

FiftyThree - mh_
http://cdixon.org/2013/06/18/fiftythree/

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rsl7
Good luck to them.

In my view, Paper is more of a toy than a useful tool but it's not all their
fault. Some will spin this more charitably with something along the lines of
'limitations foster creativity' or something like that.

Attempting to really use Paper made me realize something that's been sort of
but not really bothering me since the iPad was introduced, and that is I like
the tools but the application as a whole sucks. It doesn't make sense to buy a
some canvas or a drawing notebook at the art store but be limited to the tools
that are bundled with it. That is crazy. Not just crazy but it makes zero
sense.

I can make a picture on a real piece of paper with literally anything that
makes a mark, from coffee to dirt, blood, fruit, chemicals, bricks, burnt
sticks (if I want to be classic), water... not to mention folding and
crumpling.

the digital tablet equivalent to this will require two things.

1\. complete separation of the tools from the "paper". And I mean complete.
BYOT. Whatever that means.

2\. a connection between physical tools and software tools. I am TOTALLY FINE
with having five different physical objects to draw on my virtual tablet if it
means not having to mess around with someone's idea of a genius menu and tool
selection system. Really. I would actually love this so much. Look at a real
artists studio: they often look like explosions happened. nobody thinks that
fewer tools is better. I can find a physical tool without looking or thinking
about it or messing up my train of thought. Menus and gestures and commands
and even alphabetization ffs, all that "left brain" stuff is a real drag.

3\. stretch objective, not really critical today but maybe 20 years from now,
I'd like to have full, realistic multitouch. The day I can, for instance, make
a handprint on my virtual tablet is the first day it's going to be able to
reproduce detailed human expression. I might be off base on this particular
one but I want it.

yeah, yeah yeah limitations and all that. digital stuff is totally different.
whatever.

~~~
interpol_p
> Paper is more of a toy than a useful tool but it's not all their fault. Some
> will spin this more charitably with something along the lines of
> 'limitations foster creativity' or something like that.

I have a distinctly opposite experience to you regarding Paper. It was the
first app that actually made me start picking up my iPad and using it to get
my thoughts down.

Part of it is the lack of tools and choices — it's not that they foster
creativity, it's that they reduce friction. Paper ships with a few tools that
feel very nice, and a few colours that are very well-chosen. Stuff looks great
and you don't have to make many decisions, you just focus on getting the idea
in your head on the screen with as few obstacles as possible. I believe that's
the goal of the app and I think they achieved it.

I have many pro drawing tools on the iPad (such as Procreate, which is
awesome) but using these is as much an exercise in learning and configuring
the tool as it is in generating the content. Sometimes this is useful — when
you want to do a piece of final artwork that you have already designed.

But Paper to me feels much more like your image of an artist's studio. A
disorganised explosion of content where you don't care where it goes so long
as it goes out of your head. You don't care about the tools because someone
else has made all the right choices. You only care about getting the lines
onto paper.

I'd prefer it if Paper removed the organisational "sketch books" from the app
and simply had it present me a blank piece of paper each time I opened the
app. That's all I'm usually looking for when I go to the app. I don't even
care if my work is saved because that's irrelevant to working through an idea.
These aren't limitations, and I think it's wrong to see them as such.

------
alexobenauer
Title would probably be better if it were a bit more descriptive:

"FiftyThree, creators of Paper app, raise $15M, plan mobile office suite"

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cpdean
" Particularly relevant was a project they led at Microsoft called Courier
that has been widely praised as a visionary take on tablet computing
(unfortunately, Courier was never brought to market)"

I thought the Courier was cool when it was presented, and still cool now. I
would completely consider getting one if it were priced the same as one of the
other tablets.

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jpdoctor
> _FiftyThree didn’t need to raise money_

People tend to believe actions more than words.

------
corresation
Note that the Jobs quote is linked, the "skeptic" quote is not. Once against
Steve Jobs proves prescient compared to imaginary foes.

A tablet with a bluetooth keyboard is what traditionally would be called a
laptop, and thanks to several iterations of hardware and software, a modern
tablet holds its own. Is anyone seriously arguing that people dismissed the
ideas of laptops being productive, or that they thought that the state of
tablets wouldn't improve?

Tangentially, Paper has got to be the most overhyped application in the
history of applications. I mostly ignored it (after falling for the hype and
grabbing it and all of the in-app purchases to actually have a marginally
useful drawing program), but when they went on the road selling snake-oil
about their trivial HSV "paint mixer" I really started to see the negativity
in the hype.

