Inspirational Technology

Has Microsoft lost its marketing touch

A few years ago it was a common saying among geeks that Microsoft had horrible products, but great marketing. However, yesterday I was reading this post on Tabula PC about the marketing of OneNote and it occurred to me that it isn't just OneNote that is seeing marketing problems.

.Net is probably the most visible example of the problem. They screwed up the marketing on that so bad that hardly anyone could tell you what .Net really was. To go along with it you had disasters like Hailstorm where the marketing was vastly removed from what people would actually accept as a product and the backlash was strong enough to actually kill it in the womb. Other recent struggles include Smart Displays, Pocket PC Phone edition, WIndows XP media center, their DVR product(marketed so poorly I can't even remember its name) and most of all Tablet PC. You might also throw the XBox in there as well, but that one's probably OK given it's Microsoft 1.0 status. This is really surprising given all the pre-launch hype associated with just about all these products. The Tablet PC in particular received a lot of hype, but since they actually launched the product it seems marketing just ran off the rails. This was very clear when I went out to buy my Tablet PC. The only place that had any clue about Tablet PCs at all was the Franklin Covey store and that was obviously because the Tablet PC is the only computer that they sell.

It seems Microsoft can still pre-announce products with the best of them, but when it comes to actual shipping products they've lost the ability to effectively sell the products. Considering that most of the products I mentioned are consumer products that's not too encouraging for a marketing king like Microsoft. In fact, of all the products I listed, the only one that I believe might ultimately be considered a success is the XBox and even there I'm not too sure.

I believe, Microsoft, in their rush to be perceived as "innovative" is just throwing products against the wall to see what sticks. If that's the case, then that's an even better sign that they've lost their marketing touch. Pre-launch hype is probably a lot cheaper to create. At that point everyone has no choice but to accept what they say. However, once the product is actually shipping it's a different story. It seems to me that even though Microsoft has hoards of money, they're afraid of actually committing to what's really necessary to make the products successful.

A new kind of eBook Reader

This is what I like to see, real thought given to the interaction model for new devices. I'd definitely like to see something like that included on a Tablet PC type device.

The Tablet PC is a very good eBook platform, although it's way too expensive to be used just for that purpose. What makes the Tablet PC such a good reader is that it's a general purpose system, this means that you can access eBooks in pretty much any format, including those like web pages that aren't really considered eBooks. Dedicated eBook readers are always limited to a small selection in proprietary formats and even if things like Open eBooks emerge there's still a lot of other things that you may want to be able to read in a portable fashion. The Tablet is quite good for that. There is hope for dedicated readers though, they just need to be vastly cheaper and have much better usability for the task then a more general purpose Tablet PC.

OneNote Pricing Announced

Microsoft has finally announced the pricing for Microsoft OneNote. It's $199, but the article says there's a $100 rebate. Of course it won't actually be available until Oct. 21.

I've been using the OneNote beta on my Tablet PC and it's the first piece of Microsoft software that I've seen in a long time that I actually like. It's an excellent piece of software, however at $199 it's way over priced. Typical for something that's from the Office group at Microsoft. If there really is a $100 rebate without some stupid catch I'll probably buy it, but at $199 I may have to pass. That's really too bad as it's turning out that there are only two things I use my Tablet PC for, reading and taking notes in OneNote.

158 New Products

Apparently HP has announced 158 new products, all at the same time! Seems their marketing department may have gotten a little carried away. Guess they wanted to get noticed for quantity if nothing else. It appears that despite the land slide of new products, a new Tablet PC wasn't among them.

Sometimes less is more

Stevenf is comparing the Sony P800 with a Palm Tungstun T2 and finding that the P800 isn't so great after all. Clearly a case of less is more and once again shows how lots of features does not necessarily a good product make. For a reminder on my thoughts on the subject just read my opinion of the Acer Tablet PC. I really wish more companies would recognize this and just build better products. I guess good products aren't what sell, although it appears the Compaq TC1000 is the most popular Tablet PC and I'd say that can be 100% attributed to it's superior usability and quality design. It sure isn't because it's fast.

If you ever want to see an extreme case of this just visit a high end audio store and then compare what's on the shelf to what you find in the local Best Buy. Best Buy is full of blinking lights and audio components with buttons for their buttons. In high end stores the higher up the line you go the fewer buttons and the fewer lights you're going to find. What you will find are products that do the job better then anything and don't need flash to sell. The most expensive components are also often the ones that are the simplest to use. It's really quite sad that companies feel that it's necessary to fill products will all this junk that looks cool, but is really pretty useless. The user experience is almost always bad and the percentage of consumers who actually use anything beyond the most basic features is tiny. I used to have a dolby digital receiver and even though I'm a complete technology geek I could barely figure out anything beyond the basics and if someone else ever came over ... well just forget about it. I'll take the simpler and more usable piece every time.

Playing with Synergy

I've been experimenting with different ways of using the Tablet PC together with the Mac and in my efforts I decided to see if I could figure out a way to share the keyboard and mouse between them. I'm not aware of any software that can do this directly between a Mac and a Windows XP machine. I'm not talking about a KVM switch type of thing, I have one of those too and I don't like it. I want to share via software over the network so that mouse movements on the Mac are translated into mouse movements on the Tablet and you can do things like share the clipboard across as well.

For the most part I use the Remote Desktop client (RDC) and it works pretty well, but I don't like the fact it locks the Tablet display. I'd like to be able to still use the Tablet PC screen while also using the Mac's keyboard with it. I'd rather have a more RDC like integration, but more for just sharing the keyboard and mouse rather than doing remote display.

Right now I'm playing with Synergy. Synergy allows you to share a mouse and keyboard between multiple machines running Linux or Windows. It basically does exactly what I want, except it doesn't appear to support the Mac yet. What I've been experimenting with is using another windows PC to run the Synergy software and then using it to control the Tablet PC. So basically what I have is an RDC connection to my Dell laptop running Windows XP and then use it to control the tablet. It almost works too. The major problem is that the mouse doesn't track right, it jumps all over the place. The keyboard does work though. You can also copy from the Mac and then paste on the tablet, but going the other direction doesn't seem to quite work. The clipboard makes it to the Dell Windows PC, but not through the RDC connection to the Mac.

I also tried ShareKMC and it has the same mouse problem.

Overall it's been an interesting experiment, hopefully some day Synergy will add support for Mac OS X. When it does, it should be an excellent solution for integrating multiple machines together.

Two Computers, One Set of Speakers

Since I've been using my Tablet PC a lot to listen to music from listen.com Rhapsody, I wanted an easy way to share the speakers that are hooked up to my desktop Mac. My first thought of course was to just run a splitter to the speakers and then hook it to both systems. My second thought was that that is probably a bad idea, but I tried it anyway. It of course isn't a good idea. The much simpler solution is to run the line out from the Tablet PC into the line in on the Mac. You then just need a simple piece of freeware called LineIn to pass the line in through so that it can play through the Mac's speakers. This works quite well, so now anytime the Tablet is docked it plays through the speakers on my Mac and then if you undock it you can just plug in headphones to continue listening. It also allows you to control the volume using the keyboard controls on the Mac.

