11-05-2005 09:00									#1
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http://www.macobserver.com/article/2005/05/10.18.shtml
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-.../D504,889?tMoJk

Wow, a tablet computer! The patent even explicitly mentions Tablet PCs.

I wonder if Agathon's claim that these are useless devices will hold true once Apple copies the tablet PCs already on the market in a few years.

	11-05-2005 09:02									#2
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I thought you had recently become somewhat of a fan of Apple?

	11-05-2005 09:07									#3
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I said I wouldn't buy them as I consider them a bit daft. If you are going to draw, then buy a box of crayons.

But I'm also on record saying that if Apple made one, it would be far better than anything that the PC world had, simply because Apple does these things properly and doesn't end up with some half-assed POS like Windows. If they just come up with something that is exactly like the tablet PC then it won't sell, because those things are overpriced and silly.

Once the PC world copies the new spin that Apple puts on the tablet, mass adoption will follow, just like it did with the Macintosh and iPod.

	11-05-2005 09:08									#4
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How about an Etch-A-Sketch, Agathon?

	11-05-2005 09:11									#5
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quote: Apple does these things properly

If by properly, you mean charge more for less and make fanboys think they are getting a better deal

	11-05-2005 09:12									#6
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quote: How about an Etch-A-Sketch, Agathon?

As far as I can see, that's about what a Tablet PC is. I always thought that voice control would be more useful than being able to scribble.

	11-05-2005 09:20									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon As far as I can see, that's about what a Tablet PC is. I always thought that voice control would be more useful than being able to scribble.

Not everybody just writes words for a living. Some of us need to diagram and do math, which is hard to do with a keyboard.

	11-05-2005 09:23									#8
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quote: Not everybody just writes words for a living. Some of us need to diagram and do math, which is hard to do with a keyboard.

Most people don't need to. Given the quality of the diagrams I have seen drawn on tablets, I don't hold out much hope. Ten bucks says that the majority of drawings done on tablets today are humorous doodles of women's breasts.

But I guess in your neck of the woods people like to do pretty drawings rather than meaningful use of language.

	11-05-2005 09:31									#9
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Real world example #1:

I meet with my software engineering group in our lab. We're given the specs from our "customer" for the solution they want. We're then at the point where we need to design a system, componentize it, form teams and assign them appropriately.

Guy with the tablet PC opens up OneNote and the group huddles around the screen, and we begin to make some fundamental design decisions. Diagrams are drawn -- we start brainstorming and assigning components into packages, which are then assigned to teams. But we change our minds the more we think about it -- he can just click and drag to rearrange parts of the diagram cleanly at will.

We've got a great design plan now, in a very clean format. He clicks the mail icon in the top left, and instantly emails it to everyone in the group using the school's wireless network.

The purpose of tablet PCs isn't so you can draw art on them, it's so you can draw freeform diagrams or text on it. The keyboard (and mouse) is extremely limited in situations like the above.

In the old days, it would be done on paper and incredibly messy. Then maybe scanned in and emailed to everyone like that. But that's slow, it's less optimal, and it's ugly.

Tablet PCs do for diagramming and freestyle text what word processors did for writing.

You sound like the idiots who shunned the computer word processors when they came out.

	11-05-2005 09:33									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon quote: Not everybody just writes words for a living. Some of us need to diagram and do math, which is hard to do with a keyboard. Most people don't need to. Given the quality of the diagrams I have seen drawn on tablets, I don't hold out much hope. Ten bucks says that the majority of drawings done on tablets today are humorous doodles of women's breasts. But I guess in your neck of the woods people like to do pretty drawings rather than meaningful use of language.

Since "most people don't need to" it's not useful? I think it can be useful for students in a variety of subjects. Math is obvious, but even in Poly Sci, there are diagrams drawn involving the relationship of various theories and what not.

	11-05-2005 09:34									#11
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That's a good, illustrative explanation, Asher.

