

Why Tablets Will Succeed - tfincannon
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2353365,00.asp

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blahedo
And another important point: There's a lot of momentum (possibly misguided,
but it's there) toward "paperless" everything right now, but the problem is
that you can't just draw all over a PDF. Rather, you _can_ draw all over
things, but it's super awkward with a mouse, and my pencil has a fantastic
user interface that's hard to beat.

Tablets, though? Here's a device that promises to actually let me use my great
UI (pen/pencil/stylus) to actually draw all over documents I want to edit. I
think that _that_ , together with the desire to go paperless, is going to be a
big factor in wide adoption of tablets.

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jsz0
Why Tablets Will Fail: They're too big to fit in your pocket. They're awkward
to use in most normal situations (ie, sitting at a desk) They will require a
case for screen protection. Perhaps a case that folds open -- kinda like a
laptop. Current software is designed primarily for keyboard/mouse input. Using
a software keyboard and a stylus offers very little to most users who type
faster than they can write. (that's one of the reasons type writers were
invented in the first place, who wants to regress at this point?)

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johannchiang
Because of ergonomics, tablets will be more successful for content consumption
type of activities like eBooks or entertainment, primarily on bed or sofa, but
not at desk.

All input on touchscreen including innovative gestures still requires users to
place their fingers directly onto their eyeballs: either with head looking
down or with hands rising up. Both postures are not very productive for
programming or desk jobs and can't sustain for long hours.

iPhone is more successful because of light weight and more sensors. To make
tablets usage experience better, Internet tethering and sensor sharing via
iPhone will help a lot.

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xiaoma
> _"All input on touchscreen including innovative gestures still requires
> users to place their fingers directly onto their eyeballs: either with head
> looking down or with hands rising up. Both postures are not very productive
> for programming or desk jobs and can't sustain for long hours."_

People have been doing desk jobs under just those conditions via pen and paper
for hundreds of years. Is it really so uncomfortable to write on the same
piece of paper that you're looking at?

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johannchiang
Almost forgot the old days. Arguably pen writing on paper is not very
productive for programming and clerk jobs (not necessarily for creative jobs).
IMHO, tablets are still better for the applications which don't require too
much user inputs.

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GiraffeNecktie
The iPhone is essentially a small format tablet computer so I think the
question of whether tablets can succeed has been answered. As to whether large
format tablet can succeed, I think they'll be quite successful as a niche
product but they really need to be pocket sized for everyone to carry one.

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chaosmachine
Tablets will only succeed when they have an OS designed around their features
and limitations. Just mapping the touch screen to the mouse input and throwing
on the latest version of Windows is not useful.

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tomjen2
While I can understand the appeal of a tablet (heck I want one) it never
ceases to crack me up when I think that what got me hooked on computers
initially was that it didn't matter that my handwriting sucked.

I wonder how useful these devices would be when even I can barely read my
script?

