Incremental Blogger

Apple’s Oscal-staring iPad ad

LCH — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:07:09 +0000

An Apple iPad commercial graced the Oscars last night. The ad did a good job of highlighting the various features of the iPad though I’m not quite sure it was or is as effective as the first round of iPhone ads.

Engadget has a few more tidbits on the ad here along with a copy of the video itself.

Oh…and when will the iPad first appear on store shelves? How about April 3.

In case you’re waiting for some Tablet PC commercials, well you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Maybe a future generation HP slate or even the Courier project will get some ad time. Till then.

Editing on an Apple iPad

LCH — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:38:28 +0000

What’s it like to edit, let’s say a slideshow, using the forthcoming Apple iPad? Is it easy?

Here’s a short video that gives an idea of what it’s like:

Looks like it’s nicely done.

Is the Apple tablet taking over search engines?

LCH — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:55:08 +0000

Real-time search has been the talk of search engine mechanics for a better part of a year now. So in the sluggishly fast paced world of Apple tablet rumors how do the big two search engines compare?

Searching for the generic term “tablet” in both Google an Bing, what shows up more frequently: breaking news rumors about the mythical Apple tablet or links to the Microsoft Tablet PC ecosystem?

Here’s Google’s take on the term “tablet”:

Shown in yellow highlights are references to the Apple tablet–which remember hasn’t even been announced or officially acknowledged by Apple–and circled in red are references to Microsoft’s existing Tablet PC ecosystem/devices.

In large part because of how Google search results are reported back, there’s no doubt that the Apple rumor mill has bubbled up to prominent positions in Google. Yes, Tablet PCs get mention, but about on par with non-PC tablets too.

What about Bing? Well, searching for the generic term “tablet” returns these results:

Again, Tablet PC references are circled in red. Yes, there are a reasonable number of Tablet PC returns in the search. Makes sense, Bing and the Tablet PC concept are Microsoft efforts. I’d expect them to play nicely together.

What is more interesting to me though, is that there’s not one single reference to an Apple rumor on page 1 of Bing’s search results. Not one. You could argue that Bing is doing a pretty good job here of hiding Apple tablet rumor chatter–most of which is probably going to be wrong anyway. I’d buy that.

Every search engine has its idiosyncrasies and Bing probably just needs a little extra help to get more Apple rumor news.

But let’s face it, on the Google side of the world, if the Tablet PC community doesn’t speak up a little it may get overwhelmed off of Google’s coveted top search results and given that so many people use Google, this may not be such a good thing.

Robert Scoble: Lessons Steve Jobs has learned from the NEC Tablet PC

LCH — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:41:44 +0000

Robert Scoble nails it with his analysis of what Steve Jobs has probably learned from the failed NEC LitePad Tablet PC–which, in my estimation was one of the best Tablet PCs to date.

The LitePad was the second Tablet PC I purchased at the time and was the first slate form factor I owned. In large part because of its thin and light slate design it quickly became one of my favorite Tablet PCs to use–particularly in conjunction with my desktop. In particular, I wrote a special app to share the clipboard and content between the LitePad and my other computers. It worked like a charm. One of my favorite projects, in part because through it I walked down the path of exploring what can really be done with the clipboard in a multi-machine environment.

Anyway, point is, I think that’s one additional lesson Steve Jobs could have learned from the LitePad. That is: A great slate/tablet is going to need to play well with other devices. Period. It has to do this out of the box.

Another lesson, is that although the LitePad was pretty good performance wise for its time, the onboard Intel processor was still not good enough. The alternatives at the time were not much better choices, but today, with embedded OSes and ARM processor derivatives, there’s a lot that can be done. You have to look no further than the iPhone or let’s say the Kindle.

Give Robert’s blog post a read if you too are wondering what lessons Steve Jobs and Apple engineers might have learned by watching the best of Microsoft and its partners.

What happens if the Apple tablet doesn’t live up to its hype?

LCH — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:52:41 +0000

I know these are difficult words to ask for some, but it’s time to be asked:

“What if the Apple tablet doesn’t live up to its hype?”

What if Amazon CTO Werner is correct and sane judgment has been “suspended?”

What if this is all a masterful attempt at getting us to watch an announcement for…for…for…gasp…a new iLife application? Could this be all that’s going to happen?

Might the many dreams of Apple tablets be shattered on the 27th?

Eh.

Probably not.

But let’s play along for a minute. Let’s assume that there’s some bit of new hardware announced at the birth of creation, the 27 of January, 2010.

OK. Let’s even call it a tablet of some sorts. Something bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a MacBook. Let’s say it’s about the X and Y dimensions of a netbook. Now what if that’s about it?

Yeah, there will probably be something unique about this new MacNetic device, but will it attract the numbers of enthusiastic gadget fans that let’s say the iPhone has? Or will it be more on par with the Apple TVish device?

