Think about having to hold something like that all the time just to use it... Talk about getting boring pretty quickly. I must admit that the designs do look nice. IF Apple ever made such a thing, it must be a full blown computer. Now with Rendezvous I think that the sharing part is finally possible. Sadly, the heat issue in something like this would be even worse that in a PowerBook or even an iBook. Having to hold this in your arms could result in burns to your arms. Also, it must be really strong yet lightweight enough so the weaklings of the world can hold it too What about the screen? It must hold up under constent use... It would be nice, but I would rather have a laptop. I say we will never see it, prove me wrong Apple!
I still say a tablet should be no bigger than one of those 6"x9" 'journals' you can find at the discount rack of your local Waldenbooks. That's just about the perfect size for a table to act as the companion of your desktop, without being too small to be useful.
One USB port and a dock are all this thing needs for ports, with the dock providing everything else. Alternately, nothing but 1xUSB and 1xFirewire. No dock, no anything. Firewire for external optical drive, USB for keyboard/mouse when desired.
Flash memory is way too expensive. Gotta go for a standard HD in this baby.
No! Don't make it a convertable laptop. That's been tried in the Windows world, and it's a terrible failure. The result is fragile and bulky - a crummy laptop, and an even crummier tablet. You cannot satisfy two markets with a single product.
One more option besides stylus and "traditional" BT-keyboard - why not deliver a slate with a laser keyboard - connected via usb or BT to the slate - as an optional accessory.
ARW3: Look at the swivel hinge you drew - very weak point in the design. My advisor has one of those convertible laptop/tablets, and the hinge is *awful*. Not to mention bulky. It just doesn't work nearly as well as you'd hope.
otternase: Cool! But sucky! No tactile feedback for your fingertips? Ick. Ever tried typing on a touchscreen? It'd feel like that. In other words, dead. Neat idea though.
...how about putting some old chewing gum on your fingertips ? Gives you hell of a tactile feeling every time you hit the desktop
Advantage for the chewing gum industry: they could sell the appropriate chew&type gums at 4 times the price point of usual once as Apple branded accessory. Wigley's - do you hear me ??
I'm still big on the idea of convertible tablet. I see people complaining that they are too bulky, but have you ever seen an Apple Tablet? Who said it would be bulky? I don't think it would be any thicker than a PowerBook. Those things are totally slim. That swivel is a good idea but I think Kickaha's right that it's probably not very durable. I looked at a Vadem Clio a while back, and thought that Apple could buy the design rights from that, and update it to bee more sleek (because it's a hundred years old), but I think it would be awesome.
Personally I think Apple could do wonders with a Tablet.
I've edited this a few times because I post so rarely here and I wanted to get my thoughts in order. Sorry that it's a long ramble. I agree with most of you about the hardware concepts (except for anything that is a hybrid laptop/tablet). What concerns me most of all is tablet usability.
One of my thought digressions is about devices for reading ebooks. If Apple wanted to make my dreams come true, they would help me take my library of books and let me have quick access to digital copies in a groundbreaking library app. This is probably impossible considering what I know about how the publishing houses manage their digital rights. But it's my dream. Anyhow. For all the leaps and bounds in technology, tablets and readers still suck for reading, let alone drawing. They're painfully bad. Besides being bulky and ugly, they're dysfunctional. Flipping pages or scanning through text is highly unintuitive, no matter what M.I.T. genius came up with the usability study that said it was functional. For eDocs, almost always the first thing to be sacrificed is page size and the ****ing margins. (Note: margins should be awarded sainthood. The white space frames the text. Without that empty margin, with a golden measure sensibility, the text is cheapened and disposable. Besides, who can read anything properly when only seeing a single paragraph narrowly squeezed by the screen edges? Typography goes to hell, OEB standards paving every brick.) Meanwhile, you've got a stylus in one hand to keep hitting the scroll button. That's fine for a spreadsheet or webpages, but not for comfortable reading where you want to read at length without interacting with the document except to flip pages. I may be the only one who wants to think of a tablet also integrating itself into my pleasure reading as well as note taking and drawing, but textbooks are still often $75+ and if a good graphic version were available, tablets would start making morse sense than laptops in university environments, too (less noise without keyboards, etc).
