Apple Tablet Computer..

[amyhre]

One of the reasons they probably sell poorly is they have Newton-like handwriting recognition. At least, that's what I've been told. A new Newton would be cool but it looks like that won't be happening.

 

[wide]

viper1701:

you talk about handwriting recognition as though it is a good thing...i don't agree at all. the purpose of a keyboard, in my opinion at least, is to make my writing legible to all and to allow me to rest my hands. i have difficulty writing for a long time with a pen or pencil--my hand starts to cramp up and i cannot do it any longer. even worse, i can't read my handwriting after i write it! i would much rather have a Treo 600 or Blackberry handheld than a tablet PC (and the treos are really cool).

also, i like computing while sitting down. and a laptop makes me more motivated to sit, so that all works out. with a tablet someone might be like "yo come over here and stand next to me because you have a tablet and not a laptop"

scary stuff we're getting into...

 

[furrina]

viper1701:

also, i like computing while sitting down.

As opposed to....?

viper1701:
and a laptop makes me more motivated to sit, so that all works out. with a tablet someone might be like "yo come over here and stand next to me because you have a tablet and not a laptop"

scary stuff we're getting into...

Wait...huh??

 

[legion]

tablets are useless pieces of junk. there is almost no market for them, and the only people that use them are inventory supervisors, etc...in other words, people who have to walk around a dim room full of boxes with a tablet pc and stylus and check off what products are in or out of stock

essentially, any portable device without a keyboard can be rendered useless for every task..

Odd, we use ours for pro-audio work (the airpanels mentioned above) on multi-million dollar movies.

 

[legion]

One of the reasons they probably sell poorly is they have Newton-like handwriting recognition. At least, that's what I've been told. A new Newton would be cool but it looks like that won't be happening.

Where are you, trapped in 1994??? Go to anyone who sells tablet PCs and try one out.. they're far better than the Newton's handwriting recognition...

 

[chief]

If Apple did produce a Tablet it would be called iTablet or iSlab or iPad or iSlate or iParchment ... am I going to far?

 

[svenr]

you talk about handwriting recognition as though it is a good thing...i don't agree at all. the purpose of a keyboard, in my opinion at least, is to make my writing legible to all and to allow me to rest my hands. i have difficulty writing for a long time with a pen or pencil--my hand starts to cramp up and i cannot do it any longer. even worse, i can't read my handwriting after i write it!

That's why handwriting recognition would turn your scribbles into text just as if you had typed it with a keyboard. Why is that not a good thing?

Also, while typing is a very recent phenomenon, people have been (hand)writing for hundreds or even thousands of years, which probably means it's more "natural" for most people. IMO, writing as an input method is more intuitive, combine that with editing capabilities of modern text processors and you have a real winner. It allows you to quicky draw a diagram, sketch out an idea and write obscure characters - would you know off the top of your head how to type mikro (µ), the Euro (€) or the pound (£)?

If you have difficulties writing, that may mean you're doing something wrong. I can write pages w/o getting cramps but I've heard a lot about people with wrist pain from typing. Just google for "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome".

also, i like computing while sitting down. and a laptop makes me more motivated to sit, so that all works out. with a tablet someone might be like "yo come over here and stand next to me because you have a tablet and not a laptop"

I have not the slightes clue what you're talking about...

 

[netytan]

its not really the same thing though is it. MP3 players do something CD players can't. And there wasn't relaly a lot of well done hard drive based MP3 players at the time, whereas there is an established set of tablet PC's that are just nto selling at all. I can't really figure out what tablet PC's do that laptops can't. In fact, they do less, are less powerful and cost more. Even MS thihnks they are for specialized business needs, not home computers. Tablets just seem silly to me.

Hey guys,

after reading more about this and the posts you all made in this tread i can see the problem. If there isn't a market for this kind of thing yet then of course no good company would handle them. Though i got the idea from this article that they were gaining in popularity - possibly even riveling notebooks.

As for the relation between MP3 Playes and CD playes, we all agree that the reason MP3 players are becoming so popular is they can do things that CD players just cant! Well this is also true of TabletPCs, and one main problem with this right now is there just isn't enough software that takes advantage of this. I thought with Apple making hardware and OS they could easily solve this kind of problem; or more easily than M$.

Thanks for setting me right .

Mark.

 

[wide]

Odd, we use ours for pro-audio work (the airpanels mentioned above) on multi-million dollar movies.

what is pro-audio work but the inventory of sounds.....

i guess what i'm trying to say is that there is no market for tablet PCs (at least for consumers). people want them as "gadgets", so to speak, but i personally do not find them useful when it comes to productivity (id est microsoft word (excel might be cool though....).

sure, they are good for "pro-audio", inventory, and maybe powerpoint presentations, but all of that makes up very little of the market. tablet PCs are small, maybe two pounds, and they are VERY expensive. the new sony x505 is as light and thinner too, and it has a keyboard built in. fujitsu has been making miniature PCs, a little bigger than that really small sony laptop, that have keyboard, combo drives (possibly dvd-rw now), and touch screen displays.

i'd send a link, but the fujitsu server seems to be down as of now.

i just cannot see myself or any of my aquaintances used a tablet PC, or anything without a keyboard for that matter. for notetaking i have my laptop, or my palm pilot with the cool miniature keyboard that crumples up. when it comes to note taking, a 33 MHz processor is all one needs. we shouldn't have to pay a lot of money for a slow, low voltage 1.0 GHz Pentium-M tablet PC with almost no video memory.

