Tag: iPad

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Windows 8 Adoption: My Predictions

With Windows 8 rumoured to go RTM near mid-year, and released before year end, I thought I would hazard a few predictions about its acceptance/adoption:

The new Windows 8 Start Screen, making use of ...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  1. Apple users will hate it. Why? Because it is not from Apple, and nothing cool can from from anyone but Apple.
  2. Linux users will hate it. Why? Because it is from Microsoft, and Microsoft is the root of all that is evil in the universe. Oh, and it has a GUI.
  3. Android users will hate it. Again, because it comes from Microsoft.
  4. Many Microsoft fans will love it, but will be afraid to admit it in front of their “cool” Apple and Android friends.
  5. Microsoft Marketing will fail. I hope this is not the case, but the last half dozen years or so leads me to believe that Microsoft cannot communicate with consumers (except XBox consumers, and gamers are a little different anyway)
  6. Other than on a tablet or other touch device, no one will upgrade to Windows 8 until they absolutely have to (unless I am wrong and Microsoft marketing hits it out of the park).

I don’t think these are particularly high risk predictions!

P.S. – I personally really like Windows 8 and the Metro UI (not crazy about the HTML5 + JavaScript development model, though).

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Windows 8 tablets secret weapon: OneNote and inking | ZDNet

Windows 8 tablets secret weapon: OneNote and inking | ZDNet.

This has always been my view of Microsoft’s tablet strength, and the competitors’ glaring weakness. For me, without a viable input method (and the onscreen keyboard is not a viable input method for anything more than 140 characters), existing tablets are nothing more than one-way consumption devices.

I, too, used slate tablets + OneNote for all of my note-taking. Not just in meetings, but when I was brainstorming, researching new ideas, collecting and annotating content from the Web, etc.

I have OneNote notebooks with every note I took from 2003 through 2008, all searchable, and all with me all the time. The only reason I stopped was because my slate tablet died a slow death, and all of the newer Tablet PCs I have tried are complete crap for handwriting (mostly because of the introduction of and focus on touch).

However, this is just me, and the way I work. As I discussed in a previous post, this is not the case for millennials (or however you want to label the up-and-coming generation). For my kids, handwriting is awkward and slow. They would much rather type things, even on smartphone keyboards, or onscreen keyboards. Writing is an absolute last resort. Look also at the fact that a number of education departments are now removing cursive writing from the curriculum. For better or worse, in the next generation, handwriting may become almost unknown.

So for Microsoft, Windows 8, tablets, and handwriting, it will ultimately come down to (as it almost always does) answering the question who is your target market?. If Microsoft is going after the same people who buy iPads, and Android slates, then handwriting may not be much of an advantage at all.

In fact, it may just make those people think “more old fashioned stuff from Microsoft”.

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Bill Buxton: “NUI – What’s in a name?”

Recently (early October) Bill Buxton gave another talk nominally about Natural User Interfaces. For those who don’t know, Bill is Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and has a 30 year involvement in research, design and commentary around human aspects of technology, and digital tools for creative endeavour, including music, film and industrial design (and a lot of other things, but I am not going to copy and paste his whole bio!).

The presentation, given at Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen, covers a lot more than just current ideas around NUIs. It looks back at the history of efforts to develop natural and touch user interfaces going back to the early 70s, as well as looking at what exactly we are trying to accomplish with these UI paradigms, what natural really means in a UI, and what makes good design in general.

While I highly recommend taking the time to watch the entire video, here are a few points I found really interesting:

  • The “Long Nose”: the concept of the “Long Tail” turned around, indicating that technologies (even successful ones) have a very long lifetime before they get on anyone’s radar, and in fact are usually in existence for about 20 years before they become major industries. This interesting implication of this, is that if you are looking for technologies that will be game-changers (can’t believe I used that term – I hate it) 10 years from now, you need to be looking that technologies that have been around for 10 years already.
  • Ask what your idea is worst at: Every idea is best at something and worst at something. It is just as important to be able to identify what your idea is least suited for as what it is best at.
  • You do not succeed in spite of your failures; you succeed because of your failures.
  • There is nothing all that new or revolutionary in the iPhone, iPad, Surface, or any other tablet-like devices. Most of the technology they rely upon has existed for 20-30 years or more).
  • Many people are stunned by how far technology has come (smart phones, touch interfaces, etc.), when really it is surprising how little progress has been made, given where things were in the 70s and 80s.
  • Most of us still carry around paper notebooks of some sort in order to scribble notes, sketch ideas, etc. We were getting to the point of replacing them with Tablet PCs. Unfortunately that is going away now with the current  generation of smartphones and slates, since they have done away with the stylus because marketing people have told us (so it must be true) that we do not want to take notes or make sketches.
  • The next generation of natural user interfaces need to be context aware. Not software context aware, but real context – where am I, what is the environment, what are the constraints.
  • Why the buttons on women’s clothes are all wrong!