I’m going to take a wildly huge guess (hahaha) and suggest somewhere in between. That’s right, I’m giving myself plenty of leeway so I can call it a #fail (or worse yet ‘niche’ device) if its sales are close to an Apple TV or an outright success if it’s numbers approach sales of the iPhone. Plenty of room in there for the naysayers to call this a failure and a success if you ask me.

And if the device, by chance, is missing some features here and there–which it will–no version one device has everything in it–not a single one–so what? For those expecting nirvana, forget it. For those expecting nothing, forget that too. It’s going to be somewhere inbetween, and whatever it is accept it for what it is and figure out if it’s something you can use or not. If not, so what. If it is useful, then save up and get one.

What’s the big deal if the device is not useful to one person or another? The online pontificators will be trying to figure out if the hype was too great or not, but for the individual, it’s absolutely the wrong question. It’s about individual value.

That’s the situation with Tablet PCs, with eReaders, with MIDs, with smartphones, with just about any gadget I can think of.

My suggestion: Get a good night sleep (or a couple of them), think it over and jump on the Apple unicorn if you do see the value–for yourself. And then, enjoy.

Join the Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC recall

LCH — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:53:03 +0000

Rob Bushway over at Gottabemobile is right on target: It’s time for Dell and N-Trig to work together to solve the numerous problems that the Dell XT is experiencing, namely false clicks, resume from sleep/hibernation issues, poor multitouch experience, and more. Quite simply the Dell Latitude does not work as advertised. And it definitely does not work well with Windows 7, where pen and multi-touch is a natural.

We’ve been waiting for a long time for properly functioning drivers from Dell for the N-Trig digitizer, and quite frankly to no avail–or at least for me I haven’t found one driver yet that works without crazy quirks. Can I live with the quirks? No. They all but make the Dell Latitude XT a simple notebook that’s best left on a stable tabletop than held in your hand or used while moving about.

From my perspective, the problems aren’t just of Dell’s doings, but are intimately connected with N-Trig, but seeing that all of us have spent good money after bad for the top of the line Latitude XT, it seems like Dell is the place to plead for someone to address the digitizer problems–starting with a properly function, no fuss digitizer driver.

We’re still waiting.

However, I agree with Rob’s reasonable list of Latitude redresses. Personally, I’d swap my old XT for something newer, if it truly functioned better. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. Seems like a significant cash refund or coupon for purchasing any Dell product or competing Dell Tablet PC makes sense to me. If Dell doesn’t want to stand up to the plate and negotiate some kind of solution to this, then maybe it’s class action lawsuit time. I hate to say it, but when you’re a customer that’s played like this, to extract premium dollars for a product that doesn’t function as advertised, I’m not sure what else to do.

I’ll let Rob or someone else take the lead here. Maybe I’m crazy, and a much more reasonable agreement can be worked out. Either way, I’ll say it again: It’s time for Dell to step up and admit that for whatever reason, they didn’t live up to their quality standards–especially for a premium product–and so now they will.

James Kendrick on slates and tablets @CES

LCH — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:04:14 +0000

James Kendrick inks (literally): “None of the slates at CES can do this. None of them.”

He’s pointing out that slates at CES, seem to be touch biased and not ink minded.

The comments in his thread point out the ins and out of exactly what is a tablet and what is a slate, to no real conclusion. Makes sense. Aren’t these marketing words anyway. You say “laptop,” I say “notebook.” Bla, bla, bla.

Anyway, you can catch the whole conversation here. Worth the read.

Foxconn shopping slate design

LCH — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:34:43 +0000

Ryan Shrout showed off a Foxconn slate prototype on the Leo Laporte CES broadcast yesterday.

He didn’t have many details, except that it contains the latest generation of Tegra technology–presumably in order to enable full-speed video playback.

There appears to be touch as well as a bezel that’s thick enough to comfortably hold the typical USB connectors.

In terms of an OS, the prototype device is running Windows CE (or is that Windows Embedded?) and has a custom intro screen with hopping icons and plenty of pizazz.

There’s no ship date or price since Foxconn is still looking for a buyer.

[via http://live.twit.tv]

Super fast projected capacitve touch from 3M

LCH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:10:58 +0000

3M’s M2256PW 20-finger multitouch display is quite impressive. 10 ms update rate and smooth tracking. I give two thumbs up.

[Via Engadget]

OK, 3M, what about multi-touch “skin” on the display casing–which would be particularly useful for mobile and handheld devices?

Neowin quickly demos a Pegatron slate

LCH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:06:02 +0000

Neowin has a quick video and some screenshots that show the Pegatron slate running Windows 7. You can see it here.

The video, though, gives a good idea how the 11.6″ screened device works:

No mention of weight that I can find. Still looking. Under a pound is a must for long term use if you ask me.