 

[svenr]

As for the relation between MP3 Playes and CD playes, we all agree that the reason MP3 players are becoming so popular is they can do things that CD players just cant!

Well, when I used that to paraphrase an earlier post, it was really just a random example that kinda hit me. It could've been a lot of other things. Sometimes new products create their markets and before they're introduced all the "experts" say: "There's no audience." I can easily imagine people back in the 60s or 70s saying that no one will ever buy computers for their homes... Now, don't cling on that one, it's just another example.

I checked out the Viewsonic site. I love that idea. But sth strikes me as odd. The airpanel V150p has the same resolution as my iBook (1024*768), and it is NOT a Tablet PC. Just a wireless display. No HD, scaled down CPU, no DVD/CD, no keyboard, no expansion slots of any kind. Yet, it's bigger in every dimension than my iBook (38.7*30*4.6 cm vs. 28.5*23*3.4 cm) and heavier too (2.9 vs. 2.2 kg). If Apple can even put a full-blown computer in a smaller and lighter package, couldn't they work their design magic to come up with a really slim and light "smart display"?

 

[budaapple]

thud thud

That was the noise made when tablets hit the market, it was twice cause I think it bounced!

 

[ozone]

For all you people bashing tablets out there... have you actually used one? I've owned and used a tablet for over a year now. Granted, they aren't the perfect machines, but then again, I doubt that machine has yet to be created. Just as all Windows users dump on Apple fanatics until they try one, the tablet PC platform has a lot of uses. Many of my colleagues who were never touch typists say the tablet has changed how they approach computing. Also, tablets have software that allows a user to hand annotate an electronic document, making it possible to avoid printing out reams of paper simply to mark up or edit a few sentences.

Perhaps the tablet will become a niche market. My own needs may dictate that a tablet will be useful for me one day, but that's because of my changing circumstances, not because it's a horrible machine.

... and as for appearances, many of commented on how futuristic and cleanly designed mine appears. (And yes, for all you wondering, we also own a 15" PB.)

 

[wide]

Yeah...

i have used a tablet PC, and i hated it. also, most tablet pc users use Microsoft Tablet Edition XP or whatever their Tablet OS is called. that's another reason tablets suck.

 

[cubist]

Ah, you guys. You know that if a Mac Tablet came out tomorrow, you'd all be saying it was evidence of Steve's genius.

As for the doctor/nurse thing - I think there are some PDAs that support wireless ethernet (802.11, aka WiFi). You might be able to cobble together an application to let the nurses check patients in using a relatively inexpensive PDA. It would be a pain to develop, since all the PDAs use yucky proprietary OSs with crappy APIs, but it should be doable. You might be able to find a Linux PDA that would make it slightly easier. FTM, you might be able to get used Newtons and do it with NewtonScript - not much better.

It'd be a lot easier to just deploy a bunch of iMacs around the office.

As for recognition on the Newton, I use Graffiti on mine, and it's as close to perfect as I've ever seen. Much better than PocketPC PDAs.

 

[dave__]

Tablet for School?

I am wondering if you could use a PDA to draw diagrams, and other things into your notes, or would you need a tablet? Are there any tablets that work with macs? The new OneNote software isn't aval. for mac, i think, but is there any equivilent? I am trying to find a way to enter my notes in my pb, would a tablet or PDA accomplish this?

 

[netytan]

Think you got the got drawing tablet's mixed up with Tablet PCs which is what this thread is about. You might get a better responce if you start a new thread. But Wacom get my vote:

http://www.wacom.com/

Mark.

 

[ozone]

"dave"... yes, you can use a PDA and a Tablet PC to draw diagrams so I think you are in the right thread. One of the reasons the Tablet came about was to capitalize more on how most people "think with paper and pen". I have used and owned Palms, PocketPCs, and a Tablet. Both have either built in or 3rd party programs that allow you to sketch. PDAs for drawing have average performance in my opinion. One of the limitations is that the screen is a bit too small to be an effective drawing surface.

While a tablet PC is not a drawing tablet per se, a tablet PC does have full sketching ability. The "Journal" function allows you to sketch much as you would on a piece of paper, and 3rd party programs, such Corel Grafigo are quite advanced and allow for sophisticated drawing, painting, and illustration. The previous response by netyan suggested Wacom tablets; in fact, many of the tablet PCs use Wacom technology.

However, if you want to sync drawing type information into your PB, you're going to have to look at 3rd party syncing software and see what can be transferred over.

For example, when I use a Tablet and if I make a freehand diagram but want somebody else to look at it who doesn't have a tablet, I can have that person load Windows Journal Viewer, which is a free viewing program not unlike Adobe Reader. The person can see the document but cannot change it. However, I don't think there is such a viewer for Mac, so you might have to run it in VirtualPC or save the file in the Tablet to something cross platform (PDF?).

As for a PDA, I'm not so sure. If the drawing is in a Notes file on the PDA (PocketPC), and if Entourage can handle Notes via 3rd party software (e.g., MissingSync), then the drawing should show up on your PB. I don't think you'd be able to edit it however - it would be strictly view only. I'm less sure about this as I'm in a similar situation and am contemplating moving everything to the Mac.

Good luck.