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One of the best known digital inkers of all time is Sumocat who writes for Gottabemobile.com. To see a great example of what digital inking is all about, visit Sumocat’s ink blog here: http://sumocat.blogspot.com/

But something that he said in a comment on one of his articles yesterday got me thinking…

Just about the only thing I don’t like about the iPad is the lack of real inking, but this isn’t something that appeals to the masses. – Sumocat, Gottabemobile.com comments

Last night I was out at a business lounge in the Melbourne Airport Hilton with a couple of Motion Computing VPs and Sumocat’s comment came to mind… As I looked across the room I noticed business people all over the place having informal meetings and taking notes on pen and paper.

Perhaps Sumocat’s comment was referring to the fact that people don’t use pen and paper so much while vegetating on the couch (or toilet) – which is of course the intended use case for an Apple ipad. And he’d be right about that… Touch will do just fine.

However, I thought how many people work in an office, attend meetings all day long and take notes? Tablet PCs in their current form are unbelievably ideal for this use case, and I’d have to say that there are masses.

At home, at work, in the car (as a passenger or stopped of course!), at church, at the shops, at the post office… there are so many places that you scribble notes on paper. Surely everyone does that?

Touch in any form will simply not cut it to replace the ballpoint pen, but a proper windows Tablet PC with an active digitizer can! If we could only get them into a consumer format and priced like an Apple iPad.

I think now that Apple will never adopt the pen. I doubt that Google will either when they release a couple Tablet PCs shortly. C’mon Microsoft, it’s time to act on Courier – put your cards on the table(t)!

Thanks to Apple iPad madness, my Tablet PC YouTube channel goes over 200,000 views tomorrow… At the start of the year (only one month ago), I was celebrating 100,000 views. Most of the traffic has been aimed at one video I did showing off the Motion Computing F5 with windows 7 on it.

I filmed this video before the release of Windows 7 showing it alongside another F5 with Windows Vista on it.

I wanted to show off the improvements for tablet PC users in windows 7 as well as the Motion F5 hardware… I think that I’ve certainly succeeded in both! This video itself will account for 100,000 views in a couple of days.

The thing that strikes me is that there are so many people who still don’t even know about Windows Tablet PCs, even though they have been around for 10 years in their current form (20 years really on Windows).

Sure 200,000 views is nothing compared to the dizziness that surrounds an Apple product launch, but I’m still proud of what we have achieved so far here down under… All part of a days work for me to get the message out about real, useful tablet PCs that will make your job quicker and easier – not just Apple richer. Swipe!

I was seriously expecting the Apple iPad to be a game changer, but it appears to me that the folks at Cupertino haven’t spent any time using real Tablets. If they had, the iPad probably wouldn’t be lacking an active digitiser with digital ink capabilities.

When commentators said that the lack of Tablet PC sales means that people don’t like the pen, maybe Apple listened. But most of those folks that pass comment on Tablet PCs haven’t seriously used one either…

It’s not true that people don’t like the pen. They might not like the idea of it, but for the most part they’ve never tried it, so they don’t really know that they don’t like it. It’s an experience that they have never been able to have, so they really don’t know how useful it is. The disappointing thing is that thanks to Apple, they may never know.

Windows Tablets are still far from perfect, but due to the lack of a digitiser they are still far more useful than the iPad appears to be.

To give you an example, I spent the weekend in a conference. I took notes through the entire full day session on a Motion Computing C5 tablet on one battery. That included scribbled notes, mind maps, sketches, drawings and audio. Windows indexed all of my handwritten content in the background so that I can search through it… which I often do.

Another example, when a customer calls on the phone, I have my Tablet PC open with Microsoft OneNote and our enquiry form template. I fill in the details we discuss without distracting the person on the other end from the conversation with the noise of frantic key tapping. It’s much faster to note take this way than on the keyboard anyway.

When I go to a meeting with a customer, I always take notes and fill in the answers to my questions so that my sales process does not rely on tatty notebooks, sticky notes and lost paper.

I often take screen shots of things like web pages, pictures, documents and videos, then scribble on them and email them off using the Microsoft Snipping Tool.

I never print letters of faxes that I have to sign. I just sign on the screen and email them straight back using Bluebeam or Word.

Digital note taking, sketching and drawing is all impractical on a device like the iPhone or iPad. There are no tools to do it with… Sure, you could use the brushes application shown at the iPad launch to draw with your finger… But that’s a bit like drawing with a blunt stick. Practically useless when compared to using a Tablet PC with a Wacom active digitiser – Which is both proximity and pressure sensitive, while your touch screen is neither.

No, there are only 2 things that have held Windows based Tablet PCs back from going where Apple is about to go (and I’m not talking about UMPCs here).

1. Price – iPad is cheap in comparison
2. Availability – iPad will be available to get your hands on in most places.

Windows Tablets did not take a huge hit today, because Apple decided to play it safe. Did Apple fall into the old corporate trap of too many focus groups, too many committees, too many meetings, too many voices of fear in the back of their heads? They played it safe and just supersized an existing product… I don’t think that’s going to fly.

This is not the mobile phone scenario where windows mobile is being seriously spanked by the iPhone. Phones are pretty much a closed system, whereas Windows Tablets leverage the 92% of computers in the world that run Windows, not to mention the fact that they can connect to and access practically any server be that Windows, *nix or Mac.

That said, if Microsoft et al don’t act – and be seen to act – it may be only a matter of time until history is rewritten by Apple.

