A Mac tablet? Not just no, but 'heck no'

I come from a family of commercial artists and printers. I've been a designer of one kind or another all of my life. My first toy was a paintbrush. At the moment, I make a living with Web design. So, that's me.

Sometime, back in the BC years, someone picked up a stick and started marking with it. Since then, anyone with an opposable thumb has been doing it, either on rock, wood, or paper.

To say that it's more natural for a human to mark where they're not looking or that their own hands will disrupt their artistic flow, is just silly. Personally, I've had a hard time adjusting to off-screen tablets.

Judging from a million years of human experience and the mild success of the Modbook, I'd say a Mac tablet will do just fine.

And I want one.

I am a professional designer and at the office I have a MacBook Pro and a Wacom Intuos3. I also own a HP tx1220. When at home I have both computers on and often nearby eachother and I more often use my HP because of the tablet features. The reason a Mac tablet product would sell would be for recreational use and the cool factor, not necessarily the function.

In response to: "Typing using the stylus on an on-screen keyboard was ridiculous, unless I wanted to type like I was in third grade again." - Um, you are supposed to write and then the comp does handwriting recognition and it works well.

Things I love about tablets - being able to touch Ok or Cancel on dialog boxes (much faster than moving the mouse to click), reading websites in portrait view while standing in a hallway, sketching graphs while taking notes on the keyboard in OneNote, playing games like inkball, tracing digital photos in Illustrator to produce lineart (easier than doing it with the Wacom and with my bluetooth camera cell phone I can create a graphic I need by just by taking a pic, clicking it to open in Illustrator, and tracing - 20 seconds flat), being able to swivel the screen to show someone on the opposite side of the table what I was talking about, swiveling the screen to integrate it with my desktop using synergy and the keyboard and mouse from the desktop.

I don't think Apple needs a new product, I think they should add the tablet feature to the MacBook Pro giving the user more options in how he or she would like to interface with the computer. The more transparent the input is, the better the experience.

You need to play with a tablet for a month to get used to that form of input to see how much better it is. It seems you are stuck in your ways and therefore cannot see the benefit. I disagree with the fun for a half hour remark. I am just plagued with raising my finger to touch my MacBook's screen then remembering on the way up it is inadequate to receive my input.

Things that would be a better user experience with tablet on the MacBook: choosing a window from expose, flicking through coverflow, browsing the web, and countless others.

Well, I own a convertible Tablet PC, and I love it. I don't want to go back to a simple laptop. I think it's the best thing ever for making diagrams and notes, but granted, I'm not a graphic designer, but an engineer.

I think the author's reasons as to why or why not a tablet are very personal, and people should actually try it before they dismiss it as a toy. And I also think it would help people do more aesthetic designs, since they wouldn't be limited to the mouse movements.

Ah.. and I also feel I have a stronger right arm as of using it. It's not that tiring if you can place your elbow on the table..
You get accustomed to holding the pen after one or two weeks of use.. it's not a big deal.

I think the tablets work much nicer in GNU/Linux than they do in Windows, though. :)

I'm not sure what the "pressure-sensitive, not touch-sensitive" part means... All (virtually?) modern Tablet PC's (funny that we're using all caps, since that typically refers to Windows-based machines) use Wacom electrostatic pens with pressure sensitivity built into the pens themselves (not the screens). They're very precise, and there are certainly artists using them for creative work. There are also Tablets offering touch sensitivity as well, although that's not for precision but rather for convenience.

An Apple tablet could be a great thing, particularly if it were an Air with a swivel--something that thin and light would make for a profoundly outstanding device. Use in standard notebook mode for heavy text input, as a tablet for just about everything else. If you've never used a tablet (or a Tablet PC) for Web browsing in portrait mode, you don't know what you're missing. It's not only more comfortable, it's also liberating--you can use it in many more stances and locations (e.g., standing with it in the crook of your arm).

I wouldn't use one as an e-book reader, only because I use my Sony Reader for that purpose. The only way to really reduce eyestrain is to get rid of the light-emissive screen, which to date only eInk is good at. I can read my Reader for hours on end and my eyes are no more tired (and no less) than if I were reading a physical book.

In short, I'd pay good money for a Mac tablet with a 10" screen or so, even a slate version with a haptic keyboard.

In the future computers will be like sheets of paper and about as costly. They will be blank, always active, powered by long lasting built in batteries, disposable, wirelessly linked, recognize handwriting, speaking, and a kind of pictorial shorthand (keyboards will disappear). Computers will be given away as promo items with a company's info on them much like pens or mugs. They will be able to store small amounts of memory to remember and permanently display a file or two and will serve as books also. Larger better ones will be built in like payphones.

Users will have their own stylus which will be more expensive and trendy (like cell phones are now) and which will be the memory part of the system carried in a pocket and used on any computer lying about.

A tablet computer is just a crude step toward that system.

http://www.fingerworks.com/ they are now owned by apple. This would give you the touch interface everyone it looking for. It would be something that no other computer company could even come close to, as mentioned in their last announcement.

Lets see...
books you hold out in front of you, (or place on a table, lap etc. and read or look at)
and also magazines, newspapers, pocket books, mail, cd covers, sketch books, post cards, photo albums, photos, cameras
and so on...

but hey, they were never very popular...

apple needs to make a touch peripheral for desktops

2-300 bucks
USB
about 6" wide by 5" tall, sits at an angle
has built in gpu, maybe a small cpu
touch sensitive like the phone, managed on the desktop via a standalone app or pref pane
supports tabs so you can constantly monitor things but not interrupt your workflow (by switching apps) or give up precious screen real eastate

view widgets (i don't use them because they take over the whole screen)
navigate an abbreviated finder (nested folder view) and open docs
Itunes control/coverflow (coversutra?), "remote" just like for the phone
GROWL notifications
navigate spaces - tap to jump to a space
launch desktop apps like phone apps
view your istat... stats. (cpu temp, fan speed, mem/disk i/o)
new mail/ichat/sms/tweet badges (touch badge to launch app or bring it to the front)
tail a log or monitor console output
desktop calculator - how annoying is it to have to launch calculator to do some quick math?
watch rss feeds (tap it to bring up safari or your reader of choice)
quick access to system preferences (most don't need the keyboard)
alerts (no more bouncing dock icons!)

after a certain amount of inactivity it automatically switches to a screensaver (widgets? a nice, elegant clock? rss feeds? iphoto?)

build it. i'll buy it.

You said: "Having your hand-work area in the same place as your visual area would be frustrating to me, as my hands would be constantly in the way of what I'm looking at."

Er ... do you remember pen and paper?

Steve didn't deny a tablet last year, if you actually read that article, I believe you would find that the writer is talking about what Steve said in 2002. The times have changed, a tablet is possible now.