More BuyMusic.com Rumblings

Well there's sure been a lot of discussion about buymusic.com in the last couple days. None that I've seen has been the least bit positive, including my own opinions. Here's a particularly interesting post from someone who actually bought something from the service, to say the experience appears to have been painful is an understatement. It also seems that they've tightened up the site so that you can only view it with Windows IE. This is quite simply foolish, although I'm sure all the negative things being said by people coming in from Macs hasn't made them too happy. If you really want to visit the site you can either turn off javascript or change the user agent in the browser, but who cares, there's really no reason to visit the site.

This is critical though, it's extremely important that windows users don't use this service. People need to make it clear to the RIAA, once again, that this is not what people want. DRM on purchased music is simply unacceptable, even the relatively liberal DRM on the iTunes Music Store purchased music is proving to be problematic on some unexpected levels. What's going to happen five or ten years from now when you try to play this music that was purchased? It seams the only way to ever get this message across is to insure that all these services continue to struggle until they bend to a point that is consumer acceptable. Right now the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is close, but it's still not good enough. BuyMusic.com is a massive step backwards.

If you're a windows user who wants to listen to digital music legally, use Rhapsody to find and listen to the full length recordings and then order the actual CD from half.com or some similar place. Rhapsody has by far the best selection of any service, is only $9.95 per month and is reasonably friendly to use. Just don't think of it as a download service. That's not what it is. It will give you the instant gratification to hear the music before the Cd arrives and it will save you money by allowing you to ignore all the CDs that turn out to not be all that great when taken as a whole. I was highly skeptical of the Rhapsody service, but I've grown to really like it. Also eMusic is another great service that is actually multi-platform and has no DRM. I personally love the selection, but it isn't for everyone.

Legal sources of digital music are slowly getting better, but as consumers we have to speak loudly by rejecting the services that are not any good. BuyMusic.com is not any good.

More hints of a new, Intel-chipped HP tablet for Christmas?

A recent thread on the Buzz talks about some speculation about the new HP unit. [Tabula PC]

I think this is the first time I've seen such interest in a PC. I believe this is also the first time I've ever posted rumors about a PC. I wonder if the ceiling's going to collapse now. Oh, well, I actually really like my Compaq TC1000, even if it does run Windows. When a new version does come out I'm sure I'll think hard about getting one, for now though it's doing what I expected it to do.

Review: Listen.com Rhapsody

I'm a big music fan, no really I mean a big music fan. I'm one of these people who devours music, lot's and lot's of music in all different genres. I have music playing just about all the time. I have a huge CD collection and have been building an even larger MP3 collection from eMusic, the iTunes Music Store and any other place that I can find legal music. To this point eMusic has been my favorite service, since I'm just the type of person who can appreciate the selection that they have to offer. However, last week I finally decided to give LIsten.com Rhapsody a real try.

Listen.com Rhapsody is a music on demand service that gives you unlimited access to their entire catalog for $9.95 per month. You use their proprietary software to access the service, select the music you want to hear and play that music back. The service also offers the ability to burn individual tracks to CD for $.79 each, although not all tracks are available for burning.

The first catch with Rhapsody is that I'm a Macintosh user and the Rhapsody software only runs on Windows. Fortunately I also just acquired a Tablet PC with one the specific goals of it being to access services like Rhapsody. What makes this workable is the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Mac OS X. I don't often say nice things about Microsoft, but the Mac RDC client is quite nice and makes it perfectly livable to have a Windows PC to complement your Macintosh. I basically treat the RDC client as if it was the Rhapsody software running on my Mac and it works quite well. Of course, I'd much prefer to have a native Mac OS X client for the Rhapsody service, but as it stands the current solution works.

Anyway, on to the actual service. First we have to be clear, Rhapsody is not a download service. It's a music on demand service. This means you have to have a computer connected to the network to listen to the music. For people who spend large amounts of time at their computers like, well, me for instance. This isn't really a bad thing. However if you're the more mobile type who actually has a life away from the keyboard it might not be as appealing. The Rhapsody service does offer the ability to burn CDs, but I'll offer my opinion on that feature later.

For music on demand you browse the collection of music and add tracks or albums to your playlist and the client then on demand downloads the song and begins playing. While you can think of this as a streaming service, it's not really streaming in a technical sense. It's simply downloading the file when you ask to play it and then beginning play before the download is complete. Because of how this works the software does cache some number of the downloads, so playing a track again does not necessarily result in it being downloaded again.

On my Cable modem connection the performance of this mechanism is pretty good. However, all is not perfect and this is where we encounter our first glitch with the service. Since it's downloading each track individually there is a pause between tracks while it buffers enough of the download to begin playing. This pause can be very distracting on some albums where the tracks are intended to play together with no breaks. I first noticed this while listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and it was very annoying each time a song changed. On most albums this won't be a problem, but for people who like music put together in longer forms, like much classical music, it will be a real problem. It's unfortunate that the service is marred by this problem as they clearly have ways that they could have minimized the problem with a little extra work on the client. Starting to download the next track on the playlist before the current one finishes playing is one obvious alternative.

For the most part playing works pretty well. I've experienced the occasional glitch where it seems to not quite download the song fast enough, but that's been pretty rare. The experience on a lower bandwidth connection may be a different thing altogether.

Since Rhapsody has licenses from all five major labels and a number of independents the selection on the service is pretty good. Obviously, no service has everything yet and Rhapsody is no exception, but of the services I've tried so far, it does seem to have the overall best selection across all genres. It's also not plagued by the partial album problem as much as the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). In addition, because of the nature of the service, when you do encounter a partial album it's no where near as annoying as it is on iTMS. Here you're paying $9.95 for unlimited access and you're not actually buying individual albums. On iTMS when you encounter a partial album it means a waste of money to buy the partial set of tracks if you think you still might want to hear the whole thing. On Rhapsody there's no incremental cost involved so it isn't as big an issue.

Particularly notable artists that I've found on Rhapsody include: Wynton Marsalis, Annie Lennox, Doc Watson, Johnny Cash, Mogwai, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Son Seals, Jack Johnson, Coldplay and Mono. Some that are missing that I would love to see added include: Goldfrapp, Evanescence and Lilith. Obviously this is a small set of what exists, and it seems that they're adding a couple hundred albums a week. Jazz looks pretty good and classical is better then most services, but not great (the pause between tracks is an issue as noted), Blues is good for the modern stuff, less so for older recordings (eMusic is particularly strong here), folk and country look fairly good though I'm a bad judge for country. Rock/Pop is of course well represented with the usual suspects missing (Metallica, Madonna). Overall the selection is good, if still very incomplete.

