Re: [NTLK] The UMPC dies.

On May 3, 2007, at 10:46 PM, Richard Henderson wrote:

> As a Tablet PC owner, I have to disagree whole-heartedly.
> My Tablet PC, after enough training, recognizes my handwriting just
> as well
> as my 2100.

I agree that HWR in WinXP Tablet is adequate, although I think the
Newton user interface is more fluent and, for me, still possibly more
accurate because of that. I'm just writing to point out there is no
training the WinXP Tablet recognizer, except adding words to the
dictionary. If it recognizes your handwriting better over time, it's
because you've adapted to it. One of the new features for Vista is
that its recognizer does learn based on your corrections. I don't
know how well this works since my Tablet PC is too wimpy to consider
Vista.

On May 3, 2007, at 11:09 PM, Rod wrote:

> I was watching a guy at the airport one day with a full size tablet
> pc. He
> looked like he was struggling with the size and weight. It would
> be like
> carrying around a large Wacom tablet everywhere you go.

Mine is a 12" convertible, which isn't large for a laptop, but weighs
~4.5 lbs (which, I think, is on the heavy side for a tablet). Tablet
PCs aren't any more awkward than any other laptop. I don't think
there is a need to single out Tablet PCs here.

> The 2100 size wise
> I think is what they should be aiming for.

This would be the UMPC whose death which sparked this discussion.

I agree that one of the problems with WinXP Tablet is that its
interface is not designed for a stylus. Autodesk's SketchBook Pro was
designed with a stylus in mind and the result is terrific. This, I
think, is a reason why Apple hasn't come out with a tablet product
yet. If they wanted to make one (and I'm not sure they do), they'd
want to do it right by reworking the user interface. (Of course,
unless they made some rather substantive changes to OS X, your
standard OS X programs will still have an interface designed for a
mouse.)

(Yes, I know about the ModBook. That's not strictly an Apple product.)

I'd like to see competent handwriting recognition in a sub-notebook
non-Microsoft platform, but the industry doesn't seem to be going
that way. I don't own a N800, but the reports are that its
handwriting recognition is lackluster. Nokia is improving its
software all the time, but they haven't done anything about HWR.
(Calligrapher for Pocket PC is supposed to be really good, but I
don't like WinXP Tablet so I don't know why I'd like Win Mobile.)

It's not a question of whether Apple could put HWR in. It's a
question of whether it would be worth it for them to do so. I don't
see a real market demand for this. So if they did it, they would have
to make people realize that it's something they hadn't realize they'd
wanted. (They've done this before so I'm not ruling it out.) However,
I thought Steve Jobs hated the Newton?

Also, given the iPhone screen size and lack of stylus, I don't think
you can do anything more than letter by letter recognition on it.
(Word based recognition on WinXP Tablet is ok. Letter by letter can
be quite awful.) At that point, I'm not sure how much extra value HWR
is for the iPhone.
(I'd love to see competent HWR on an N800 though. However, I'd also
love to see Chinese HWR on some non-Microsoft platform. For me,
Chinese recognizer in WinXP Tablet is more accurate than the English
one.)

                                                john

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