If I could do this, this is what I want.
First of all, it has to be wide. I agree that between A2 and A3 would be nice, but even if it's smaller I would hope it would be wide enough for two pages of text side by side when horizontal. If the size factor has to be small (under 15" wide), at least let the ratio be right for two pages. Whatever resolution you can get away with without making it too bulky.
Apple really has to innovate a new way of interacting with the screen, keeping in mind that a tablet can float around in your hands in the way a laptop or palm-sized device doesn't. You can rotate it. You want to hold it with one hand and work it, even without a keyboard or stylus.
I would use the iPod's style of touchpad for input all around the screen, like the iPod's circle stretched into an outer perimeter pad that your thumb can use to scroll back and forwards with, no matter what orientation the screen is (landscape, vertical). This would at least create a white margin, but more importantly it would make the device usable as a tablet for reading. The orientation of the finder should be able to flip to any of the 4 sides (quickly) by pressing a small area at the bottom center of each side. At each corner should be button input to drill in or out, so that if you're left handed or right handed, or even upside down, you can hold it with one hand at any corner and navigate. Imagine reading an eBook with your thumb scrolling the pages. The two buttons for drilling through will be orientated as towards the corner and away from the corner (in/out). I imagine the rocker style button of the iPod mini.
The screen should be pressure sensitive and durable. The OS could use inkwell for stylus and a pop up OS keyboard (below the dock) should manifest itself when you need it. There should be an acetate-like transparent cover for the screen that can be used to protect the screen from fingers and stylus. This protector should be replaceable, yet attach seamlessly.
It could have an undercarriage like an iBook: slot loading DVD/CD-RW, USB, FW, possibly Bluetooth, definitly Airport, and with a good internal battery that you can replace. And, of course, it should have a dock connector for charging and hooking up a keyboard. But Apple's Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse should make that redundant. The dock should let it pivot around like a display. In a studio, it could double as a palette display next to your regular monitor, so it maybe let it act as an ADC display (or some new way for FW and video) for your desktop machine, while the tablet HD is networked (like a GBA connected to a Gamecube). In the home, it should be your newspaper or magazines when you want to lay on the couch. Please, let the stylus be any Palm type stylus. Lastly, I imagine a durable and detachable cover for putting it in your knpasack or bag. It should be like a thick leather book jacket that folds over the top from the back. You open it like a drawing tablet. Have you seen those little Moleskin notepads? It would be like that, with a little leather strap to close it... very sketchbook and rugged, or antiquarian leather - whatever floats your boat . But maybe some of that thick new transparent latex (like the blue cover for the Palm Zire.) Anyhow, let it look like a drawing pad with this cover, not like a laptop in a tote sleeve.
So no matter what the hardware is inside, it should at least function better than what's out there in terms of the user experience. Seriously, I wish I could manage my books the way I manage my music.
I'm still big on the idea of convertible tablet. I see people complaining that their too bulky, but have you ever seen an Apple Tablet? Who said it would be bulky? I don't think it would be any thicker than a PowerBook. Those things are totally slim. That swivel is a good idea but I think Kickaha's right that it's probably not very durable. I looked at a Vadem Clio a while back, and thought that Apple could buy the design rights from that, and update it to bee more sleek (because it's a hundred years old), but I think it would be awesome.
Personally I think Apple could do wonders with a Tablet.
There sure are a lot of hinges to break on that thing.
A durable hinge does not exist. A tablet should ideally have NO moving parts. I'll allow a low-power hard drive, but that's it. Have you folks read Amorph's posts from the other threads? This is about the 100th thread on tablets, you know.
A durable hinge does not exist. A tablet should ideally have NO moving parts. I'll allow a low-power hard drive, but that's it. Have you folks read Amorph's posts from the other threads? This is about the 100th thread on tablets, you know.
Amorphs opinions are Amorphs. I have an opinion of my own. My opinion is a convertible has more options.