I used to be an audiophile, however, I hung up my golden ears when I decided to trade quality for convenience and move to 100% computer based music. Given this, to me the sound quality of the service seems quite good. I believe the files are encoded at 128kbps, I'm guessing in Windows Media format, but the exact format isn't really clear. All I can say is that I've been quite happy with the sound quality for how I use it. I've mostly been listening through a pretty good quality set of Sennheiser headphones that are fairly revealing and I haven't noticed anything annoying about the quality. It seems at least as good as the 128kbs AAC files from the iTMS and I haven't noticed any major difference with the 192kbs AACs I've ripped from my own CDs. Is it CD quality? No, certainly not, but it's good enough for the type of service it is. Definitely better then any FM radio and better then the digital music services available from digital cable companies. Plus you can't argue with the ability to select whatever music you want and play it on demand with no waiting to download the entire thing.

Even though the service is primarily a music on demand service, it does offer the ability to burn CDs of tracks from the service. This ability has an additional fee attached, currently $.79 per track. With this you can burn one copy of the selected tracks. Any additional burns incur an additional charge at the same rate. The price just covers burning to a CD, it does not cover retaining any kind of digital format file on the computer. I haven't actually used this feature, because I find it to be a poor value. In fact I think the service would be better off without this feature, because I believe it skews peoples perceptions in a negative way. The $.79 per song burn price is a very poor value, but the $9.95 music on demand service is an excellent value for what is actually a very good service. The problem comes in trying to compete with free downloads and this is an unfortunate situation. The Rhapsody service can't offer the same kind of capability while retaining reasonable pricing and in making that attempt the real value of the service can easily be lost in the negative feelings brought on by the poor value of the burn capability.

Other then the poor value of the CD burn feature, Listen.com Rhapsody is an excellent service for music on demand. If nothing else, it's worth $9.95 per month just to be able to preview the full length album prior to purchasing it someplace else. I enjoy the service greatly. I do wish they would release a Mac OS X client, but as it stands the service is usable and a good value. Since I spend so much time at the computer I actually prefer this service to the iTunes Music Store and it makes a good complement to the more eclectic selection found on eMusic.

There really isn't a single service that is perfect. Fortunately, it's fairly inexpensive to subscribe to more then one and by using them together you have access to a library of music that is vastly larger then anything previously available. I personally own ~2,500 CDs, and the selection within that collection is vastly smaller then what is already available in these services, this to me is truly exciting and I look forward to the day when the RIAA finally decides to allow the construction of a complete music service. Until that time Listen.com Rhapsody is a pretty good start and I highly recommend it.

New Free eBooks from Microsoft

Microsoft has posted the next batch of free eBooks in their summer reading program. Last week the titles weren't too interesting, but this time around it includes The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, The Flying Book by David Blatner and The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs. All three look pretty interesting, and the Douglas Adams is a book I've wanted to read for, well ... for years. I've picked it up in the bookstore many times, just never managed to make it to the counter with it for some reason.

Right now I'm still in the process of reading A Short History of Nearly Everything. This was part of the first weeks promotion. It's turning out to be really interesting, but kind of slow going. It's a very good book and I definitely recommend it. It's just not the riveting kind of thing you would get with a fiction novel so it's not that kind of suspenseful page turner.

For the last year or so I hadn't been reading nearly as much as I used to, now with eBooks I'm starting to get back to my old ways. In fact I now actually prefer eBooks to paper books. Even with the limitations (some still significant).

Tablet PC and O'Reilly Network Safari: a perfect match (almost)

A couple years ago when I was working on a book for O'Reilly I was given an account on the Safari Bookshelf service. Safari is an online service that allows you access to a large library of technical books, including it appears the entire O'Reilly library. I really didn't care much for the service. At the time I had a clear preference for paper books and reading at the computer was just not pleasant. I saw the value as a reference, but the price wasn't appealing since I was still buying a lot of paper books.

Technology has advanced since then and display quality has improved quite a bit. My current 20" Apple Cinema Display is vastly more readable then the 19" Sony CRT monitor I was using at the time when I tried Safari. Even more importantly though, I now have a Tablet PC and this finally makes the Safari service a must have if you're a technical user. Reading on the tablet works very well, and allows you to comfortably take your reading away from your desktop system. This was always a big reason I preferred paper books. Sitting at a desk and reading long passages just doesn't feel comfortable, but reclining with a Tablet PC works perfectly well.

Interestingly, the Safari service is also a place I would actually like to see DRM applied. The one big limitation with Safari is that you have to have a network connection to access it. You're given bookshelf space based on the service level you subscribe to. For instance for $14.95 per month you get a 10 slot bookshelf. You can swap the books at any time as long as the book your replacing has been on your shelf for at least 30 days. Basically it's a book rental service and as long as you're the type who accesses lots of books and swaps the books out often it presents a good value. With the Tablet PC it would be very nice to be able to download books in PDF format that could be accessed anywhere. Since you're basically renting the books, it would be perfectly acceptable to require the books be renewed once per month to continue using them. Buying books with DRM is a bad use of DRM because it takes value from the customer, but using DRM to enable an alternative service model that gives value that wouldn't otherwise exist can be a very good thing.

It may seem strange that this presents good value, but you have to consider the particular market this is playing in. Technology books are expensive ($30-$60) and go out of date extremely fast. Very few maintain their value past about two years and will generally be updated in that time (requiring another full price purchase). They're also often big and heavy which makes it impossible to carry a library around with you. In the past I constantly ran into problems where I would own a book on a subject, but that book was not where I needed it to be. The Safari service solves this, as long as you have a network connection. Using DRM and the PDF format would even enable this limitation to be removed without spoiling the basic business model. I've reduced my book spending considerably, but I still spend hundreds of dollars per year on technology books, in the past I actually spent at least $1000 per year (usually much more) on technology books. I now have boxes and boxes of tech books that just aren't worth anything because they're so out of date. Just giving them away is painful considering how much they cost. The Safari service allows you to keep an up to date library, accessible from anywhere there's a network connection without the problem of storage and disposal of paper books. Considering this, the Safari service is an outstanding value. Hopefully the service will be able to offer the same value and eliminate the need for the network connection by leveraging DRM in a good way.

Oh, yeah, just thought of something else. The Safari service will also allow me to get rid of all the other books that I'd been hanging onto, "just in case". Those books are out in the garage right now, there's not much value in that.

A tale of two tablet PCs (Part 2)

In the last episode I offered a "review" of the Acer 110TCi. OK, so it was really more of a rant about the incredibly poor usability design of the product, but you get the idea. I ended by asking the question of whether or not I've now changed my mind about how the Tablet PC can be useful to a Macintosh user. The answer is no I haven't, you just have to have the right hardware. Hardware designed with some actual thought into how it will be used.

