Apple Handwriting Engineer?

[Yvan256]

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

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

That's exactly why I don't have a PDA yet. PocketPC/WindowsCE = Microsoft, and PalmOS still blows (still not seeing why they bought BeOS).

If Apple comes out with a PDA that runs OS X and all its software (full version, no strip-down crap that requires different apps), then I'm buying it.

A S-Video out would only make the deal even sweeter: portable Keynote presentation device.

And as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have this new PDA use that 0.5W low-power Intel CPU. A PDA is supposed to have WEEKS of battery life, not HOURS (so forget G4/G5, even "low-power").

 

[Lepton]

Video iPods^H^H^H Handheld Macs

Tablet yes, Newton no, handheld OSX YES! Man, I was SOOO pissed when they canned the Newton. I've got like 5 of em sitting here in my computer museum (aka boxes in the basement.) If they had just kept at it for another year they would have owned the handheld market like they own the MP3 player market. All Newton needed was a smaller form factor, and they were working on that at the end! And as a developer, the Newton OS was a thing of beauty. Seriously, no one has beaten it with any other tiny OS to date. It's a crying shame, but it's dead.

When they ended Newton they said a main problem was the inability to design and support two great but very different operating systems. I knew then that Apple's next PDA would run Mac OS. And now, the technology has caught up. A handheld can contain everything you need to support OSX at this point. Lots of RAM, tiny hard disk, fast processor, good battery life, good screen, wireless, all the rest.

We have the iPod, we are waiting for the video iPod. Surely they have video iPods in the lab, where are they? I submit maybe instead of a video iPod, a handheld Mac could be in the offing. Betcha a buck they have those in the lab, too. And they might be looking so promising these days, that the current only-video iPod proto may be sidelined for next year's handheld Mac.

Look, there are plenty of handheld Windows devices, lots of them are even cell phones as well. A handheld Mac is completely feasable, and you don't even have to strip down OSX very much. And there isn't much to add in, either, everything from integrated handwriting to voice output and wireless is already in the standard OS.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives, we'll have handheld Macs. Look at those power-sipping Intel chips for handhelds just detailed on Intel's road map. OSX runs on 'em, yep it sure does. Yep. This could be the start of a beautiful thing.

 

[animefan_1]

Tablet sales have crashed in recent years.

I bet it's something else.

I always thought something had to take off before it could crash.

 

[animefan_1]

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?

Yes, but I don't think it was scraped because Steve didn't like it, but rather he didn't see much value of re-entering the market. Looking at how sales of PDAs have done in the past few years, I'd say Steve made the right choice.

 

[SiliconAddict]

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

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

OS X on a handheld would be pointless. The GUI would NOT work well with a handheld. MS learned this with CE 2.0 devices before they revamped things in Pocket PC 2000 devices. Apple would have to write the GUI from scratch or do some serious tweaking. Even then the foot print for OS X is insanely large for any handheld device short of a subnotebook.

And the Thinkpad Tablet wasn't released by IBM it was released by lavitra or whatever that China company's name is. IBM received a moderate chunk of their stock when they sold their soul (Soul=The Thinkpad line.) so IBM has at least a small say in what's going on in those products, at least for now.

What Apple needs to do is what MS has done. Write from, the ground up, a new OS that is ULV CPU friendly that shares the same API's as its big brother that can run on mobile phones, handhelds, in car computer systems, etc that allows developers to port their wares from OS X to OS X-lite or whatever they would call it.

 

[elmimmo]

At the time, it was widely considered to be the best handwriting solution available.

Yeah, the key tagline here is "at the time". Inkwell on Mac OS X is nothing but a curiosity. Its error levels are unacceptable for an everyday workflow.

That is if you write in English and I guess German or French, the languages listed in Ink's prefpane. It is absolutely useless when using Spanish or whatever other that Ink does not have a dictionary for.

 

[rockthecasbah]

here's a thought, maybe it would be a Powerbook option that uses one of those flippable screens! Can look like a Powerbook G5 (tee hee a boy can dream) but flip the screen around and pull out a stylus.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Yes, but I don't think it was scraped because Steve didn't like it, but rather he didn't see much value of re-entering the market. Looking at how sales of PDAs have done in the past few years, I'd say Steve made the right choice.