	11-05-2005 09:35									#12
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That's not the real world. Your job has little to do with the sort of thing most people do for a living. I guess that your job is one of the few that entails mailing poorly drawn cartoons to illiterate co-workers.

Perhaps if you got out more you would realize that there's a reason that Tablet PCs have failed to take off outside of a few areas. Never mind. I bet Apple will do it right and then they will.

	11-05-2005 09:36									#13
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everythign's c a copy of of everythign lese. onluy reaiosn w e say otherwise us to **** withotu Asher. duh... cuz ****ignwith asher is fun. i tidell you.

	11-05-2005 09:38									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon That's not the real world.

Seeing as it happened last year, I beg to differ.

quote: Your job has little to do with the sort of thing most people do for a living. I guess that your job is one of the few that entails mailing poorly drawn cartoons to illiterate co-workers.

You seem to grossly underestimate how often diagrams are used.

Engineering uses diagrams, I believe.
Physics does.
Hey, doesn't chemistry?
Hmm. Even Political Science.
Math maybe?
etc.

You're surprisingly narrowminded for someone who is supposed to be expanding our mind's horizons...

	11-05-2005 09:38									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon I guess that your job is one of the few that entails mailing poorly drawn cartoons to illiterate co-workers.

** grabs a bag of popcorn

	11-05-2005 09:40									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo everythign's c a copy of of everythign lese. onluy reaiosn w e say otherwise us to **** withotu Asher. duh... cuz ****ignwith asher is fun. i tidell you.

It was a troll because if the Apple fans are to believed, Apple invents everything.

That's why the shades icon accompanies the OP.

	11-05-2005 09:41									#17
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quote: Originally posted by MrFun ** grabs a bag of popcorn

Agathon's just bitter because diagrams encroach on parts of the paper he uses for excessive footnoting to highlight the lack of originality in his own work.

	11-05-2005 09:49									#19
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Agathon... stop. You are getting seriously PWNED here. This has the potential of being worse than a Kucipwnage.

	11-05-2005 09:50									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Agathon's just bitter because diagrams encroach on parts of the paper he uses for excessive footnoting to highlight the lack of originality in his own work.

Oh, now Asher is being dumb..

I guess grabbing popcorn is the best answer if both are going to act stupid .

	11-05-2005 09:52									#21
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui I guess grabbing popcorn is the best answer if both are going to act stupid .

Well tonight we understand one another on SOMETHING.

	11-05-2005 09:53									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Oh, now Asher is being dumb.. I guess grabbing popcorn is the best answer if both are going to act stupid .

It was in response to the popcorn comment, I was just stirring the pot.

	11-05-2005 09:54									#23
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I'm not getting pwned at all. Hardly anyone except people like Asher use the things. That's a fact. You hardly see them anywhere. I've only ever seen them used by a few science lecturers at varsity.

I fail to see how that is in any way controversial – it's simply a statement of the facts as they stand – Tablet PCs will have to become much more versatile before they find a mass audience. There is very little reason for most people who need a portable computer to buy one.

But hey, it's great because mathematicians can send crayon drawings to each other over email. Perhaps a physicist could amuse all the other physicists by drawing a penis and sending it out to the email list.

	11-05-2005 10:00									#24
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Actually someone over at Slashdot thinks that this is probably a portable media centre.

That seems reasonable. People have been griping at Apple to do that properly for ages.

	11-05-2005 10:00									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon I'm not getting pwned at all. Hardly anyone except people like Asher use the things. That's a fact. You hardly see them anywhere. I've only ever seen them used by a few science lecturers at varsity.

They haven't caught on yet because they've had a price premium and minimum marketing and application support. This year the price premium over a regular laptop is supposed to be $100, not $500US like last year.

Plus a lot of people just like taking freehand notes sometimes. It's another nice little feature, how it will index your written notes for searching as well (and integrates into MSN destkop search ).



And an example of how you can "tidy up" the notes later:

becomes

becomes


It's even pressure sensitive.