For technical and artistic work, rather than A5, try A3 size. A5 is pointless for any significant artistic / CAD work. A3 on the other hand would be almost ideal.
Preferably with a high density resolution (150 -200 dpi), pro graphics card features (line rendering, pallete clipping etc), and the computational capacity to do 3D solid modelling. Set it up as a portable graphics workstation rather than as a portable notepad.
A3 is a 20.3" screen. You could add a little bit for borders and side palletes to end up with an A3 drawing area.
For technical and artistic work, rather than A5, try A3 size. A5 is pointless for any significant artistic / CAD work. A3 on the other hand would be almost ideal.
Preferably with a high density resolution (150 -200 dpi), pro graphics card features (line rendering, pallete clipping etc), and the computational capacity to do 3D solid modelling. Set it up as a portable graphics workstation rather than as a portable notepad.
A3 is a 20.3" screen. You could add a little bit for borders and side palletes to end up with an A3 drawing area.
A 20" screen, pressure sensative tablet (Wacon quality, preferably tilt sensative as well), pro graphics card, powerfull enough to run Painter/Photoshop/CAD programs....for only $10,000 it will sell real well...
I think that the tablet that you describe is pointless, too expensive and too big. It would be less expensive to use one of Wacom's Cintiq tablets for designers or a Calcomp DrawingBoard for CAD work with the added benefit that you can use it with your next computer upgrade.
A 20" screen, pressure sensative tablet (Wacon quality, preferably tilt sensative as well), pro graphics card, powerfull enough to run Painter/Photoshop/CAD programs....for only $10,000 it will sell real well...
I think that the tablet that you describe is pointless, too expensive and too big. It would be less expensive to use one of Wacom's Cintiq tablets for designers or a Calcomp DrawingBoard for CAD work with the added benefit that you can use it with your next computer upgrade.
The stuff he was proposing was far beyond what I thinking in terms of a tablet. I basically think it could use a few new iApps for school, and office, with a notepad obviously, and be bundled with Alias sketch book pro.
I do think that wacom hardware utilities compatibility - such as a pen, or the airbrush would be beneficial. But a $10.000 price tag is way out there. Something with a Cintiq price tag would be acceptable to me.
A5 is right where it needs to be in terms of size. Carries well, easy to hold with one hand and write/navigate with the other. Perfect, and that leaves a little leeway to go bigger or smaller as target market requires.
Even a 12" screen would be too big for "tablet" use, unless it's just reading, and then you can accomplish the same thin by having a touch sensitive notebook.
It's the interface and UI that really need to be thought out and perfected for this to work. No one here is really thinking about that; most can't seem to understand the physical relation of hand to pad, let alone the processes needed for ink to paper paradigms.
Comments
One USB port and a dock are all this thing needs for ports, with the dock providing everything else. Alternately, nothing but 1xUSB and 1xFirewire. No dock, no anything. Firewire for external optical drive, USB for keyboard/mouse when desired.
Flash memory is way too expensive. Gotta go for a standard HD in this baby.
Probably a G3 processor.
I'd buy one for about $500.
Originally posted by cubist
No! Don't make it a convertable laptop. That's been tried in the Windows world, and it's a terrible failure. The result is fragile and bulky - a crummy laptop, and an even crummier tablet. You cannot satisfy two markets with a single product.
I like you.
You get it.
Originally posted by kneelbeforezod
I'd buy this one...
I guess I could get into that, but I still think Apple would do something spectacular if they did one. Although that does look spectacular.
[ulr=http://www.members.cox.net/sghilton/pbook.jpg]Very large sketch of hybrid with swivelling screen.[/url]
[edit by Amorph: Changed image to link to restore board formatting.]
iBiz just introduced one at the CES: http://www.ibizcorp.com/
No one could complain that this approach wasn't innovative :-)
otternase: Cool! But sucky! No tactile feedback for your fingertips? Ick. Ever tried typing on a touchscreen? It'd feel like that. In other words, dead. Neat idea though.