First let me be clear, if Apple made a Tablet PC like device, I'd forget all about the Windows XP driven Tablet PC of today. Unfortunately, it's doubtful Apple will offer such a device, even though there are rumors circulating that one is being manufactured. All is not lost however, there does exist a Tablet PC that a Macintosh user can, if not love, at least can like. If you're a Macintosh user and are interested in buying a tablet to complement your existing Macintosh setup, I highly recommend the Compaq TC1000.

The Compaq is far from a perfect device so to start I'll mention the major criticisms often leveled at it.

First it's slower then any other Tablet PC. There's no debating this point. It uses a Transmeta Crusoe processor running at 1Ghz, but because of the design of the Crusoe it doesn't really feel like a 1Ghz PC for many operations. In particular launching applications and running those applications for the first time will be slow. This is because the Crusoe has to translate the Intel X86 instruction into the Crusoe's own VLIW (very long instruction word) instructions. What's interesting though, is that as you use an application more, the Crusoe optimizes parts of it and the end result is something that performs perfectly fine. It's kind of weird, but for what it gives you it's probably worth it. Of course, what it gives you is better battery life. An extremely important feature for a device intended to be used the way Tablet PCs are used. From what I've seen so far, the TC1000 performs vastly better in the battery department then the Centrino based Acer did. With the Acer I always felt like I should be plugging it in as I watched the battery meter drop, and with the Compaq I watch in wonder at how long it lasts. (one caveat here is that the Acer I had did have a defective wireless card so it's possible that the battery life was adversely affected by that, but I've seen similar reports elsewhere as well.) So coming at this as a Macintosh user, speed is not the most important thing, it's the other qualities of the device that will make or break the experience. The device does need to be faster, but even with this considered I still find it to be vastly more usable then the much faster Acer.

The second major criticism of the TC1000 is that it doesn't have a pressure sensitive pen. The TC1000 uses a different digitizer then all the other Tablet PCs. Most have Wacom digitizers, but the Compaq uses a Finepoint digitizer. For me I don't see this as a real problem. I played with the pressure sensitivity on the Acer and clearly for an artist it will be important, but for the average user I doubt it's really necessary. Would I like to have it? Sure. Do I miss it, not really. The primary reason for this is that the pen on the Compaq works dramatically better then the pen on the Acer. In particular the calibration is much more consistent, the Acer would constantly have problems with the pen near the edge of the screen. So far I haven't seen any of this with the Compaq. Again the caveat is that I'm not positive that the Acer was working correctly, but also again I've seen many reports from other people that the Wacom digitizers have lots of problems with pen calibration around the edges. The other downside of the pen on the Compaq is that it requires a AAAA bettery. This is definitely annoying, but I really like the weight it adds to the pen. The compaq pen feels much more like an actual writing instrument, rather then the cheap plastic excuse for pens I've seen on other Tablet PCs. The Acers built in pen was especially bad, and while it includes another larger pen as well, there's no way to attach it to the device.

There is one other thing to mention while talking about the negatives of the Compaq device. The TC1000 is still a first generation unit and is sure to be upgraded in the near future. There are various rumors floating around, but nothing concrete has been seen. It seems the two most common rumors are that the next gen will either switch to a Centrino or use the next generation Transmeta chip called, I believe, the Astro. Whichever route they go, I really hope they don't trade battery life for a small boost in speed.

Ok, wait, one more thing worth mentioning. Heat, the Compaq can definitely get warm and this hasn't been helped by the fact that the AC in the house isn't working correctly right now. It has a fan and the fan does make noise. In a lot of ways it seems pretty similar to the fan in the Apple 15" Powerbook. When it comes on you know it. This is actually what I consider the most serious flaw in the current design. It would be bad to have the fan come on while sitting in a meeting or something. However compared to my old Dell laptop the Compaq is whisper quiet so maybe it isn't all bad. On the Acer I don't think the fan ever came on.

So now having gotten the major faults of the Compaq out of the way, what's good about it? Well that can be summed up in one word, design! Which provides a benefit in the form of another word, usability! The Compaq engineers clearly thought about what they were doing. They didn't release a device that was full of features at the expense of usability and refinement. Where the Acer felt like a cheap plastic, piece of junk PC, the Compaq feels, well ..., it feels like it could have been an Apple product. It's not quite all the way up to Apple standards, but it comes far closer then any other PC I've ever seen and it's a thousand times better then the pathetic Acer.

The Compaq feels like a device that you can use as a companion (exactly what I was looking for). It has a very stiff frame and a piece of glass over the screen. This gives it a very solid feeling and makes it feel like it would be safe to carry it around. The edges are smoothed and rounded with no bulges that mar the clean lines of the device. Basically it feels good in the hand, a very nice thing considering how Tablet PCs are intended to be used.

The glass over the screen has a number of nice features. It protects the screen, it alters the glare profile so that you can actually use it while holding it in your lap, it's much easier to clean, it allowed the for the face of the device to be entirely flat and it makes writing feel a little more natural then writing on the screen usually does. The downside is that looking through the glass does slightly alter the quality of the image. I've seen this described as being like looking through a very, very shear nylon stocking. It's a little annoying, but given the benefits of the glass and the way it makes the device feel and work I will take the glass every time.

All the cable connections are either on the top edge or the bottom edge of the device when in portrait mode. This design makes perfect sense. It's intended so that if you lay the device flat on a desk, all the wires that would go off the back of the desk(power, ethernet, USB, VGA) are on the top and those that would likely go toward the user (headphone and microphone) are on the bottom. This allows you to plug it in and still be able to pick it up and hold it fairly easily. With the Acer you would have wires protruding from three sides in this scenario. The one thing that bugs me a little is that the headphone cable ends up stabbing you in the stomach when you hold the device. I kind of wish they would have put the headphone and microphone jacks on the bottom of the left side instead of on the bottom of the device. This would still allow clean wire routing, while also allowing you to recline while listening to music through the headphones and reading on the device in portrait mode.

The Compaq has a number of buttons on the side of the device (esc, tab, Q and email) along with three user programmable pen activated buttons(launch input manager, launch journal and screen rotation) on the face of the device. All of the side buttons, except the email button, are also user programmable. In addition, there's a jog dial on the side that allows you to scroll through documents and serves as a return key when pressed. The button layout isn't perfect, I'd actually like to see a few more buttons that are user programmable, however compared to what was on the Acer this is a vast improvement. The pen activated buttons on the face are in particular, a sign of the considerably greater refinement to the Compaq device. The jog dial is also much easier to use then the button mechanism on the Acer and it doesn't fatigue your finger at all (something that was a big problem on the Acer).