PDA sales are perfectly fine. The problem is the idiots out there doing the surveys are classifying Blackberry's as not PDA's but smartphones. The ultra popular Treo? What do you think that's running? Its running Palm OS - a PDA OS. And the bagilion smartphones on the market?....What do you think a smartphone is? Its a Personal Digital Assistant.
People need to wake up and realize the PDA isn't going anywhere as long as you need to input data on an ultra portable device. All its doing is rolling cell phone tech into it. That is all. Jobs is full of crap at the end of the day. He make a lame *** excuse to crapcan the Newton. If the Newton line had been allowed to continue I'm 110% certain it would have morphed into two lines. A mobile phone line and a handheld computer line that share OS X's API's allowing developers to easily drop their wares onto a mobile phone or a handheld. But no. Steve had it out for anything that wasn't his baby. Yes I know Apple was gushing money and they had to tie it off but still. I still weep for the Newton. My iPaq 4700 is named Newton 4700 on the device itself for a reason. I'm certain that that device would be where the Newton would be today if Steve-o didn't go on a slash and burn run.

 

[hob]

OS X on a handheld would be pointless. The GUI would NOT work well with a handheld. MS learned this with CE 2.0 devices before they revamped things in Pocket PC 2000 devices. Apple would have to write the GUI from scratch or do some serious tweaking. Even then the foot print for OS X is insanly large for any handheld device short of a subnotebook.

And the Thinkpad Tablet wasn't released by IBM it was released by lavitra or whatever that China company's name is. IBM received a moderate chunk of their stock when they sold their soul (Soul=The Thinkpad line.) so IBM has at least a small say in what's going on in those products, at least for now.

What Apple needs to do is what MS has done. Write from, the ground up, a new OS that is ULV CPU friendly that shares the same API's as its big brother that can run on mobile phones, handhelds, in car computer systems, etc that allows developers to port their wares from OS X to OS X-lite or whatever they would call it.

I don't think they'd have to write an entirely new OS. They could just modify the current one. Even on a screen the width of an iPod they could still fit an apple menu, File, Edit and then a Wireless icon, battery icon and clock along the top... Then a small dock with 5 icons or so... But of course it would be a bigger screen than that!

 

[rockthecasbah]

PDA sales are perfectly fine. The problem is the idiots out there doing the surveys are classifying Blackberry's as not PDA's but smartphones. The ultra popular Treo? What do you think that's running? Its running Palm OS - a PDA OS. And the bagilion smartphones on the market?....What do you think a smartphone is? Its a Personal Digital Assistant.
People need to wake up and realize the PDA isn't going anywhere as long as you need to input data on an ultra portable device. All its doing is rolling cell phone tech into it. That is all. Jobs is full of crap at the end of the day. He make a lame *** excuse to crapcan the Newton. If the Newton line had been allowed to continue I'm 110% certain it would have morphed into two lines. A mobile phone line and a handheld computer line that share OS X's API's allowing developers to easily drop their wares onto a mobile phone or a handheld. But no. Steve had it out for anything that wasn't his baby. Yes I know Apple was gushing money and they had to tie it off but still. I still weep for the Newton. My iPaq 4700 is named Newton 4700 on the device itself for a reason. I'm certain that that device would be where the Newton would be today if Steve-o didn't go on a slash and burn run.

A smidge too much coffee today?

 

[Yvan256]

Yes, but I don't think it was scraped because Steve didn't like it, but rather he didn't see much value of re-entering the market. Looking at how sales of PDAs have done in the past few years, I'd say Steve made the right choice.

Sales of MP3 players weren't all that crazy either before the iPod (sure they were popular, but nowhere near what the iPod did to the market).

PDA sales are low because the offerings are crap. Strip-down Windows that requires special apps? Palm OS that looks like Windows 3.11?

Bring in an Apple PDA with the following features:
- very-low power intel CPU (with weeks of battery life)
- full version of OS X (no need for "special software", it runs what your desktop/laptop runs)
- enough CPU power for Keynote 2 and medium resolution MPEG-4 playback (portable video)
- 512MB RAM (here's hoping, since it probably won't have any RAM slot)
- 1.8" 40GB HD (made possible by Hitachi's perpendicular technology)
- Wi-Fi
- S-Video out (so you can use it as a portable video playback and Keynote presentation device)
- One or two USB 2.0 port (for external mouse/keyboard)
- One FireWire 400 port (for video editing on-the-go)

Maybe a built-in CompactFlash/SD slot to make it friendly to camera/iPhoto users.


If it has all those features, PocketPCs and Palm devices will look like last decade's crap.

I don't care if Apple or Sony makes it, as long as it runs the full version of OS X.

