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Apple Reinvesting in Handwriting Recognition?

One of the few areas that MS kicks Apples ass.

Why don't they just use part of their 20 billion dollar piggy bank to buy some IP's that do the same thing?
 
just an observation for those who haven't had good experience with inkwell...

in my experience with inkwell, it was much harder for the handwriting to recognize than on my Newton.... despite it being the same technology. There's something about the timing or the UI that seems to have made it much harder using it in OS X.

arn
 
Morky said:
I'm not a fan of Microsoft products in general, but their handwriting recognition technology for tablets is amazing, and it's been four years since I've tried it. It correctly identified words in nearly unreadable handwriting. Inkwell is pretty weak in comparison, in my experience.
Click to expand...

Its funny, because in my school all teachers all just got new smartboards.

So one of my "goofy" teachers, thought it be fun to try the handwriting recognition thing out.

She wrote in, that same neat printing that teachers always have. She tells the program to change to text.

Not only were the results funny and ridiculous, but it took the program almost 30 seconds, and these were brand new PC's. They were in fact running XP tho, maybe you mean its good in vista. Im just stating that from my experience of it, its not that good.
 
New iPhones and Tablets?

You can use the "Touch", or you can use the stylus instead of your fingers, or you can use handwriting recognition.

The 21st Century Newton! Welcome back...

Where's the Cube? (A larger Mini with a faster processor and discreet graphics....)
 
Right now Apple hasn't really invested much in their handwriting recognition software. They don't have any devices that actually use it, but I'd put pretty good money down that they have some updated stuff going on in the R & D department. MS on the other hand, has tablet devices to support. Not only that, but Bill Gates always talks strongly about how "tablet interfaces are the computers of the future" and so I imagine he's shifted a decent amount of resources towards developing more reliable recognition software with more features. I don't think it would be fair to compare Apples old software to Microsoft's newest software. I'm sure when Apple releases a tablet MacBook device that it will have astounding handwriting recognition as well as a great multi-touch interface and some sort of virtual keyboard that we will all come to enjoy.
 
I almost switched back to the PC to be able to use HP's consumer laptop.

Handwriting recognition was very good. But the UI sucks for a tablet. It is essentially a mouse/desktop UI with very little recognition of what is different about a tablet. Not as bad as a windows mobile. But certainly not as sensitive to the needs as an Ipod, or and Iphone.

One of the weirdest things that I discovered is that I have the exact same kinds of typos when I write on the computer as when I type. So it has nothing to do with my typing per se, but how I interact with my computer. And it is much easier to correct my typing than to correct my writing.

I still yearn for a convertible tablet. The tablet is absolutely better for certain environments like being on a plane. I do like to type sometimes. And while a trackpad is a good substitute for a mouse a stylus is not. I would hope that the mac has stylus specific software (Big landing areas for the stylus), menus on the bottom (so that you don't obscure the screen reaching for them with your stylus, and the travel distance is less), Writing not being regulated to weird input areas, stylus oriented gaming. But I think it will be better on the mac as they already are experimenting with flicks and touch UI's. Which I think means they will get the tablet difference when it happens.

I want a macbook/tablet. Really bad.
 
I still miss my Newton.

Well, I still have my last Newton, a 2100 - the display is getting rather hard to read now, but I still love it. I had a 130 first that I got through a coworker (now passed away) who had worked for Apple and still got a discount. I moved on to a 2000, then upgraded it to a 2100.

By the time the 2000 came along, the handwriting recognition got really good, and I could blast through note-taking at meetings better than with anything I've owned since: Palm Pilots, Nokia N800, etc. Even a laptop isn't as easy as my MP2100 was. Not to mention the voice recorder was handy as hell - more than once I was able to thwart people who would, after the meeting, insist that they had not said what they did.

I still hold out hope that someday the Message Pad 3000 will arrive. :p

Until then, I hold on to the memory of "egg freckles".
 
i can write using graffiti almost as fast as I can with a pencil and paper (I spent a lot of days using palms). Even wrote some college papers on a bus.

I don't think it will happen, but I wouldn't mind some way to use a stylus and graffitti (ver. 1) on my iphone.
 
applefan69 said:
Its funny, because in my school all teachers all just got new smartboards.

So one of my "goofy" teachers, thought it be fun to try the handwriting recognition thing out.

She wrote in, that same neat printing that teachers always have. She tells the program to change to text.

Not only were the results funny and ridiculous, but it took the program almost 30 seconds, and these were brand new PC's. They were in fact running XP tho, maybe you mean its good in vista. Im just stating that from my experience of it, its not that good.
Click to expand...

I been a tablet user for four years now. XP was good at character recognition, but Vista is even better. A lot of function, not just character recognition is implemented into the OS. In fact, I notice a lot of function my Iphone (writing input) had that XP/Vista tablet input already have.

As far as your teacher's tablet not being able to recognise her writing, she has to actually go through a writing procedure that allows her tablet to know her writing style. The more you use the better it knows your writing. My hand writing sucks, but my tablet know my style that it doesn't matter.
 
bit density said:
I almost switched back to the PC to be able to use HP's consumer laptop.

[snip]
I want a macbook/tablet. Really bad.
Click to expand...

I have partially switched to an HP tablet - the 2710p - because of the ability to use MS OneNote for my research. The experience is interesting - the combination of tablet input and OneNote is really powerful and ideally suited to a research scientist. However, the underlying Vista OS drives me crazy, and makes me wonder whether to give up trying. I still use an iMac for all my main work, and still go back to my 15" macbook often because I don't trust the HP.