To go along with the longer battery life in general, the Compaq also has the very nice feature that you can swap the battery without shutting the machine down. This is something that Apple machines have done for years and why it's not a standard feature on all PC laptops I'll never understand. Again a nice consideration for how people will actually use the machine. A portable machine that can't stay portable for extended periods isn't particularly useful and having to shut down to swap the battery is a huge disruption to your workflow and a waste of time.

One of my criticisms of the Acer was that the power cord was too thick and too stiff, making it unpleasant to hold the device while it's plugged in. The Compaq is better in this regard, but not perfect. The cable is both thinner and more flexible then the Acer's, but not nearly as thin or flexible as the cable that Apple uses. This is a little detail that PC companies constantly miss, the Compaq isn't bad, but Apple shows it can be done better.

The Acer is a convertible design with a screen that can pivot around and lay flat to make a tablet. The Compaq is also a convertible design, but with a much more interesting ability to remove the keyboard entirely and run it as a pure slate. This makes the slate portion lighter and substantially improves the feel of it, as mentioned above. It's a compromise and in my opinion an extremely good one. The keyboard isn't a major selling point to these devices and Compaq did a great job of providing a pure slate and the ability to still use it as a regular laptop. The design they chose also has some interesting characteristics like fitting better in the cramped spaces of an airline seat. I'm not going to comment too much on the keyboard as I haven't really been using it much. What is interesting though, is the level of detail that went into the design of the keyboard. Maybe I'll write up something else later about the industrial design of addon components and talk about the TC1000 keyboard.

Overall there are many other things that I could comment on, however this is getting pretty lengthy so I'll just leave it with what I've covered so far. I'll maybe write more about this in the future as there is a lot more to like about what Compaq has done. I also haven't talked at all about the software on the device or the usability of Window XP for tablet computing. That will follow in the future.

So what does my rambling about the Compaq hardware mean. It means that a quality computing device is much more then just the sum of its parts. The Acer 110TCi is full of great parts, but the whole is horribly weakened by the terrible design that was applied to create the product. As I mentioned in the last installment, it's disappointing to me that such an inferior product could receive so many good reviews. In contrast the Compaq TC1000 has what on paper looks to be a vastly inferior list of parts. In fact that list of parts looked so unattractive to me, that when i was shopping for a tablet I didn't even seriously consider the Compaq. OK, actually, it was on the complete bottom of the list. It was only after the hands-on with the Acer that I seriously looked at the device. What I found was a device that, while flawed, was overall considerably less flawed then anything else available when you consider the whole package. It may be tough to understand this if you're a PC user used to the more speed, more features, cheaper price treadmill, but Macintosh users will get what I mean. I guess you could say, it's not about how big your parts are, it's how you use them. And Compaq has chosen parts that when put together to form a complete product, achieves something that is plain and simply, more satisfying to use. I've never said that about a PC before, but I'm saying it now. If you're a Macintosh user who's looking for a tablet device the Compaq TC1000 is the way to go. Forget the spec sheet. The Compaq is a device that can be your friend, it's refined, elegant and pleasurable to use for the kind of tasks that a Macintosh user might want (unless you're an artist). As it stands right now I won't declare my love for the Tablet PC, the software is the key there and I'll be writing more about that in the future. What I will say though, the Compaq TC1000 is a beautiful device that works well and does everything that I was hoping it would do. For a PC that's not too bad.

Lycoris Announces Desktop/LX Tablet Edition

Lycoris is coming out with a version of Linux to run on Tablet PC like devices. I shudder at the thought of how bad the usability of it will be. Windows XP is bad enough. From their overview, It looks like it's mostly regular Linux with an onscreen Qwerty keyboard. Yep usability will pretty much suck.

I'm really curious too, why people insist on carrying the qwerty layout into things designed for use by a pen? It's not an optimized layout for use with fingers and it's certainly not a good layout for use with the pen. There has been a lot of research into alternative mechanisms that improve speed and accuracy with single point input, but nobody includes them by default. I used to use Fitaly on my Pocket PC and it was definitely better.

Oh yeah, an interesting quote from the Lycoris product page, "The center of Tablet PC technology is the touchscreen". Yeah, OK a touchscreen, hmm.

A tale of two Tablet PCs

Well last week I completely broke down and went out and bought an Acer 110TCi Tablet PC. I had previously posted that I'd ordered an Acer 104TCi from Costco, however the Costco unit took too long to ship so I, well ..., got impatient and bought the 110TCi at a Franklin Covey store. Of course when I then went to try to cancel the 104TCi, it did finally ship so I'll be getting it later this week, oops. Oh well, anyway, this isn't about the 104TCi it's about the 110TCi as well as the tablet I eventually ended up with.

Buying from Franklin Covey is really a bad idea, there are cheaper ways and they don't have the best return policy in the world. Of course, I'm a geek and my curiosity got hold of me and I couldn't stop. So I went ahead with the purchase. Well, so now you might ask what do I think of the Acer 110TCi? And my answer, it's a piece of junk.

So why did I choose the Acer 110TCi? Quite simply, I was seduced by its feature list. Of all the current Tablet PCs it easily has the best set of features. 900 Mhz Centrino, built in wireless, firewire, USB 2.0, built in keyboard, up to 2GB RAM with 512MB already on board and small size. Only the Motion m1300 comes close, and is of course better if you want a pure slate, which I didn't (or thought I didn't). Unfortunately, while swayed by the feature list of the Acer I forgot one very important thing. I'm a Macintosh user! The Acer epitomizes everything that I can't stand about PCs. It has tons, and tons of features and a great spec sheet, however, the industrial design, build quality and usability for the task absolutely stink. This is pure PC garbage all the way, it seems that the engineers only cared about adding features and gave no thought at all to how people will actually use the device.

If they had given it any thought, they wouldn't have designed the absolutely pathetic excuse for a display latch or the stupid rubber plugs for all the ports. They wouldn't have spread those ports all around the outside of the machine so that when you hook up AC power, ethernet and audio you have cords coming out of three sides. They wouldn't have put that incredibly dumb nubbed plastic disk under the touchpad. They would have used the removal of that disk to make the mouse buttons larger.

If they had given any thought, they would have maybe considered exactly what buttons to put on the front of the machine so that you actually have some power to do more then just scroll. They also maybe would have designed those buttons so that they require less pressure to activate and don't hurt your fingers after using them for a while. They wouldn't have put a bright red flashing light right next to the screen. They wouldn't have put the hardware button to easily toggle power to the wireless card in a location that is inaccessible from the form factor where you're most likely to want to toggle the power to the wireless card.