Advantage for the chewing gum industry: they could sell the appropriate chew&type gums at 4 times the price point of usual once as Apple branded accessory. Wigley's - do you hear me ??
Personally I think Apple could do wonders with a Tablet.
One of my thought digressions is about devices for reading ebooks. If Apple wanted to make my dreams come true, they would help me take my library of books and let me have quick access to digital copies in a groundbreaking library app. This is probably impossible considering what I know about how the publishing houses manage their digital rights. But it's my dream. Anyhow. For all the leaps and bounds in technology, tablets and readers still suck for reading, let alone drawing. They're painfully bad. Besides being bulky and ugly, they're dysfunctional. Flipping pages or scanning through text is highly unintuitive, no matter what M.I.T. genius came up with the usability study that said it was functional. For eDocs, almost always the first thing to be sacrificed is page size and the ****ing margins. (Note: margins should be awarded sainthood. The white space frames the text. Without that empty margin, with a golden measure sensibility, the text is cheapened and disposable. Besides, who can read anything properly when only seeing a single paragraph narrowly squeezed by the screen edges? Typography goes to hell, OEB standards paving every brick.) Meanwhile, you've got a stylus in one hand to keep hitting the scroll button. That's fine for a spreadsheet or webpages, but not for comfortable reading where you want to read at length without interacting with the document except to flip pages. I may be the only one who wants to think of a tablet also integrating itself into my pleasure reading as well as note taking and drawing, but textbooks are still often $75+ and if a good graphic version were available, tablets would start making morse sense than laptops in university environments, too (less noise without keyboards, etc).
If I could do this, this is what I want.
First of all, it has to be wide. I agree that between A2 and A3 would be nice, but even if it's smaller I would hope it would be wide enough for two pages of text side by side when horizontal. If the size factor has to be small (under 15" wide), at least let the ratio be right for two pages. Whatever resolution you can get away with without making it too bulky.
Zoom in here. Please excuse the fast scribble.
Apple really has to innovate a new way of interacting with the screen, keeping in mind that a tablet can float around in your hands in the way a laptop or palm-sized device doesn't. You can rotate it. You want to hold it with one hand and work it, even without a keyboard or stylus.
I would use the iPod's style of touchpad for input all around the screen, like the iPod's circle stretched into an outer perimeter pad that your thumb can use to scroll back and forwards with, no matter what orientation the screen is (landscape, vertical). This would at least create a white margin, but more importantly it would make the device usable as a tablet for reading. The orientation of the finder should be able to flip to any of the 4 sides (quickly) by pressing a small area at the bottom center of each side. At each corner should be button input to drill in or out, so that if you're left handed or right handed, or even upside down, you can hold it with one hand at any corner and navigate. Imagine reading an eBook with your thumb scrolling the pages. The two buttons for drilling through will be orientated as towards the corner and away from the corner (in/out). I imagine the rocker style button of the iPod mini.
The screen should be pressure sensitive and durable. The OS could use inkwell for stylus and a pop up OS keyboard (below the dock) should manifest itself when you need it. There should be an acetate-like transparent cover for the screen that can be used to protect the screen from fingers and stylus. This protector should be replaceable, yet attach seamlessly.
It could have an undercarriage like an iBook: slot loading DVD/CD-RW, USB, FW, possibly Bluetooth, definitly Airport, and with a good internal battery that you can replace. And, of course, it should have a dock connector for charging and hooking up a keyboard. But Apple's Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse should make that redundant. The dock should let it pivot around like a display. In a studio, it could double as a palette display next to your regular monitor, so it maybe let it act as an ADC display (or some new way for FW and video) for your desktop machine, while the tablet HD is networked (like a GBA connected to a Gamecube). In the home, it should be your newspaper or magazines when you want to lay on the couch. Please, let the stylus be any Palm type stylus. Lastly, I imagine a durable and detachable cover for putting it in your knpasack or bag. It should be like a thick leather book jacket that folds over the top from the back. You open it like a drawing tablet. Have you seen those little Moleskin notepads? It would be like that, with a little leather strap to close it... very sketchbook and rugged, or antiquarian leather - whatever floats your boat . But maybe some of that thick new transparent latex (like the blue cover for the Palm Zire.) Anyhow, let it look like a drawing pad with this cover, not like a laptop in a tote sleeve.