	11-05-2005 10:01									#26
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I find it puzzling that Apple would make a tablet, since it is such a niche thing.

	11-05-2005 10:02									#27
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Asher the king of pwning . . . . . .

	11-05-2005 10:04									#28
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Hey, now we know that Asher writes like a 3 year old. Tablet technology lets us know this.

quote: They haven't caught on yet because they've had a price premium and minimum marketing and application support.

Nah. They're crap for most people. Everyone's heard of them. If they were that useful people would have splashed out on them. I thought they were a cool idea until I realized that for most people that's all they were.

	11-05-2005 10:06									#29
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Not everyone's heard of them -- in fact, most people haven't. Even coworkers I work with didn't know they existed.

Someone on Poly the other day was amazed that such a device existed, as well.

I've said this before and I'll say it again for emphasis: tablet PCs do for diagramming and note taking what word processors did for writing.

Since all you do is write, it's not that surprising that the usefulness is lost on you.

	11-05-2005 10:10									#30
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Here's a good blog entry on the usefulness of TablePC + OneNote: http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkonthe...ng_with_on.html

quote: I write a lot. I do it because I love writing and I love sharing information with others. Most of my writing consists of reports and articles such as this and I have a system for the writing process that is constantly evolving as far as the tools and methods I use. The single most important part of my writing process is Microsoft's great note-taking program OneNote. OneNote is so much more than a mere note-taker for me that I hate to call it that. It is a repository for future ideas, a wonderful outliner, and a journal of the history of each article I write. OneNote coupled with the Tablet PC is such an important tool for me that I felt it worthwhile to document the entire writing process I go through in the hopes readers might find some useful information in how I use OneNote. I should admit my motives are not purely noble, as I am also hoping that you OneNote users out there might be able to offer suggestions and tips to me to improve my methods. ... (I've clipped a bunch of stuff irrelevant to Tablet PCs) ... Any writer will tell you a work of any length at all requires some sort of outline. Everyone has a different style of outlining and I won't get into that here, especially considering my outlines are usually not that detailed like some people prefer. I shy away from detailed outlines because I find them constraining for most of my articles and I like to roam a bit with my work. Okay, really I'm lazy. I won't discuss different outlining methods in this article but I do want to share how I use OneNote and a Tablet PC for preparing to write an article. Onenote_outline_1 The Tablet PC coupled with OneNote makes writing an outline a real joy to do, which is something I never thought I would say about outlining. I always create my outlines in ink which I find is just so much more creative than typing one. Ink is free flowing and so much more visual than typing text on the screen. This free form outlining method stimulates the creative process and I find the structure of whatever article I am working on almost defines itself. I can concentrate on the content, not about text entry. It's difficult to describe but it is a very important part of my writing and I can't imagine not doing it in ink. OneNote's inking tools work very well with this outlining process and I can usually outline a complete article in a single sitting and without spending a lot of time on it. Most outlines end up with the topics and subtopics being rearranged several times before the final form takes shape and OneNote excels in aiding this process. Since OneNote keeps all items separate within a page it is a simple task to click on a topic in the middle of the outline and drag it to a new position. It is so cool to watch my handwriting move around the screen until it is in just the right place. Once the order of the outline is perfect I am ready to actually write the article. I should point out that OneNote on the Tablet PC can convert all ink to text for those who like that but I prefer to leave the outlines in ink. I find that when I work with the outline in ink I remember the thought process that was behind the ink, so to speak. I don't get that with text that is typed on the screen. It helps me to get creative during the all important writing phase of the project. OneNote has honestly revolutionized my writing and taken the preparatory steps like collecting reference material and outlining from the tedious to the enjoyable. I find this reflects in the final written work as I can concentrate on the part I like the best, and that is the writing. I am very interested in hearing from others who use OneNote in their daily work and would especially like to hear other ways to make good use of the powerful tandem of the Tablet PC and OneNote.