 

[angelneo]

Maybe they are going to replace the iPod clickwheel with touch sensitive pad, that allows more than rotation?

 

[doppelganger]

i think it maybe a tablet of somekind. i remember reading about this in june on thinksecret that apple won a patent for a tablet. then again, i could be wrong. here's a link:
http://www.thinksecret.com/news/patents05june.html

 

[w_parietti22]

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

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

lol.... guess this means that we're going to see another 5 year os from MS

 

[w_parietti22]

Guess this means that we wont see anything tablet related in Paris if Apple is still looking to find people a few weeks before. maybe MWSF?

 

[Kobushi]

groovy. That just might make me join the PDA ranks.

 

[nagromme]

A traditional tablet PC seems unlikely, but this could be "something else" OR just keeping a promising technology alive "just in case."

So it wouldn't surprise me to see nothing come of this unless you have a Wacom tablet and your keyboard breaks

But if new hardware DOES appear sometime... I want the smallest, most portable possible device that can run OS X. I don't care how you do it, just let me have all my projects in my pocket, ready to make changes on short notice. Would pocket size be an ideal working environment? Of course not. But it would be infinitely BETTER than having NO working environment, which is what I have right now when a client wants something done and I haven't lugged my PowerBook along.

I don't just want email, or a PDA... I want my Mac apps and my Mac files, usable in a pinch. (And for some PDA-style tasks, a small device would be quite practical anyway.)

If it's a camera and a phone that's great, but I suspect a true "everything" device--one that does all things WELL and without sacrificing portability or battery life--is a long way off.

Sadly, I think none of this is in the works. The market (for now) would probably be too small. (Then again, MP3 players were a small market before Apple did it right!) I'd guess this hiring is "just in case." (Then again, OS X on Intel could have said the same )

Also, Apple does take risks releasing innovative and unusual products sometimes, hoping to find a big enough market. Some succeed, some fail. They can afford to take such risks--especially as the Mac market as a whole grows.

 

[biohazard6969]

i think wat apple rele should do is just bring back the newton with osx pda. i think that would really sell. i'd buy one, if they were priced reasonably

 

[feffer37]

Sit Down Tablet Naysayers....

After seriously investigating the tablets out there, plus using Viewsonic's tablet/combo stand concept (which works much more brilliantly than most would guess), I'm here to tell you that the only thing standing in the way of tablets going mainstream is that all the current ones run Window's XP. You're telling me that with all the current bluetooth goodies out there (most notably the keyboard & mouse), that Apple couldn't put out a Fantastic Tablet with a seperate stand that would CRUSH anything out there that Microsoft has endorsed? Give me a break. Naysayer's should learn their lesson from all of the products that Apple has released AFTER Microsoft/Windows based "solutions" have been introduced. Can anyone say iTunes? Or iPod? Or Safari?

Keep on track Apple, when your Intel based low power consumption Tablet comes to market, I'll be first in line to buy one, just like I was first in line to get the 12 inch powerbook (which is STILL the best laptop I've ever owned). Interesting note, the 12 inch powerbook is the only reason I didn't wait for the release of the new windows tablet/laptop combos.

 

[SiliconAddict]

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.

Which it pretty much is. Steve is talking out of his ***. Making up excuses why they didn't go after the market. 5 years ago if you talked to him he probably would have given some nice BS answer why the mobile music market isn't right for Apple.
Cell phone are non optimal for entering data and as much as Jobs may live in a dream world people don't drag laptops with them everywhere they go. They do carry their wallet, their cellphone and in some cases a PDA. Syncing does jack good if someone wants to manipulate or enter data on the go and a cell phone interface does not accommodate this. Keyboards are, even with the slide out keyboards on some PDA's, still clunky. touchscreens work because the interface for viewing and inputting is all in one; taking up less space so in certain instances a tablet does make sense.
Like it or not the tablet PC will be with us in the future. Just as there are desktops, laptops, subnotebooks, and PDA’s there will be tablets because of the nature of taking notes. How many of you guys have tried to take notes on a laptop while in a class? It’s a pain in the ass. Esp the clickity, clickity, clickity of the keyboard and drawing diagrams and such? Forgetaboutit. How about meetings where you are setting across from a client. How unbelievably rude is it to have a laptop lid flipped up in front of him vs. a tablet where you can scribble your notes down. Or how about a hospital. Dragging around a laptop from A to B to view a person’s records is INSANE. I’ve seen it being done and have talked to nurses about tablets. The look of “ME WANTS THE PRECIOUS” tells me that there is a market there as well. Or how about e-books? Or how about. You get my point. Tablet PC’s are inevitable. The big reasons they haven’t taken off yet is relativity easy.

