11-06-2007, 01:31 PM

You know you want to click!

11-06-2007, 01:34 PM

I'll have to see it to believe it.

11-06-2007, 01:36 PM

I know i'd buy one for motion graphics work when I am mobile. I just don't know what the market will be like for apple, since the only people who need it are people in science and people in art, and although apple has a big following of people in art, I dont' know if they have enough people in science to keep the tablet alive against the competitors.

11-06-2007, 01:40 PM

Yeah I'd be interested to see what it's all about. In my mind a Tablet PC is an automatic failure - fingerprint magnet, huge screen to break if you drop it, no real keyboard, etc. It's a very cool concept though and OWC even has a wanna-be tablet called the "ModBook" out, but I just don't see the real purpose in it. If it was a swivel-type tablet that was also a laptop with a keyboard, I could see that being a big hit.

Apple, we want an ultraportable MacBook Pro! I'm writing to Santa right now, but just in case I'm CCing you here so that you get the message.

11-06-2007, 04:16 PM

Reminds me of a bigger version of the iPhone.

11-06-2007, 07:07 PM

Originally Posted by kaidomac

Yeah I'd be interested to see what it's all about. In my mind a Tablet PC is an automatic failure - fingerprint magnet, huge screen to break if you drop it, no real keyboard, etc.

They're great for students. I am using a Toshiba Portege M400 right now for Vet School, and while Vista and the laptop itself suck, the concept is amazing. I haven't touched a piece of paper since orientation week in August. We "print" our teacher's notes directly into a program called OneNote and then using the stylus we write/draw whatever we want on top of the teacher's notes (exactly like if we had printed the prof's notes on paper and wrote on them with our trusty ball point). This is potentially a HUGE market, as more and more schools are looking to go paperless.

11-06-2007, 09:46 PM

Tablet PCs are more useful in theory than they are in practice. The novelty wears off very quickly. Handwriting recognition is still pretty weak if you have anything but the neatest of handwriting. At work, we have about 30 Acer and HP convertible tablet PCs. My users thought they were great when they first got them - now, not one of them uses them as intended. Most would prefer a regular laptop - they use paper for writing their notes.

I think this is a pretty dubious market for Apple - I'd rather see them do a professional grade ultra-portable. If they must do a Tablet PC, do a convertible so that at the very least, it can be used (and marketed) as a regular laptop, with the tablet capability as a value-added feature.

11-06-2007, 11:20 PM

This all reminds me of a site where some guy put out his concept of a MacBook/Tablet... http://www.kub.fr/design/myBook.html . His looks cool, never know.

11-06-2007, 11:40 PM

There is a lot of market potential for tablets. They're already used extensively in many professions such as construction management, emergency medicine and many other jobs where there is "field work" done. If I were in the market to buy a laptop right now, I'd probably get a tablet for school due to the note-taking capabilities mentioned by someone else. In the auditing field of work I'm going into, I can see a huge potential for it as working at the client's location is where a big part of the work is done and the countless forms needed to be used and filled out could be made into a paperless system and create a lot of time and paper savings. One company I interviewed with mentioned they are going completely paperless. The only way I can imagine that being possible is with tablet PCs.

I think there is a lot of potential in tablet PC's as paperless methods of doing work grows. It seems like the next logical step as we continue to increase the use of technology in every aspect of our lives. Plus, just because you have a tablet doesn't mean you have to leave the keyboard out completely. Most tablet PC's have keyboards and, when you consider Apple's new super thin keyboard, taking along a bluetooth keyboard on the side wouldn't be any problem at all.

Originally Posted by powerbook

This all reminds me of a site where some guy put out his concept of a MacBook/Tablet... http://www.kub.fr/design/myBook.html . His looks cool, never know.

Pretty nice concept. Even though the keys are "protected" I don't think people would want them exposed like that.

11-07-2007, 10:35 AM

Originally Posted by cwa107

Tablet PCs are more useful in theory than they are in practice. The novelty wears off very quickly. Handwriting recognition is still pretty weak if you have anything but the neatest of handwriting. At work, we have about 30 Acer and HP convertible tablet PCs. My users thought they were great when they first got them - now, not one of them uses them as intended. Most would prefer a regular laptop - they use paper for writing their notes.

I think this is a pretty dubious market for Apple - I'd rather see them do a professional grade ultra-portable. If they must do a Tablet PC, do a convertible so that at the very least, it can be used (and marketed) as a regular laptop, with the tablet capability as a value-added feature.

I have pretty bad handwriting, and the recognition software stumbled a bit at first to decipher my chicken scratches, but after doing a few of the training sessions to teach it my handwriting, and having it set to continuously learn my handwriting, the recognition software is pretty darn good.

11-07-2007, 10:37 AM

Oh, and I should add there is no need for it to do recognition when you're taking notes. Just leave what you write in your own handwriting. When I surf the web, I leave my laptop in "traditional" laptop mode and just type on the keyboard. I can type faster than I can write, so it's really the best of both worlds being able to freely draw pictures and diagrams, while being able to type notes.