~~~
ronilan
> Tangentially, Paper has got to be the most overhyped application in the
> history of applications.

Maybe.

But, while we bought the iPad for many reasons, being able to draw by hand was
not one of them. Paper enabled this in our household. Enabling consumers to
create things is a pretty important feat. Introducing a new method? Me think
it is worthy of some hype.

~~~
MartinCron
My young daughter makes things in paper that are just plain beautiful. It may
be overhyped to some, but I adore it.

~~~
jarek
s/in/on/ ?

~~~
aroch
She's making it _in_ the application Paper, _on_ an iPad.

~~~
jarek
Oh. Well, I guess that's a huge difference from a father finding his young
daughter making things on paper that are just plain beautiful!

Parents have always found their progeny's output amazing. Crayon drawings are
easier to put up on the fridge, too. But hey, iPad.

~~~
MattGrommes
iPad drawings are easier to email to grandparents / post to Facebook. But hey,
nostalgia. :)

~~~
jarek
because what Facebook's really missing is more new parents posting about their
children and their creations ;)

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MatthewPhillips
It's interesting that they seem to be suggesting they will build out an office
suite imagined from the beginning for mobile. I had thought of Paper as being
for artists but perhaps they aim to go more general purpose.

~~~
deepak-kumar
You mean doodling like this? :

[https://bubbleideas.com/letters/demo-leave-
application](https://bubbleideas.com/letters/demo-leave-application)

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gavanwoolery
I think the most important thing, if you want a tablet to be productive, is a
keyboard that actually suits it. I'm not talking about what we have now, which
is basically laptops with detachable keyboards. I envision something you could
pick up and type with, like a split keyboard on each side of the tablet. The
tricky part to this is creating something you can grip and type with at the
same time, but I don't doubt a creative engineer could come up with something
(there are one handed keyboards that you can grip and type with effectively,
IIRC).

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mathattack
This jibes with what I've seen. I didn't think phones could generate content,
but it was just long text that they struggled with. I don't like typing on a
tablet, but my laptop gets smaller and smaller. Good user experience people
will find ways to get tools on these devices, with desktops relegated to very
heavy lifting. (Anything requiring big screens)

~~~
diydsp
On this note, I really enjoyed Jobs' comparison of development PCs to
"trucks." I see myself as a "truck" driver in the future :) With lots of
people driving sedans. It makes sense to me. I, too, see the computer hardware
world as diverging into "developer" and "commuter/consumer" equipment.

I'll spend a few weeks developing, then use the app on my consumer system,
just like a trucker drives 40 hours a week for work, then takes car to visit
family or a restaurant or amusement park, etc.

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ajmarsh
Hopefully they will spend some of that money on hiring Android developers.
Paper looks cool, love to run it on my Nexus 7.

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danso
Congrats to FiftyThree, however, I think that while new kinds of content-
creation apps can be created on touch-devices, I don't (/hope) that they
replace their precursors.

obligatory link to Bret Victor's rant on the limitation of touch interfaces:
[http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/)

To put it another way: for those of you who program/create via the command
line and keyboard shortcuts, could you imagine a touch-setup that would give
you more power than what you have with the keyboard? The mouse and GUI hasn't
so far...they've added _different_ ways to create content, but arguably these
interfaces end up limiting the true power users.

~~~
cpdean
One of the main reasons I use vim daily is it's ability to let me manipulate
text in segments of 'text objects'. Its something that lets me feel like I'm
grabbing chunks of code and moving them around like contiguous lego-bricks of
logic.

I want there to be a way to do this with touch screens, but I haven't found it
yet.

When it happens, though, I may retire my beloved keyboard.

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jgalt212
Tablets are for sheep. PCs/laptops are for herders.