1. MS doesn’t know jack about designing interfaces. All they did was slap Windows XP with a few apps installed and called is Windows XP Tablet edition. No tweaking of the interface. No designing the GUI for one-handed use. No designing the GUI to keep in mind that your arm is going to be covering the display x amount of time.

2. Tablet PC’s are just as expensive as laptops. Until tablet PC’s drop in price to close to $1000 a pop they are going to remain niche.

3. MS charges MORE for the tablet PC OS then Windows XP. There is a reason why OEM’s are saying screw you to the tablet concept. Its more expensive to them.

3. MS implementation is ****. There are KNOWN memory leaks in the ink software and they are ignoring it telling people that the solution is to turn your computer off every night. Morons.

4. They haven’t been rolled into standard laptops yet. I’m a firm believer that at some point tablet capabilities will be rolled into most laptops without incurring a price point hit. The Tablet PC convertible is what, at some point in the future, all laptops will act like. Where the screen of the laptop will simply flip down, backwards, on the keyboard and away you go. If you don’t want to use that mode no one is forcing you too. It will simply be another feature on the laptop like WIFI, burners, or fingerprint scanners.

Jobs is full of crap. The man many be many things he isn’t a tech visionary. He knows how to design pretty things that just work, then hands it off to marketing and puts out a massive campaign that spins things up to a point that is will generate gravity. (Case in point. iPod Shuffle a device looking for a reason to exist which Apple found. You magnificent bastards you.) He knows how to take a concept pioneered by others and turn it into an actual working product. The problem is as far as I can tell he bases his decisions on what HE thinks is a good market to go after. The guy ain’t god. And some of the markets he’s dismissing could very well be major if Apple\Jobs decided to reinvent it. Just my .000001 cents.

 

[SiliconAddict]

A smidge too much coffee today?

No. Not enough... Seriously though. I've got a close friend who worked on the Newton development team near the end. Granted his view of things probably is tainted but his view was that Jobs had it out for anything that wasn't his baby. I love my Newton 2100. When I set it next to my iPaq 4700 I see so much wasted potential.

 

[peharri]

Not a PDA

It's probably not what you think. Apple has a habit of posting misleading stuff to get people off the track.

What we're probably looking at here is a new mouse. It'll be shaped like a pen, and you'll use it as a pen. Because it's pen shaped, you'll be able to use it in place of a keyboard - not something you'd do for a lot of writing, but if you're doing a lot of mouse based work, then it'd be terribly useful. My guess is it'd work a little like the touchpad does - use taps and tap-drags for standard mousy commands, and maybe a tap and twist or something to switch it into/out of text writing mode.

It'd be rather more useful than a PDA. PDAs are pretty much obsolete now that cellphones have about 90% of their functionality, and have more importance (and thus get higher priority in the fight for pocket space), any company entering the PDA sphere would have to have something very, very, special to turn that around. As for tablet PCs... uh-huh. Yeah. Let's not go there.

 

[eme jota ce]

What are the

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.

I agree that handwriting is too slow and wonder where this (interesting and impressive) technology will be useful or an improvement?

I can see older people in my office who never learned to type using it. An aging and shrinking market.

Sometimes, it would be helpful on large spreadsheets or Internet forms.

The best place I can see would be to ingetrate it into PDA, blackberry, iPod, and phone broswers where keyboards occupy valuable, limited space. This might be a larger market given that many people in developing countries can't afford computers but have cell phones or other devices with Internet browsing capability.

Any other strong uses for the technology?

 

[MacRy]

3. MS implementation is ****. There are KNOWN memory leaks in the ink software and they are ignoring it telling people that the solution is to turn your computer off every night. Morons.

Whilst I agree with most of what you have said this isn't strictly true. They have fixed this now and you can download the patch here link. So they have hardly just ignored it.

Jobs is full of crap. The man many be many things he isn’t a tech visionary.

Steve Jobs isn't a tech visionary? Seriously dude, think about that for a moment. He's one of the most influential people in the tech industry and you don't get that kind of moniker without being a teensy bit of a visionary.

 

[the-fish]

LOL I bet they just do patent applications and job requests to see which rumor site picks it up first! It would be great if they were actually planning a tablet Mac, we'll see..