The handwriting recognition system is amazing, though, on the HP tablet. All my handwritten OneNote notes are indexed in background so they can be searched, and I'm astounded at the software's ability to recognize my appalling handwriting. And input is generally very high accuracy - it's impressive. Life would be better with a combination of stylus and touch, though (the HP has a pen-only screen), and some changes to the OS which would help pen & finger-based operation. But the handwriting recognition is surprisingly good - years of Palm and Windows Mobile supposed recognition had left me jaded, but the vista version is quite something.

So, in some ideal world, I'd like a mac tablet, please, and a port of OneNote to OS X by the Mac BU at MS (if you've never played with OneNote, go try it out - it's part of Office and it's the only piece of microsoft software that I've ever admired)
 
bobx2001 said:
Yeah handwriting without a stylus could be difficult, but then maybe it may be implemented better than we al suspect (I personally didn't expect the touch interface on the iPhone to be as good as it actually is).

Would a stylus even work on the iPhone as it uses the current in your fingers to register your touch?
Click to expand...

There won't be a stylus. There will be a virtual pen on-screen that you can virtually grab and use. Some patents from Apple already explain how to do that.
 
arn said:
just an observation for those who haven't had good experience with inkwell...

in my experience with inkwell, it was much harder for the handwriting to recognize than on my Newton.... despite it being the same technology. There's something about the timing or the UI that seems to have made it much harder using it in OS X.
Click to expand...
I thought I was imagining that, but yeah.. I disabled inkwell after the initial tinkering.. After using handwriting recognition on a Newton eMate I was expecting it to be amazing in osX with my Wacom tablet..

Somehow it doesn't work as well, and I could never work out why. :(

...

This seems like great news though, looking forward to tablet macs (or giant iphones, or whatever they use this for!)
 
even though multi is very innovative and neet, the pen has the advantage of being thinner than a finger allowing more screen viewing, and the pinpoint accuracy gives greater detail in doodles.
 
Having both finger and stylus input would be a huge boon for the iPhone. The DS demonstrates that, no matter what Steve tries to tell us, the stylus can be very useful.
 
Morky said:
I'm not a fan of Microsoft products in general, but their handwriting recognition technology for tablets is amazing, and it's been four years since I've tried it. It correctly identified words in nearly unreadable handwriting. Inkwell is pretty weak in comparison, in my experience.
Click to expand...

I sold a lot of tablets to students when I used to work at BB. Wish I had had a comparable Apple product to offer them.
 
Handwriting recognition? How about simply a font rendering engine that's as good as Windows?
 
hbchad said:
Am I going to write with my fingers? Steve already told us how be feels about the stylus. Ooops I mean: he told us how WE feel about the stylus.

Does sound exciting though. Maybe we'll see a tablet.
Click to expand...

Styluses suck. He is only scratching the surface of multitouch. Gawd you freaks are primitive cavemen I sware! :rolleyes:
You go ahead and drag them Stevo!! Drag them kicking and screaming into the future!

Full of Win said:
Someone got up on the wrong side of the OS this morning.
Click to expand...

Wait til they getaload of me. :mad:
 
brocklesby said:
I have partially switched to an HP tablet - the 2710p - because of the ability to use MS OneNote for my research. The experience is interesting - the combination of tablet input and OneNote is really powerful and ideally suited to a research scientist. However, the underlying Vista OS drives me crazy, and makes me wonder whether to give up trying. I still use an iMac for all my main work, and still go back to my 15" macbook often because I don't trust the HP.

The handwriting recognition system is amazing, though, on the HP tablet. All my handwritten OneNote notes are indexed in background so they can be searched, and I'm astounded at the software's ability to recognize my appalling handwriting. And input is generally very high accuracy - it's impressive. Life would be better with a combination of stylus and touch, though (the HP has a pen-only screen), and some changes to the OS which would help pen & finger-based operation. But the handwriting recognition is surprisingly good - years of Palm and Windows Mobile supposed recognition had left me jaded, but the vista version is quite something.

So, in some ideal world, I'd like a mac tablet, please, and a port of OneNote to OS X by the Mac BU at MS (if you've never played with OneNote, go try it out - it's part of Office and it's the only piece of microsoft software that I've ever admired)
Click to expand...

I can echo this experience; I live in a science environment where taking notes at various gatherings is an important part of my day. While I have both a Mac Pro and a MacBook Pro, I use a slate tablet as my primary note-taking tool. The form factor is far less obtrusive than the clicking of a laptop keyboard. Despite the focus of this thread on HWR, one important feature for me is being able to use just straight digital ink. Products such as OneNote allow me to maintain my notes as handwriting, yet allow text-searching of the handwritten notes (admittedly, this feature *is* based on the HWR).

The slate form factor, gets me to a 3lb unit, light enough to carry around all day, no bigger than a notepad form factor. I would drop the PC slate in a heartbeat if Apple could incorporate this functionality in a product. Ideally in something that was as light as a MacBook Air, or perhaps a slate-type product that was sized somewhere between a macbook and the iPhone. but preferably not a "convertable" macbook proper or macbook pro. Imagine what apple could do with the MBA form factor if they ditched the keyboard!
 
olternaut said:
Styluses suck. He is only scratching the surface of multitouch. Gawd you freaks are primitive cavemen I sware! :rolleyes:
You go ahead and drag them Stevo!! Drag them kicking and screaming into the future!
Click to expand...

Using tools is more advanced than using your fingers, not more primitive. People once wrote with their fingers, then they advanced to using things we call "pens".

Drawing ad writing require a stylus, having one available for (par example) a sketchpad app would be great.
 
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