People often ask me where I see the value in Tablets. For me, it’s the editing. The stylus provides fast editing. The reason? The pen is a universal tool. In a good ink-enabled application you don’t have to switch from the mouse to select something to the keyboard to type and then back to the mouse to select something else and then back to typing in a never ending cycle. With the right software, you should be able to select, re-arrange, insert text, draw and more all with the pen.
You should be able to edit faster because you won’t have to hunt and peck for the right toolbar icon or drill down through menus to find an option. The action you need will just be there. The computer will work with you to help you accomplish what you want to do.
Yeah, software with excellent editing isn’t quite there, but it’ll get there. It takes time and hands-on experience to understand what works and what doesn’t.
Editing has long been key to the success of computers. I can type faster on the computer than a typewriter, for instance, because of the backspace key. It’s the ability to effortlessly undo or change something that is powerful. Otherwise, I’d probably just type on a typewriter because at least it provides a backup I’m unlikely to lose.
Well, this isn’t quite accurate. Electronic documents are also easy to share. And since they are easier to share, I can get more and faster feedback–which, you guessed it, helps my editing and improves my work product.
By way of another example, I remember back in the ’80s when my brother–an architect–looked into CAD workstations, but decided it wasn’t time yet. Why? Because he could handdraw everything just as fast. I’ll never forget the other part of his thinking though: The difference he saw was that editing was faster with the computer. Eventually, the user interaction improved so much, and the editing got even faster and more powerful, that he switched from paper to computer–not because of the time it originally took to draw something, but the time it would save him when making changes.
We have some basics now for laying down ink on electronic paper. But this is only the beginning and pretty much gets us on par with what we already have. And this is partly what the Tablet naysayers complain about. They argue that they can type already–and type fast too. But what they never mention is how restrictive the keyboard/mouse combination is. Ever asked anyone for feedback on a document you’ve written? Do they markup the changes right in your document? Or maybe they type some disjointed comments in a separate document? Both are clunky aren’t they?
The pen offers the potential of fixing this. My guess is that if Word had pen-based editing features, the Tablet would explode in adoption. But we’re not there yet. Us developers have to take baby-steps along the way to figure out how to implement this Tablet nirvana. There are no shortcuts to getting there–or should I say, the shortcuts aren’t obvious….yet.
The shortcut is lighter + cheaper tablets I think. The mac has been in a niche for ages simply because it is perceived as expensive. Tablets are getting the same “cool–it cost $$–oh hmm” when I show them around. Heck, when someone asks what the price was I have to say–About the same as a Powerbook. The prices are still too high for more than enthusiast interest. I don’t think any use will offset the advantages. The massive usability gain (IMO) and exclusive features (e.g. iChat AV, iMovie, etc.) software hasn’t ever resulted in an explosion of adoption for Apple. Prices need to come down so that every higher end notebook at least can have a digitizer. We could go on forever citing conditions they might take off though.
I kind of like Evan’s pragmatic approach from his post today: a confident waiting that their features will collide with notebooks eventually as prices come down and the software base eases itself together and increases in usefulness. I mean, not to have your own people use them when doing UI studies, despite their utility!? amazing.