on your age and interests. Almost every niche, from astronomy geeks to musicians has lots of great apps for tablets. Entry to mid-level director? Tons of filming assistance can happen on a tablet, from st…

> Musician? [..] audio recording Are the D/A converters of tablets really that good? Honest question since I have no idea. From my limited experience, there is a huge difference between inbuilt ones and something external that sends the converted signal to the 'puter via USB or firewire... or is that just because desktops have a lot more interference? GPU, CPU, the fact that it's plugged into an electrical socket etc…

>Are the D/A converters of tablets really that good? Honest question since I have no idea.

They are good enough for casual use. But you can even get stuff like Apogee interfaces for your iPad with top pre-amps D/A.

>But full-blown library management?

Not full blown, mostly marking photos from a shoot, flagging, minimal edits etc, before they end up in your main desktop library.

Re: Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

#170

Post by bad_user »

rtpg wrote: post #100
Zancarius wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever seen a child use a tablet? Or your mother? Seriously. It's actually kind of amazing. I got my mum one a couple of years ago and she's hooked. She literally doesn't leave the house without it if she's going anywhere that involves some manner of waiting. Touch input is something far more intuitive to someone in her generation (so it seems with my meager sample size of one) than mouse/menu-driven input.…

>Touch input is something far more intuitive to someone in her generation (so it seems with my meager sample size of one) than mouse/menu-driven input I would imagine most people find touch input more intuitive than mouse input, if only for the reason that it accomplishes the same thing but better (at least on an intuitive level). A mouse is like a pair of chopsticks. Sure, after a while, you can coordinate it pretty…

On the other hand a mouse is more efficient for pointing at things than anything else I tried - touching the screen, touchpad, etc... it's why when I'm working on my laptop, even though being on a MacBook I have a pretty good touchpad, I'm still attaching a mouse.

Same goes for the keyboard - no matter how big the screen real-estate is, it doesn't beat a physical keyboard, because a physical keyboard gives a tactile feel to your fingers and thus you can do touch-typing. My wife doesn't do touch-typing, she's just an ordinary user, but even she complains that things are hard to type on her 11 inch iPad.

Indeed there are applications that are more productive with a touchscreen, coupled with the possibility of carrying them around and looking at the screen while walking, it's a good combination - but for very different things.

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