Web Tablet Must-Have: Good Input Method
Where the CrunchPad and eventual Apple Tablet miss the boat:
We don’t just consume web content anymore — we interact with it.
E. g. Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, blogging.
We need good input ability.
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Can’t we wait until Steve lets it get off it’s cruise up the RIver Denial before we begin saying it missed the boat? I don’t think it missed the boat, I think it’s out on the sun deck soaking up rays as I type this.
One thing we hear from the rumor mongers is that Steve has been holding back the device as he doesn’t think the “web tablet” is useful for anything more than surfing the web on the can. If true, it would seem he shares some of your concerns.
Personally I think the gadget will turn out to have enough multi-core ARM CPU horsepower to rival an i5 based iMac and have spooky voice and touch input capabilities coupled with a sexy breathy fully nuanced voice to use when communicating back with you. I’d pay $20 to get an Angelina Jolie voice theme pack off the app store for it myself. :-)
Er…
For all we know the Apple Tablet could read our thoughts, *including* sudo make me a sandwich. I guess my long-winded rambling point is: “How can you claim that a product that *HASN’T BEEN ANNOUNCED*, for which *NO SPECIFICATIONS HAVE BEEN RELEASED*, ‘misses the boat’?!”
OS X has handwriting recognition. So did the Apple Newton, which by the way, despite negative Doonesbury and Simpsons cartoons, was *quite* good in the MessagePad 130, 2000 and 2100 models. How do you know the mythical Apple Tablet won’t be able to read your thoughts, including ‘sudo make me a sandwich’ ?
Don’t get me wrong – you’ve got a good point and it’s been a major complaint of mine for a few years – input on mobile devices has typically been an afterthought. And I’m not defending Apple here, I’m just wondering if you know something about the tablet that the rest of the world doesn’t… ?
You are correct, I was inking so fast I wasn’t clear. I should have said that without adequate text input, these devices would miss the boat. I firmly believe that.
While the Apple Tablet is a non-product so far, if Cupertino would share information we wouldn’t have to speculate. I will stick by my opinion that if Apple DOES release a tablet, it better have good text input apart from an onscreen keyboard.
I suspect they will surprise us all, as they usually do. Making me a sandwich would surely be icing on the cake. :)
Holy smokes, how clue-impaired does one have to be to declare something that’s not even on record as existing a failure? What next? Declaring the winner of the World Series in April?
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can’t wait for hand written blogs ;)
I want to know if anyone has been doing research into using virtual Ouija boards instead of virtual keyboards for touch screen text input.
On the face of it, as long as you have enough room to lay out the alphabet, it should be productive. All two letter words become a single swipe of the finger, three letter words a double swipe, and so on. Muscle memory should be good at learning that…..
Seconded, jk.
The larger screen of the Apple tablet will allow for great typing especially if they give some haptic feedback. Are you asking for pen input to accompany the touch input? Apparently they are very different technologies and accommodating both touch and pen may be problematic. If possible without hurting the touch interface, pen is fine — I just don’t want to see the touch capability impaired in any way.
I would hope for a way to use an ultralight bluetooth keyboard. That’s the thing Apple could easily provide for even if not including such a thing or offering a keyboard as an accessory. But, I’m ready to type on the screen when needed. Remember the little almost all keyboard devices with a 4 line screen? The touch screen can provide that and much more with a bit of haptics perhaps.
I agree that it’s tough to say that a product has missed the boat if it hasn’t appeared yet. Especially since everyone thought the virtual iPhone keyboard would be terrible.
Also, I disagree with inking being necessary. Maybe it is because I am in my late 20s and therefore have spent the better part of my life typing instead of handwriting…but I don’t handwrite unless I have to, and a tablet that could act as a notebook with a virtual floating keyboard would be heaven to me.
So everyone’s expectations and needs are very different…and the iPhone has already shown you can train people to interact differently than they are used to if the software is polished enough.
James-
First off we don’t know for sure if an Apple Tablet is coming so we don’t even know if the boat exists for it to be missed.
Second, we have no clue that type of input it will have if it does arrive so we don’t know if they will miss the boat assuming it even arrives
Third, I posted a video of my use of the Dragon Beta on the iPhone elsewhere on the net. It works great and I have no doubt it will be available on the iTablet if it exists. That will be THE input method in the future. (It has already reduced the amount of typing I do significantly.)
That will not only mean they don’t miss the boat but that they will own the shipyard where future boats will be built.
You are correct in that a web based tablet or something like Google Chrome misses the boat. But, I would like to say that an Apple tablet should have recognition, particularly if we are talking about multi-core ARM processors. I have used the Newton, and really did like the Tablet PC, but neither have exactly inspired consumers as opposed to us!