I rediscovered SketchBook Pro yesterday. What a great drawing experience on a Tablet PC! Even if you’re as bad at drawing as I am, it’s a great app to try out. If nothing else, you can scribble, erase, scribble, erase without wasting any paper. 🙂
I used to own a license to SketchBook, but after switching machines, migrating to the latest OSes and the like it has been one of the many apps I’ve lost track of over the years. So it wasn’t until yesterday when I was showing Lan’s niece the Tablet PC and how you can draw with it, that I redownloaded Sketchbook from Autodesk. Point blank: It’s an awesome application. I’d forgotten how realisitic and natural the drawing experience is. Hands down it should be in every drawing class in the world.
Once upon a time Sketchbook was more prevalent in the Tablet world. It was one of the first really slick Tablet apps. But Tablet sales being Tablet sales eventually the company making it (Alias) sold to Autodesk.
In my mind Microsoft made a terrible, terrible mistake by not bringing this program in house. Tsk, tsk. Don Dodge, Dan’l Lewin, sorry, but this was one of your top missed opportunities to properly nurture the Tabletsphere. I’d put this right up there with Microsoft not bringing in Josh Einstein’s apps either. What a set of poor decisions. (Sorry to point out these two–I’ve never met either though I follow them online–because I know there’s more to it than this, but it’s something that’s so disappointed me about Microsoft’s approach to nurturing the Tablet market. Some decisions cost millions–possibly billions in total market over a handful of years–in lost opportunity. These are two of them.)
Now the program is locked behind an overly combersome sign up sheet on the Autodesk site. What a shame. Really, Microsoft should be giving away an introductory version of this app for free as well as integrating its capabilities into Vista and Silverlight.
I met one of the SketchBook developers awhile back at a conference–I think Siggraph. I was quite impressed with his approach to the app and drawing itself and I can guess why Microsoft didn’t go for it. Thing is, the program doesn’t really use Microsoft’s core ink API. Here’s the thing though, the ink support in Tablets is not where it should be. It needs to be augmented and SketchBook’s capablities would have been a good start.
If you ask me, the Tablet PC’s notion of ink is still circa 1996. Microsoft really needs to think more carefully about “What is ink?” It’s not just about ink for business handwriting. It’s about replacing the paper exerience and making it even better by leveraging the digital world. And it’s not just an OS issue. There’s this whole thing called the web too.
I can’t help but think of what could have been. Imagine a quality drawing experience like in SketchBook available in Vista, on the Mac, in Silverlight. Imagine, imagine, imagine. Yeah, you can purchase Sketchbook now for Windows and the Mac (though no web support), but this misses the point about how valuable nurturing a growing market can be.