Those are just the things I found interesting. The video is about 90 minutes long (60 minutes of presentation, 30 of Q & A), but it is well worth the time it takes to watch.

 http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/TechTalk-NUI-Whats-in-a-Name

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So the iPad comes to Canada – whither 3G?

So I see that they have announced iPad availability in Canada for May 28, with pre-orders starting May 10.

I am of two minds about the iPad. On the one hand, I think it is really a consumer-oriented toy, missing a great deal of functionality (for example the ability to take notes with a stylus, etc.). On the other hand, as a glorified eBook reader, with “just enough” other functionality to make it worthwhile, it is a pretty neat gadget, and I do like my gadgets!

The biggest question for me, though, is 3G access. Will Apple cut deals in Canada to provide reasonably priced 3G access for the iPad (like the $29.95 “all you can eat” plan in the US)? Given the greed of Canada’s carriers, I highly doubt it. I currently have a multitouch convertable tablet (that does everything the iPad does, and more, by the way) with a built in 3G card – and the rates here in Canada are absurd for that.

Mobility is key with a device such as the iPad. And without reasonable 3G rates, its 3G (and hence its mobile) capability is pretty much useless.

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RIP to my favourite computer

Well, it has finally happened. My favourite computer (the best I have ever used, actually) has finally died. As I have noted before, for many years now my Motion Computing LE1600 slate has been the centre of my computing toolkit. About the only thing I do not use it for is programming – pretty much everything else I do (or did) on my tablet.

Sadly, after 5 years, the batteries have all died. While I will try to get new batteries, I am not hopeful that I can get them at a reasonable cost.

What is really disappointing to me is that there is nothing out there which which to replace it. Motion Computing has discontinued the LE1600/LE1700, and the only similar product is the J3400 which is overkill for my needs. The offerings from Fujitsu and others in the slate space are all several years old, and far over priced for what they now offer.

And then there are the many new and pending products in the slate space – the iPad, as well as offerings from HP and many others. As slick as some of these new devices look, and as attractive as the pricing is on them, it appears that my worst fears have been realized and most of the new generation of slates are dumbed-down consumer devices, with no real support for ink input which is, as I have said before, crucial to my use of the platform.

Ah well – time to search for batteries. 

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What Should a Slate Tablet Look Like Today? Revisited

A while back I wrote a post What Should a Slate Tablet Look Like Today?. I thought it would be interesting to revisit the post in light of Apple’s iPad launch this week.

Looking back at that post, here is what I listed as my primary requirements:

  1. A form factor similar to the Kindle DX (maybe a larger screen, but similar thickness);
  2. A real back-lit screen – maybe with the ability to turn off back light to conserve power. Without backlight, should look as good as Kindle;
  3. Ink input – and maybe touch;
  4. Running a full OS – a light version of Windows or a Linux distribution (I do not want just an eBook reader);
  5. Software support: Reader for PDF and Office, etc., eMail, Browser, OneNote-like app, Media support;
  6. No extras: no modem, no optical drive, minimal ports, no video out, no web cam;
  7. No HDD – maybe an SDD, maybe the OS in ROM or something;
  8. No keyboard except maybe by USB or Bluetooth;
  9. Maybe assume that most applications I need will be in Browser (cannot believe I said that lol);
  10. Price point around $500

Lets compare those requirements to the new iPad:

  1. The iPad does pretty well on this – though it appears to be quite a bit thicker than a Kindle;
  2. Meets the primary requirement here, but does not satisfy my wish to be able to turn it off and have it look like a Kindle screen (not sure this is even possible);
  3. Ok – fails on this one completely
  4. I am not sure if I consider what is on there a “full OS” – seems pretty limited to me, and is incompatible with everything but iPhone apps;
  5. Fails on this, and even fails on many browser-based apps, given the lack of Flash support (and I am pretty sure it does not support Silverlight;
  6. Seems to be on same page as me here, though I would probably have included a USB port (Apple’s love of proprietary connections strikes again);
  7. Right on here – though the $500 model’s drive is too small to be useful;
  8. Got it right again – though I think Bluetooth would have been a good idea;
  9. As I said above, support for web apps may be limited since Apple does not seem willing to support plugins like Flash or Silverlight;
  10. Bottom end model meets this, but as I said, its 16gd SSD is too small to be useful.

So the iPad meets a lot of my requirements, but without ink support, and with its lack of support for applications I need, it is definitely not what I need as an all around slate tablet. It is a cute toy, but it is just that – a toy.

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