Once again, if they had given it any thought, they would have put in a battery that actually lasts more then about 2.5 hours. They might also have come up with a more elegant and easier to operate mechanism for pivoting the display. They might also have designed the software that controls the features of the machine with more consideration for the fact that the machine is a tablet. They would have maybe put in a powered Firewire port so that you don't need to have, yet another, AC adapter to use the provided CD-RW drive. They might have also considered that sometimes people might want to pick the machine up while it's plugged in. So maybe having nice, thin and flexible power cables would be helpful, so you don't take out everything on your desk when you move it. They may also have considered that using the Pen is a common operation on a computer designed to be used with a pen and that it might be nice if that pen was easy to remove and replace in its storage compartment. Or they might even consider that people don't usually like to write with those little thin stubby pencils that you find next to the card catalog in the Library and that using them as the model for your built in pen might be a bad idea. Maybe they would have even considered that a tablet is held at a different angle then a regular laptop and that they might want to do something about the quantity of glare that comes of the screen at that angle.

Ugh, the Acer was such a huge disappointment. I may not even need to bother to mention that the wireless card in my unit didn't work, that the pen calibrartion went out of wack every five minutes or that the plastic cover over the IR port fell inside the machine after one day.

At first i was incredibly angered that the wireless card didn't work, however now I'm thrilled. That is what allowed me to return that complete pile to the store.

I read a ton of reviews of the Acer before buying one, pretty much all of them were good. This is a very depressing reflection of how low the standards of PC users are. It's really depressing to me that something so horribly designed, could receive so much praise. It also tells me that the computing press really isn't doing its job anymore. If the people who review the products aren't willing to criticize them for their flaws then there's no incentive for the companies to improve. It's even more depressing when you consider this is a second generation machine.

So, anyway, I gladly returned the Acer.

So does this mean I'm now completely against the whole Tablet PC concept? Well not necessarily, this is the tale of two tablet PCs after all. The rest of the story will come in a later installment.

PC sales must really be bad

This weekend I paid a visit to a Comp USA location that I hadn't been to in a while. It's in a pretty affluent part of town and when I walked in I was headed for the PC section and well I almost couldn't find it. It used to be a large section in the back of the store, very prominent. Now it's a single isle in the middle of the store. I never counted PCs at Comp USA before, but it sure seemed they cut down the number of models severely and even if they didn't they definitely cut down the display size and moved it to a much less prominent location. It seemed really strange to see this in a Comp USA. My interpretation of this is an indication that actual computers aren't the big draw in the store anymore.

Assuming that they use the same product placement tactics as grocery stores, you want to put the items that draw the most people at the back of the store. This way you have to walk past as much other product as possible before getting to the often purchased items like Milk. In Comp USA the PC section was always in the prime back of store location, now it's CDs and CD jewel boxes. This may just be a quirk of the store manager in that location, but I thought it was kind of interesting. The other Comp USA I visited a couple weeks ago still had PCs at the back.

Oh yeah, this Comp USA only had a Toshiba Tablet PC on display like a regular laptop. In fact I walked right by it and didn't even notice it was a Tablet PC. I had to ask an employee if they had a display. The rack it was in didn't even allow you to rotate the display. That makes five stores that I've visited where the Tablet PC is given no special treatment at all. So far the Gateway Country store was the only place that had a somewhat prominent display for their Tablet PC. However, even there the clerk I talked to really didn't know all that much about it and failed to adequately answer my questions (questions I of course already knew the answers to). I'm still pretty convinced that interest in Tablet PCs is not strong at all. Maybe it's different in corporate environments that don't purchase through retail stores, who knows.

Microsoft and the Alpha Geeks

Robert Scoble who's an evangelist for Longhorn is considering the question "so, what you gonna do to make Microsoft's communities strong again?". He seems to be saying that Microsoft needs to convince the pros that Microsoft has good technology. I believe what he refers to as pros is the same thing Tim O'Reilly refers to as alpha geeks.

These are the people who indicate trends in computing, the early adopters and the people who others turn to for advice about technology. And the number one observation about these people is that they aren't interested in Microsoft, they're interested in Mac OS X. I first observed this almost two years ago when I switched to Mac OS X from Linux and Tim O'Reilly has written about this several times. I found that Mac OS X was an easy sell to everyone who I would consider an "alpha geek". This is the problem that Microsoft has to face, and I know I personally have no intention of going back. Even though I'm now purchasing a Tablet PC, it's not because I think Microsoft has done such a great job, it's simply because I'm deeply fascinated with pen computing and the Tablet PC is the only option available. If Apple releases a product in the same market I'll gladly drop the Tablet PC in the trash and never look back. Honestly, I don't even consider the Tablet PC particularly innovative, I've read the developers manuals for PenPoint, written something like 10 years ago, and there's not much beyond simple evolution and modern hardware in the Tablet PC.

The technical people I'm seeing sticking with Microsoft fall into two camps, those who are not technically inspired (i.e. people who simply see technology as their job) and those who are really business people and are actually interested in money rather then technology. I guess you could really describe both groups as being interested mainly in money, it's simply one is more concerned about feeding their family while the other is concerned about making the payments on their mansion.

The first group just doesn't know any better, they go to work do their job and go home perfectly happy. They're not driven by technology advancement and they're definitely not the innovators who actually leverage technology to create new products. These people are builders of other peoples ideas and that makes them very important, but they're not leaders. They'll use what ever technology puts food on their table and they're not terribly interested in technology beyond that. These people are in the Microsoft camp simply because that's what pays the bills right now. Holding onto these people is easy for Microsoft as long as the other group of Microsoft camp people doesn't change direction.

The second group is interested in money, not technology, and therefore is not interested in taking risks until there is a clear path to profitability. This group is important, but it's also the group through out history that has been left behind by technological advancement. They won't move until it's clear it's safe to move, and by then it's likely too late. This is the classic Innovator's Dilemma problem, a problem Microsoft itself clearly faces. These people are the current mover and shakers in technology and the employers of all the people in the first group. They'll stay in the Microsoft camp as long as they continue to make money doing so.

Now, it's the third group, that doesn't fall into the Microsoft camp, where Microsoft has a VERY, VERY serious problem. The technologists, the alpha geeks, the people who eat, sleep and breath technology. These people are the creators, the innovators, the founders of new companies, the creators of new products and these people are predominately not interested in Microsoft. And I bet if you ask them they'll also say they have no interest in dealing with Microsoft, due to the trust problem. Well, OK, I can only speak for myself, but I sure have no interest in most of what Microsoft is trying to do. I don't believe that Microsoft is in a position to actually do something innovative enough to truly capture my interest. Microsoft has too many people to please, they're held hostage by their current customers. To do something truly innovative they'll have to break compatibility.