So no matter what the hardware is inside, it should at least function better than what's out there in terms of the user experience. Seriously, I wish I could manage my books the way I manage my music.
/End Rant
- Michael
Originally posted by onlooker
I'm still big on the idea of convertible tablet. I see people complaining that their too bulky, but have you ever seen an Apple Tablet? Who said it would be bulky? I don't think it would be any thicker than a PowerBook. Those things are totally slim. That swivel is a good idea but I think Kickaha's right that it's probably not very durable. I looked at a Vadem Clio a while back, and thought that Apple could buy the design rights from that, and update it to bee more sleek (because it's a hundred years old), but I think it would be awesome.
Personally I think Apple could do wonders with a Tablet.
There sure are a lot of hinges to break on that thing.
Originally posted by JCG
There sure are a lot of hinges to break on that thing.
That's one of the reasons I said Apple would have to update the design, but I think a more durable hinge is little to ask for.
Originally posted by cubist
A durable hinge does not exist. A tablet should ideally have NO moving parts. I'll allow a low-power hard drive, but that's it. Have you folks read Amorph's posts from the other threads? This is about the 100th thread on tablets, you know.
Amorphs opinions are Amorphs. I have an opinion of my own. My opinion is a convertible has more options.
A durable hinge does not exist.
Apparently you've never been to home depot.
No offense Amorph.
Preferably with a high density resolution (150 -200 dpi), pro graphics card features (line rendering, pallete clipping etc), and the computational capacity to do 3D solid modelling. Set it up as a portable graphics workstation rather than as a portable notepad.
A3 is a 20.3" screen. You could add a little bit for borders and side palletes to end up with an A3 drawing area.
Originally posted by Stecs
For technical and artistic work, rather than A5, try A3 size. A5 is pointless for any significant artistic / CAD work. A3 on the other hand would be almost ideal.
Preferably with a high density resolution (150 -200 dpi), pro graphics card features (line rendering, pallete clipping etc), and the computational capacity to do 3D solid modelling. Set it up as a portable graphics workstation rather than as a portable notepad.
A3 is a 20.3" screen. You could add a little bit for borders and side palletes to end up with an A3 drawing area.
A 20" screen, pressure sensative tablet (Wacon quality, preferably tilt sensative as well), pro graphics card, powerfull enough to run Painter/Photoshop/CAD programs....for only $10,000 it will sell real well...
I think that the tablet that you describe is pointless, too expensive and too big. It would be less expensive to use one of Wacom's Cintiq tablets for designers or a Calcomp DrawingBoard for CAD work with the added benefit that you can use it with your next computer upgrade.
Originally posted by JCG
A 20" screen, pressure sensative tablet (Wacon quality, preferably tilt sensative as well), pro graphics card, powerfull enough to run Painter/Photoshop/CAD programs....for only $10,000 it will sell real well...
I think that the tablet that you describe is pointless, too expensive and too big. It would be less expensive to use one of Wacom's Cintiq tablets for designers or a Calcomp DrawingBoard for CAD work with the added benefit that you can use it with your next computer upgrade.
The stuff he was proposing was far beyond what I thinking in terms of a tablet. I basically think it could use a few new iApps for school, and office, with a notepad obviously, and be bundled with Alias sketch book pro.
I do think that wacom hardware utilities compatibility - such as a pen, or the airbrush would be beneficial. But a $10.000 price tag is way out there. Something with a Cintiq price tag would be acceptable to me.
Even a 12" screen would be too big for "tablet" use, unless it's just reading, and then you can accomplish the same thin by having a touch sensitive notebook.
It's the interface and UI that really need to be thought out and perfected for this to work. No one here is really thinking about that; most can't seem to understand the physical relation of hand to pad, let alone the processes needed for ink to paper paradigms.