From: Dylan Stewart (rxs015500_at_utdallas.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 17 2003 - 10:49:02 PDT
Well, when I got mine, people mostly wondered how I could carry it around
with me. They ridiculed it and me for buying it. Of course, then TabletPCs
were announced and they all wanted them. I laughed as I told them that I
had one and that they had been making fun of it for months. They, of
course, tried to rationalize it by saying that my Newton wasn't a tablet,
but they couldn't back it up at all. It was pretty funny.
Now people see it and ask me what kind of computer it is. I tell them that
it's a mini-tablet and let them play with it for a while. Invariably, they
ask how much it costs and I tell them well, five years ago, it cost about
$1000, but now they go for about $100 on eBay pretty regularly.
On a side note, I think that TabletPCs are just about the dumbest new trend.
I can get a laptop for $1000, or a comparable TabletPC for $2500. Gee,
which one am I going to choose? The extra cost far outweighs the cool
factor and the fact that they run a desktop UI smashes and usability
arguments. There is absolutely no real reason to own one of them. Now, if
Microsoft would actually read UI guidelines for various pen based UIs, then
it would be much better. Apple spent millions in usability research for the
Newton. They made the UI guidelines publicly available. Palm Computing did
the same. MS is simply ignoring both of them. Of course, what do I expect?
MS follows standards like a fish follows the migrating caribou.
An Apple tablet probably would not succeed in the market unless it were less
expensive than their comparable laptops.
Dylan Stewart AC5ZH
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