Inkwell = no more keyboards?
When I saw the inkwell software demoed last week, one of the things that popped in my mind was that Apple (in their further attempts to think different) is trying to overthrow the long-standing keyboard.
If you really think about it, given the current ease of OS X and it's attempts to mimic an easy to use consumer appliance, removing the keyboard from the equation seems like the next step in computer evolution.
What do you think?
If you really think about it, given the current ease of OS X and it's attempts to mimic an easy to use consumer appliance, removing the keyboard from the equation seems like the next step in computer evolution.
What do you think?
Comments
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I think getting rid of the keyboard would be as dumb as getting rid of the mouse. It may happen one day in the distant future with something far better than simple handwriting recognition, but today it would be a Very Bad Thing?.
<strong>InkWell = Apple PDA with X-lite <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't know if a PDA or Tablet OS X version should be called "Lite." This name connotates a lesser experience- like the "Internet Jr" experience that Steve wants to avoid.
I can type faster than I can write.
A perfect PDA would have one of those one-handed keyboards so you could diddle with it wherever you are.
MM... gotta love good batteries, that'
s all that's holding the ProPod back. Everything else is easily available. OS X can run on a Microdrive, or whatever IBM comes out with next, a 20 BG 1.8" HD for instance.
<strong>InkWell = Apple PDA with X-lite <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>
It's more likely that it might goes like this:
Ink = iBook with a swiveling screen that you can write on it with a stylus.
When the Newton division was dismantled, the eMate was also cancelled. In response to question on what kind of product that Apple planned to released as a portable consumer/education device as the succesor to the eMate, Apple said soon in 1999, this later on was revealed to be the iBook.
It's possible that Apple will made an eMate-like iBook. And as you remember, the form of the first iBook look much like the eMate's form.
<a href="http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/gallery/images/emate.gif"; target="_blank">http://www.msu.edu/~luckie/gallery/images/emate.gif</a>;
<a href="http://www.apple-history.com/images/models/ibook_blue_hand.jpg"; target="_blank">http://www.apple-history.com/images/models/ibook_blue_hand.jpg</a>;
It's very possible that future iBook will have a swiveling screen and a stylus, making it to function both as a normal notebook and an oversized PDA (with a big screen in comparison of other PDAs).
One thing for sure, with the release of Mac OS X's Ink, Apple probably will release somekind of stylus using computer in the future. And personally, of all of the possibilities, I think that a stylus iBook would be it. It would be an existing product upgraded with a new feature (swiveling screen and stylus).
A drawing tablet is commonly used by graphic artists already, and it can perform the functions of a mouse already. Now a drawing tablet could perform the functions of a keyboard and mouse all in one device.
It would be a nice option to have in addition to your keyboard and mouse, plus it probably fortells some type of new digital device that runs a trimmed version of OS X that will be released later this year.
While I love the idea of tablet based Macs and would be one of Apples 1st customers for such a device I don't see Ink pushing the keyboard into the land of floppy drives, light pens and black and white monitors.
The keyboard still allows people to do so much more then a pen would and as many have said people can type faster then they can write. Even if voice input was a thousand times more mature then it is right now I don't even see that getting rid of the keyboard. Would you want to work in an open office full of people talking all of the things that they now type? Near as I can tell the keyboard is here to stay (till someone provides a neural interface system) now tell me THAT isn't a scary idea.
Don't get me wrong, Ink has and I hope will again enable Apple to develop new hardware that will allow us to have a 'mini-mac' device (notice me run from the term PDA) that I can walk around with.
- A device that would be tabletish in size... 4x6, 5x8, 8x10 maybe?
- A device that would allow me to keep in contact with my desktop system (via wireless)
- A device that would provide access to 3G net access.
- A device that could sync a subset of my files email etc.
- A device that would give me a richer experience than a PDA.
This device could never REPLACE my desktop system (for me) but will be of huge benefit when I'm downstairs in the den watching tv, when I'm in the livingroom with guests, when I'm outside relaxing on the deck, when I go to work or when I travel.
Would I give up a keyboard to allow a device like this to come of age? I sure as hell would! Would I give up my keyboard FULL TIME? I don't think so.
..EDIT..
The more I think about it the more I hate to admit it... Writing (via pen) is startin to? has become?? a lost art...
In fact I can't tell you the last time I wrote something out (on paper) that was as long as this post and I have a feeling many will say the same thing.
Dave
[ 05-17-2002: Message edited by: DaveGee ]</p>
"This was your father's PEN, the weapon of a Jedi. Not clumsy like a KEYBOARD,... an elegant weapon from a more civilized time..."
-Obi Wan, Ep IV