Breaking compatibility is a loosing proposition for them, they really can't do it because it effectively means releasing an entirely new operating system and then asking their developers to support it. At that point the question becomes if we have to port our applications to an entirely new OS to stay in the Microsoft camp, why not look at porting it to an entirely new OS that breaks us out of Microsoft's domination? Clearly Microsoft would build in backwards compatibility by stealing a page from Apple's book and leveraging their acquisition of Virtual PC. However, this will mean the apps will run non-native and won't take advantage of the advancements in the new platform. This worked on Mac OS X, because Apple has fiercely loyal customers. Microsoft does not have this advantage. Additionally, Microsoft's user base will then be spread over 5-6 versions of windows with a set of developers who are used to supporting all those versions of windows. This slow rate of upgrade, presents a very strong disincentive to porting their apps to be native on the new OS.

So unless the new OS is well and truly a clear advancement, then the end result of all this is that a truly innovative new OS from Microsoft will mean the end of their domination. They really have no choice but to be locked in to incremental improvements on the existing Windows base. Of course, this isn't a promising strategy either, the current Windows base is feeling really tired and creaky. It's not going to hold up well under the assault of several more years worth of advancement of Mac OS X and Linux. So what does this mean for Microsoft?

It means there's a transition taking place. It's in the early stages right now, but it's happening. Mind share is shifting and it's not shifting toward Microsoft. It's shifting into mobile devices that don't run Microsoft software, Linux on servers, Linux on low end desktops, Linux on desktops in countries that are smart enough to see the risk inherent in Microsoft's domination and finally to Mac OS X for the home user and the power user desktop of those who care about refinement. Overall I really don't see a very bright future for Windows and winning back the mindshare of the alpha geek is going to be almost impossible.

So how can Microsoft win back that mind share? Well, it definitely won't be easy, there's not much trust of Microsoft around. To start, it will require true innovation, not regurgitation of old ideas like the Tablet PC or glitzy, but useless eye candy like the current Longhorn demos. And it sure isn't going to happen with rights control technology like Palladium (I forget it's current name). What's required is real innovation that actually advances the state of computing. It can be done. Current computers are still way too difficult, and this includes those that run Mac OS X and Linux too. Microsoft has lots of smart people and is in a position to make a real advancement. They're under a very real competitive threat and this should ideally provide the necessary motivation. The question is whether they'll have the courage to actually take the risk of real innovation and change or if they'll simply focus on finding ways to cut of the air supply of their competitors. We all know what history says about this, but here's a tip, that's not the way to make people, like oh ... say the alpha geeks, actually like you. Microsoft, if you really, honestly want the alpha geeks back, for once in your existence do something truly innovative, something that actually advances computing and something that is honestly aimed at making peoples lives better. Right now it seems you're just doing things that propagate your dominance of the computer industry and squeezing more dollars out of your existing customers. Oh yeah, and you also better make sure that you do things in a way that allows other platforms to play too. That means no more closed file formats. Innovation that leads to lockin is innovation that isn't all that interesting. Innovate on the user experience, but you better leave the actual data open and free.

I honestly don't believe Microsoft can do this, it's too much risk and they don't have the courage. Robert Scoble is saying that's what they're going to do though (well, not the open file formats part of course), we'll see...

Free eBooks from Microsoft

To spur the interest in eBooks, Microsoft is running a promotion giving away three eBooks each week. They're in encrypted/encumbered Microsoft Reader format of course, but you can't complain too much for free. The first three books are online now.

One of them is A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is a title I was pretty interested in reading so I was happy to see this.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of reading on my Pocket PC and I'm really starting to like eBooks. Well at least the ones that have reasonable or no DRM like those for the Palm Reader. Palm Reader books aren't tied to the continued existence of any particular service. They're encrypted with the credit card number that you used to purchase them. That makes for a pretty effective deterrent to sharing them and it still gives you control over them. The only problem is that over time tracking the keys will be a problem as CC numbers change and they are of course dependent on the continued existence of the Palm Reader software.

Unfortunately, future proof is something that just doesn't exist when formats are proprietary and that makes me very hesitant to spend any real money on digital formats. I'm trying to keep an open mind and explore all the angles, but it's tough when the formats are not designed with the concerns of the consumer in mind.

Ordered a Tablet

Well today I finally went ahead and ordered a Tablet PC, an Acer TMC104CTi from costco.com. The main reason I went for this unit is that Costco has a six month return policy and you can return it to any local Costco store.

I'm really interested in finding out if the tablet will work for what I want, but I'm also really concerned about ending up with a piece of shelfware. Since I'm a Mac OS X user, the biggest barrier to accepting this thing is whether or not I can tolerate the highly proprietary nature of all the file formats involved. We'll see how I feel about it once I get the unit in hand. I'll be posting much more about my experience with it as I go forward. I suspect it will take a week or two before the unit arrives.

More on the Apple Tablet

The Apple tablet rumors are also getting some discussion among the Tablet PC/Microsoft camp, Robert Scoble and Loren Heiny.

Apple Tablet Rumblings (again)...

MacRumors is reviving the rumors of an Apple tablet. I'm of course am absolutely dying to buy something like that. However given what I've said about Tablet PCs I also have to feel the same way about Apple's prospects for launching a device into the category. It's just doesn't appear to be a winning market.

It seems what uptake of Tablets exists is occurring mostly in the corporate arena, not exactly Apples strong area. I think this is primarily based on price, as in reality I see the Tablet being something that should have strong appeal to the home user. At least it probably would if it was even slightly marketed toward that arena.

For me the appeal of the Tablet is for media (i.e. digital music, movies), web browsing in a relaxed manner, holding a digital library and note taking. Of these only note taking is probably outside the realm of what most people would do with their home computer and that's not entirely outside it either. The tablet form factor should also be very good for digital photography and video editing. Neither of those generally require significant amounts of text editing (at least they don't with decent software). Combine it with wireless printing and the ability to hook up to a TV and it should be a pretty compelling solution within the home.

Hmm, now that I really think about it, maybe Apple should make a tablet and aim it at this market. Of course if PC makers can't get the price down, it's not too likely Apple will either and tablet prices are still way too high. Ugh, all I know is I want a tablet. I'd much, much rather have one from Apple, but I fear I'll have to settle for a Tablet PC.

Drawing User Interfaces

Robert Scoble is using an app that allows you to create user interfaces with a Tablet PC as an example of what's good about the tablet.

My first thought about this is that it's a useless idea because there's no precision in hand drawing an interface. You'll basically end up with an interface that doesn't line up right and forces you to use an interface builder anyway to put things in the proper place. You also still need to use the standard tools to set other attributes about the interface. However, thinking about this more I suppose it could be useful if you can define enough gestures to control alignments and spacing and such. Maybe using different colors to indicate different elements of the design (no idea if that's technically possible). For instance sketching the interface in black, then in blue drawing alignment lines then in red drawing pixel offsets between controls, yellow for relative control placement control. Your sketch would be kind of messy, but could be kind of cool for creating the first pass at an interface or for an interface for an app you don't really care about. I doubt it will make a good product, but it certainly would be an interesting research effort.

