Apple Handwriting Engineer?

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif

Apple has posted a job description for a Handwriting Recognition Engineer on August 11th, 2005.

Are you passionate about providing handwriting solutions to end customers? Do you strongly believe that using a stylus and a tablet is the way to interact with computers?

The position will be in Apple's Handwriting Recognition team, presumably the one responsible for Mac OS X's Inkwell technology. The Inkwell technology was based on handwriting technology developed in-house by Apple for the Newton handheld computer in the 90s. At the time, it was widely considered to be the best handwriting solution available.

While Apple has not made much use of the Inkwell technology in Mac OS X, there have been ongoing rumors of Apple planning on offering an Apple Tablet.

[DeSnousa]

A tablet maybe, that would be awesome or perhaps another Newton? Very interesting in what we are going to see, if any thing

[rxse7en]

For someone who has a PocketPC, cellphone, Palm, iPod, Powerbook, etc. I'm not sure my marriage could handle another gadget--unless it combines all of the functionality into one unit.

[Chundles]

I bet you it's already been done, I reckon they've headhunted this Handwriting Engineer about ooh, 12 months or so ago and already have the product prepped and ready to go as the last big PPC release at Paris or maybe MWSF06.

Inkwell is already there, they've had rudimentary handwriting recognition since the Newton (and from what I've heard the final iterations of the Newton were starting to get it right). I have no doubts they've researched the hell out of this product and all it needs is the big "SPJ" in Bondi Blue crayon at the bottom of the press release form.

[Morky]

The handwriting recognition on Microsoft's tablet PC OS is spectacular. I can write with almost unrecognizable cursive and it will hardly make a mistake. Inkwell's technology currently works about as well as it did on a Newton. Apple has a long way to go here.

[dmw007]

I might be tempted to buy an Apple iTablet!
Very cool news.

[iGary]

Tablet sales have crashed in recent years.

I bet it's something else.

[lorenz]

please build something like
IBM ThinkPad X41Tablet HARDWARE
OSX for tablet with Handwriting
IBM PPC G5 mobile

[phonic pol]

Hey Chundles, I totally agree, I'd only differ on the 12 month time frame. I reckon they'd mastered this a couple of years or more ago.

This job ad is to guage reaction among the rumor sites before release.

[canadosurfer]

It would be interesting to know how apple would makes the hardware and intergrate it with the Mac OSX operating system. Wonder if anyone has tried to make a generic a mcintel with a tablet pc ?

[m-dogg]

hmmm....maybe it's some sort of glorified remote control with a touch-screen interface to manage all your media via wi-fi and/or BT between yor mac, airport, stereo & tv?

[FunkSpaceMonkey]

I could provide an example of the most embarrassing handwriting in the world!

[tacomaboy]

An Apple Tablet would be perfect for me. Something stylish and usable. It would be great at work and meetings. But I'm sure we won't see anything anytime soon.

[mpw]

Originally Posted by canadosurfer

It would be interesting to know how apple would makes the hardware and intergrate it with the Mac OSX operating system. Wonder if anyone has tried to make a generic a mcintel with a tablet pc ?

Just plug a tablet into any current Mac and you'll find out.

If OSX sees a tablet attached it'll open Inkwell IIRC.

[AmigoMac]

Nice, now make handwriting a l07 be773r th4n b3f0pe.

L0041ng fopw4rd to a 7ab1et.

[SiliconAddict]

The Inkwell technology was based on handwriting technology developed in-house by Apple for the Newton handheld computer in the 90s. At the time, it was widely considered to be the best handwriting solution available.

And STILL is IMHO. I still use my 2100 over my iPaq 4700 for note taking because of the accuracy of the handwriting software. Simple it blows everything out of the water. MS's tablet PC is getting close to the Newton's accuracy but as far as I can tell it isn't there yet.

[gangst]

Sounds good, making an already great technology even better. Come on with the Apple tablet.

[godbout]

So, we have a handwriting engineer to perhaps build on inkwell, presumably to use in a handheld/tablet/touchsensive PB or something cool ...and also, we have 5W(!!!!!) memron chips coming out in mid '06... Hmmm sounds pretty cool! I will love to see what apple does with this.

[hob]

I was in the bluewater apple store the other day and they had a wacom tablet attached to a Power Mac, but no stylus - only a mouse. I checked out the handwriting preference pane and was intrigued!

Wasn't there a rumour of a new Newton in production, but the Steve just didn't like it and scrapped it?

[boomtopper]

if apple were really building a tablet pc it would need to have a lot of features. Such as being something like a tablet pc/ mobile phone. I am sure steve jobs once said they would not build a tablet pc because he thought the market is not the best for them (sorry can't remember link but if anyone can correct me please). But it does look as though apple is looking into this market because of the patent for a device that looks like a tablet pc.

[lopresmb]

remember too, that they already have a patent for what appears to be a tablet sort of device. (I forget which one it was, but it was on thinksecret)

[ebunton]

A sign of some new directions for Apple?

I don't know why people have this tablet concept ingrained in their minds.

It's all Microsoft's doing.

"Electronic devices with hand-writing recognition capabilities" don't need to behave and function like the ill conceived tablet concept MS has been pushing.

... to evolve their OS by sticking some hand-writing recognition in... what a horrid angle to start the hand-writing tech revolution.

I hope Apple gets it right and develops something that's been completely built from the ground up to take advantage of hand-writing.

Hmmm, they probably should start with the education sector and have all little kiddies start learning how to write with such an Apple device.

[macFanDave]

that I repeated over and over when I successfully predicted the doom of the Tablet PC from its inception: the fastest speed that people can write with pen on paper tops out at about 20 words per minute.

Even if handwriting recognition were perfect, the clumsiest keyboardists would still beat the pants off of the fastest handwriters.

Sure, there are some niche markets where tablet computing makes sense, but it is a much smaller niche than some idiots (aka, Gates) believe.

[emotion]

Originally Posted by lorenz

please build something like
IBM ThinkPad X41Tablet HARDWARE
OSX for tablet with Handwriting
IBM PPC G5 mobile

ibm are history....full macosx on a handheld anyone?:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/23/intel_ppw_plan/

[speleoterra]

Originally Posted by emotion

ibm are history....full macosx on a handheld anyone?:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/23/intel_ppw_plan/

Hmmm,.....that is interesting. That alone would explain the move to Intel.
but;

Jobs: There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, “People couldn’t type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.” “We look at the tablet and we think it’s going to fail.” Tablets appeal to rich guys with plenty of other PCs and devices already. “And people accuse us of niche markets.” I get a lot of pressure to do a PDA. What people really seem to want to do with these is get the data out. We believe cell phones are going to carry this information. We didn’t think we’d do well in the cell phone business. What we’ve done instead is we’ve written what we think is some of the best software in the world to start syncing information between devices. We believe that mode is what cell phones need to get to. We chose to do the iPod instead of a PDA.

Of course this could be just babble to throw Bill off of The Road Ahead.