Live.twit.tv manages CES bandwidth with Dell Tablet PC

LCH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:29:31 +0000

This week Leo Laporte and his crew are at CES. You can watch some of it live and some of it recorded at: http://live.twit.tv. I’m watching an edited version of their visit to Digital Experience last night. Pretty good. Lenovo U1 (hybrid Windows 7 with detachable Linux display) has gotten quite a few positive mentions.

What’s also cool for us Tablet afficionados though is that Colleen, who is part of the behind the scenes crew, is using the Dell Tablet PC in slate mode to manage bandwidth:

Slick projection screen and IR touch detector

LCH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:05:04 +0000

Engadget captures this slick Light Touch projector-slash-IR-touch detector system at CES. Simply cool. You need to watch the video:

Steve Ballmer shows off HP slate prototype

LCH — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:57:34 +0000

Tonight Steve Ballmer showed off briefly a prototype slate running Windows 7 from HP. No more details on the device itself, other than what Ballmer showed off. The device is about the size of a Kindle though it supports color, Windows 7, touch, an accelerometer, and of course, apps that run under Windows.

Steve suggests the device will be released sometime this year.

I’m so much looking forward to more details about the HP slate.

Is it a Kindle killer? Or an Apple tablet killer? We’ll have to see when the product actually ships. Hopefully, it’ll support ink–or at least have apps that support ink–because that’s one great differentiator for Microsoft Windows.

Mary Jo sums up Microsoft’s tablet efforts

LCH — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:53:44 +0000

Monday Mary Jo Foley did a pretty good job summing up various tablet and touch efforts by Microsoft (http://bit.ly/7OyMMI).

First, she declares that Microsoft has already ceded the tablet market in part because of marketing. She doesn’t quite get the full touch idea either–no matter what the size of the display. (I’d argue that maybe she’s not thinking big or small enough. What about large classroom sized smartboards or of course our tiny smartphones?)

Then she goes on to plead the case for UMPCs saying that maybe they weren’t that bad after all. Outside of speed and price issues I’d agree–for a first generation. However, the iPhone still trumps them.

Now as to Courier or Surface or some other touch and tablet efforts at Microsoft, let’s just say that I’m also eager to see how this all plays out.

I, for instance, am an enthusiastic advocate of Micrisoft advancing more if its education efforts. Here again, touch and tablets make a lot of sense–from handheld slates little kids can ink problems on, to eReaders that can challenge stacks of books in libraries, to slates with webcam microscopes that can be used in field biology labs, to multiuser touch smartboards, to electronic exchange of documents via a touch-centric kiosk like UI, etc, etc, etc. No smartphone is going to be good enough for all of this, nor is any one smartboard, or eReader, or…You get the idea. It’s a challenging problem, that needs lots of engineering from the ground up–not just dodads plucked onto the backs of business minded products.

OK. Enough soapbox time. (Though I promise to write more about this later.) Back to my regulary scheduled enthusiasm for slates and multitouch.

Should Microsoft back out of CES?

LCH — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:10:33 +0000

Should Microsoft back out of CES 2011?

Yeah, this may sound crazy, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to follow Apple’s lead of dropping huge industry events for more focused ones–at least in terms of an official, booth capacity. You can always send people along, have private or even public hotel suites with the latest products and best of all think of all the time and money you can save? Better yet, think of how value-focused Microsoft could be by not renting lavish booths at CES.

Want bloggers and journalists to attend a product launch? Invite them to a rented venue somewhere. Bet it would be a lot cheaper than CES. And you wouldn’t necessarily have to ship everyone and tons of stuff to Vegas for a week of tech gambling.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that CES is best left to the hardware folks selling to buyers and press/bloggers. There are plenty of other places to spread the OS words. (OK, maybe X-box, Zune fit at CES, but I’m not so sure it’s cost effective.)

Go to Mix. Go to TechED. Run PDC. Run your hardware events. Have product launches and analyst events and do all the rest as you have. These are your events. Your partners. Your products. Your value.

CES is….well, a big questionmark.

You can get to the press/bloggers anytime. Want to make OS deals with partners? Send the OEM folks rather than people and product to fill booths that cost too much. Or if you really need to nurture the ecosystem at CES give them money to be public and you save your nickle in the back room.

Point is, I think Steve Jobs has it right. These big generic industry events need to be questioned. In today’s age of live internet feeds exactly why are we shipping everyone to one city where the wifi is non-existent or costs an arm and a leg or everyone fights for tower access. It’s almost like everyone becomes disconnected from the Internet–unless they pay through the nose for access. That shouldn’t be.

Give more local events. Leverage live feeds. Follow James Cameron’s creativity and provide 3D feeds. That would be noteworthy.

Anyway, think about breaking your CES booth plans for next year. Save some money and aggravation and next time really enjoy your hollidays