No Mini-Tablet at Macworld?

[thegman1234]

i would really like to see one of these still...

I much as I didn't want to see one, as MacWorld got closer I was a little more than expecting. I probably would have liked to see a tablet instead of the Air. Though the air is amazing, I'm not the fondest of it, and I hate the name. I was really strongly hoping the rumors about the name were fake.

 

[wizard]

In the off chance that apple was to bring out some type of tablet with their aversion (and rightly so) to 'styli' (?), what do you guys think would be the method of input? Now I know at first thought everyone will scream "touch onscreen keyboard", but everyone who has this idea, I would like you to take a second and attempt to reproduce that idea by "typing" on your desk. As you can see if you did it, it's quite uncomfortable and would almost certainly be damaging to your fingers/joints if you were to do it at any type of speed.

Not a valid comparison at all. first off you wouldn't have the thing flat on your desk, we are talking hand held devices used as such.

It's a whole different world than thumb-tapping on an iphone, and I think most people just gloss over that fact.

I think most people gloss over the fact that we are talking about a completely different usage pattern than laptops or other computers. These will not be machines to write War and Peace on.

Even given that Apple would be stupid not to support Bluetooth devices on tablet like devices in the future. Sometimes it is simply the best way to input info into a device. In fact Apple lack of Bluetooth support has me on the side lines as far as a current Touch/iPhone owner.

Well that and some other issues. I find the unwarranted restrictions / lack of support, here to be very serious. Especially in light of the coming SDK. I can imagine all sorts of apps for the iPhone if we could just do a little I/O on the device.

Obviously the problem is that there is no 'give' to a solid surface thus providing shock to your joints. The only theoretical way I see this possible is if apple had some type of advanced collapsing/spring mechanism to their touch screen ( i think there were a few sorta-related patents ?).

Garbage! There is virtually no difference to Apples approach than any other for hand held devices. I mean really how hard would you tap something sitting in your hand. Further more the screen is touch sensitive not pressure sensitive so no need to pound the board.

Does anybody have any ideas for implementing this type of thing, or a way to get around the problem?

Well if the problem you described was real then yes there are ways around the issue. One is handwriting recognition. Another is voice dictation. Lastly the whole world of Bluetooth devices could be opened up. Basically you are obsessing over a non problem

Dave