I've never looked at the Tablet PC APIs so I wonder if you can use colors in ink to control things like this.

Found the post about Tablet PCs being boring

It was from Tabula PC. The one thing I can agree with, Tablet PCs probably are going to be big in Asia. In the US though? I'm not so sure. The Tablet PC is too young and immature to be greeted as something that can be considered boring. It's not a sign that they've become ordinary, it's a sign that the market's simply lost interest.

One more Tablet PC Thought

One other thing to mention about the tablet PC is that when they were first announced I predicted that they would be a huge failure. Now that they're out, well quite honestly I still think they're going to fail. Even if I buy one and end up loving it, I'll still think they're going to fail. Why? There's no buzz.

I've spent a lot of time researching these things on the web and going around to various stores in town to try to get my hands on different models. So far the only Tablet PC I've actually seen is the Toshiba. Comp USA didn't even have the things on display and actually couldn't find their demo model of the Viewsonic to show it to me. From what I've seen there is basically zero interest in these things outside of a very small, hardcore geek community and the usual vertical applications. No one in the various stores I've been to knew anything about them. No special displays, no marketing materials, nothing. Even the incredibly stupid portable display things are getting more shelf space then the Tablet PCs are. Both Comp USA and Frys had large end of isle displays for those stupid things, but nothing at all for the tablets.

I saw something on another blog, unfortunately I forget where, that said something like Tablet PCs have gotten boring because they've become mainstream and they're not bleeding edge anymore. Sorry, I call BS. I think Tablet PCs are boring now because quite simply nobody cares about them. An eight month old product that is truly exciting with the expectations associated with Tablet PC should have much more buzz associated with it. I'm sorry to say it, but the experience I've had from shopping for this thing is the experience of shopping for a product that nobody is buying.

Let's Talk Tablet PC

OK, I admit it, I want a Tablet PC. In fact if it wasn't for a little miscommunication between my credit card company and I, I would have already ordered one (I thought my card number had been snatched so I canceled, turns out it was just my domain registrar automatically re-registering all my domains). I've decided to buy an older model Acer from Costco. The older Acer wouldn't be my first choice (256MB max RAM mainly), the newer Acer would (Centrino + 2 GB max RAM, much better), but I want to get it from a place that has a very solid return policy and Costco fits that bill better then anyone else.

Obviously since I'm so concerned about the return policy, it's clear I'm skeptical about whether I'll ultimately like the Tablet PC. There's good justification for this too, I've bought way, way too many pen based devices that have just ended up in the drawer. It's been a quest for me to find a digital companion that I'm truly comfortable with. I've tried numerous PDAs (Windows CE, Pocket PC, Psion, Palm, Zaurus) and so far the best thing I've ever found is my trusty Apple Powerbook. The failing of all these devices has always been usability. They just aren't comfortable enough to work with all the time. The Palm sized devices are too small and the clam shell devices too cumbersome to use standing up. And herein is where we reach the problem with Tablet PC, it's a Microsoft product and Microsoft's concept of usability basically sucks. They're way too focused on features for features sake and not enough on building a coherent experience. The Tablet PC is something that I've always felt needed a coherent experience in the form of a custom designed OS like a modern PenPoint.

Unfortunately the market as it is hasn't really left any room for someone to be able to step up and create an entirely new platform. So I'm stuck with looking at the current possibilities. I'm desperately hoping that Apple will make a Tablet device, but I don't have my hopes set too high on that, so it pretty much leaves Tablet PC as the winner. Simply because there's no one else in the game.

I'm worried about how well the Tablet will work for me. Primarily because I don't use Office and absolutely detest proprietary file formats. Microsoft is pushing ink as a new data format, but as far as I can tell there's nothing being done about making it a data format that exists anywhere other then Windows. That's not encouraging.

So anyway, my anti-Microsoft leaning aside there are some things that appeal heavily to me about the Tablet PC. The funny thing about a lot of these is that they wouldn't exist if the Tablet PC was not based on Windows XP. So I guess to start I have to admit my feeling about the OS needing to be a custom tablet specific thing is probably wrong. Progress I guess.

Here's what I'm looking to get out of the Tablet.

- First I'm approaching it as if it was an entirely new device focused on some particular tasks. I'm not looking for a general purpose computer so to speak. That's what my Macs are for and they're not going away.

- A big thing I want is an information repository. Notes, manuals, design documents, magazines whatever. I want it in a small package that can be used in a non-computer centric way. i.e. why the tablet form factor is appealing. This is also why I can't stand proprietary formats and my biggest concern overall. I don't like having all my information tied up in something that I can't easily repurpose without Microsoft providing the tools to do so. More then anything else this factor alone could be a killer.

- I don't care about handwriting recognition very much, I'm interested in ink. On the general concept level this is something that I think Microsoft got right, we'll see how I feel about the real implementation later. I'm looking for an enhanced notepad experience. I'm constantly in conflict between using paper and the computer, I'm hoping the tablet can finally put an end to that question. Again uncomfortable about the closed file format.

- Sketching. I want to be able to make digital sketches for UI designs and such. From my playing with the Tablet PC in the store, this is something that I think might work pretty well. It's really annoying on paper to sketch multiple different versions of a very similar interface. On the tablet you can sketch the basic interface once and then copy and modify to create the other interface states. Very appealing.

- Reading. I'm definitely looking at the Tablet PC as a real enabler for digital books and magazines. As I've written about a couple times recently, this is an area I've been exploring a lot lately and it's something that absolutely calls out for the tablet form factor. Reading on the Pocket PC is nice, but the screen is just too small for things like the Zinio magazine reader. Here yet again, closed formats and also DRM is unappealing.

- Media. I'm looking at it to open a door for more digital media exploration. This is something that comes from the Tablet PC being a Windows XP system. In particular I'm interested in having something to access Windows only media solutions like listen.com and Movielink. I just discovered Movielink yesterday and it definitely looks interesting. No Mac version of course. I also could use my existing PC laptop for that, but I can't stand the thing and there's no room for its bulk on my desk. The tablet is appealing because of the small size and its orientation for getting away from the desk. And say it with me now, again closed formats and DRM make me nervous, although both of these seem to be services that provide a value where DRM isn't such a hinderance(i.e. it's not something that you're going to keep for a long time). Movielink in particular is the first use of DRM that I actually understand and am OK with.

- Integration with the Mac through Remote Desktop connection. This is how I make use of my current Windows laptop and it works fairly well for basic usage. You can even send the sound from the Windows laptop so that it plays through the Macs speakers. The quality isn't great, but it's better then crawling around on the floor to swap cables. I like this better then running Virtual PC too.

Hmm, there's probably some other things too, but that's a decent list. I think I can justify the purchase, but I have a lot of reservations. We'll see how it goes.