[NTLK] Wacom Tablet (Bamboo)... Again

Hi all:

"Again" because the list saw some action about Wacoms a few times in the past...

I just wanted to share my experience, and wondered if anyone else uses one. I have the entry level Bamboo. It is pretty cool, and I am using inkwell with Leopard, so it has print recognition (Rosetta engine), but not the cursive recognition (cursive belongs to Paragraph, which now belongs to Microsoft).

So no cursive recognition in OS X. Man, Jobs should have just bought out the technology, but I guess times were tough and likely his apparent hate for the Newton/Sculley got the best of him: he fails to see value in the cursive recognition technology. Really, he dislikes pen computing period.

A shame really, and the only good thing that will happened when Jobs leaves Apple is that at least the aversiveness to pen computing will be attenuated.

Ok... the tablet. So far it works pretty good, but what I don't like is the floating inkpad where, in Mail and Safari Beta, for instance, you have to write in the inkpad and then send the text to whatever application is frontmost (i.e. cursor flashing in browser field). That is a bit byzantine. Why can't I just write over top of things and have my writing sucked into that area? The answer is that inkwell is just not that far developed yet, and they have had years to work on it... ;(

However, seeing my writing on screen and having it converted to text is like a little Newton inside my MacBook Pro. With such a beautiful screen, the pen strokes look amazing and it is very fast. It really makes me yearn for an Apple tablet even more. I want so much to rid myself of a glorified typewriter that is my laptop, which cooks my legs when it rests on my lap, and strains my shoulders from hunching over the keyboard.

My opinion: Pen computing came way to early, people just were not ready for it. I think its resurgence is not only possible, but likely, and a total game changer.

As it is, I am using a Newton, and a half cocked Apple tablet (Wacom + MacBook Pro). We are in 2009, and still, no Apple Tablet in sight...

Ryan

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Received on Thu Apr 9 00:52:55 2009