Remember the first iPhone? With no 3G, no video, no app store? Apple won’t stand still with a seriously deficient product like this until it becomes a seriously useful product like the iPhone 3Gs.

The release of the Apple iPad this morning threatened to impress. It looks great – as expected like a big iPhone. 1.3cm thick, 700grams, impressive screen. Super mobile computing!

But I had hoped for something game changing. I had hoped that Apple would bring something new to the slate form factor with some radical new input method like mind control or eye tracking… Something that was just out there!

Coming down off of the high of finally meeting the unicorn (Apple Tablet has been a myth for 5 years now), I am starting to feel a little disappointed.

One of the biggest benefits of having a tablet is input. Taking notes, drawing, handwriting recognition. Apple iPad has none of that. It even appears to have kept the same virtual keyboard as the iPhone – which is good enough for a 3 inch screen, but hardly ideal for a 10” one.

On the iPhone, input is frustrated by constant switching form letters to numbers to symbols and it appears that Apple haven’t really even addressed this with their legendary innovation… Nothing.

In the end, it appears that we’ll have to wait for MS and partners to come back with a decently priced super mobile digitizer tablet that handles handwriting recognition, sketching and note taking. At the end of the day they already have all that right now, but just not at the right price!

So it turns out that the Apple iPad is a consumption device for consumers. Disappointing.

Seth Godin confirmed tomorrow’s release of Apple Tablet on his blog this morning…

I want to be the very first author to announce a new project for Apple’s tablet.

He adds,

Steve Jobs will probably never speak to me again for announcing before his launch. That’s okay, he never speaks to me anyway.

It’s not really news, but it’s still interesting… As is the Vook Video / Book reading platform that is referred to in the post.

Read it here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/jumping-the-gun.html

I got a chance to get up close with the Kindle 2 over the holidays… Until recently, that’s been pretty hard to do here in Australia.

My verdict: Super impressed!

The eInk screen is very comfortable to read, although I didn’t get a chance to use it in the sun (as it rained in QLD pretty much the whole time).

What I like about the Kindle 2:

• Super thin
• Very light – easy to hold for long periods of time
• Easy to read
• Long battery life…

What I don’t like about the Kindle 2:

• Still very limited selection of titles in Australia. It’s getting better, but still not good enough
• Scrolling control / jog dial – could take a lesson from the old HP TC1100 jog dial
• Lack of touch input
• Device is locked in Apple style…

Pros outweigh the cons as far as I’m concerned. The Kindle 2 will do much to attract people to e-reading.

What I’m really excited about is the prospect of using a Tablet PC or UMPC that fills this form factor. No, I don’t want it to run some dumbed down mobile phone OS like Google Chrome or Windows Mobile either… I want full Windows on it. I want it to replace my desktop like my Motion J3400 does… Can’t wait for that – It’s only a matter of time.

Every article I read about Tablet PCs in mainstream IT press seems to want label the Tablet PC as a failed concept. As I watch significant numbers of Tablet PCs walk out the door every month in our business, I chuckle every time I hear about it… Of course, even I’m old enough to know that it’s all happened before…

Into Personal Computing History…

In its current form, the PC mouse is now 42 years old, but it is really only 25 years since it went mainstream with the Apple Macintosh – 1984… Here’s what a respected PC journalist had to say about that:

"The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation – as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices."

John C. Dvorak – Commenting on the mouse that came with the Apple Macintosh, San Francisco Examiner, 19 February 1984

That pretty much sums up the way the tech journos  write about Tablets and UMPCs today…

Like the switch from keyboard to the mouse, most people will initially resist the change… I still know people who hate the mouse so much that they continue to operate completely without one.

That said, even I was still using PCs without a mouse well into the 90’s (we had PCs at home, not Macs). Nowadays, it would be practically impossible to work without a mouse (barring touch and pen input of course!).

I believe that the adoption of Touch and tablet technology is similar. Digital pen technology has been around in a commercial form for 20 years now, but it really hit the mainstream in 2001 (2006 for UMPC). So it’s been 9 years and things are getting exciting for a couple of reasons:

1. Better hardware – outdoor / indoor screens, capacitive touch, low power processors, mobile broadband access.
2. Better software – Windows 7, multi-touch, Android, better handwriting recognition and ink enabled apps like Microsoft Office.

So the Tablet will continue to gain ground as  an accepted mainstream form of computing.

However, it won’t play out exactly the same. That’s because tablets are most useful in mobile scenarios, whereas the mouse could be used practically on a desktop. Practical Tablet PC use also has much higher software and processing requirements – like handwriting recognition and virtual keyboard input.

That means that unlike the mouse which is now attached to practically every PC, tablets will probably never gain that sort of presence. Additionally, they will take longer to gain mainstream acceptance.

Apple will have a good crack at it this year… like they did with the mouse, with the release of some sort of Tablet. But like the much like the mouse, they probably won’t be able to change the market overnight.

Also, if Apple do adopt touch input on a PC – as the mouse has taught us – it does not mean that Apple will ultimately own the market.

I’ve been using an intro sequence on my YouTube videos for www.tabletpc.com.au, and I wasn’t really happy with it. After some feedback from the audience, I decided to pose the question on whether to use them or not to Cameron Bailey aka Cam the Cameraman. Here is his response:

If you’re doing your own video production, you should subscribe to Cam the Cameraman’s YouTube channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/camthecameraman

A  very good series screened on ABC (Australia) recently called Addicted to Money. If you want to be prepared for the future, I highly recommend that you get a copy and watch it. It is a commentary on the Global Financial Crisis that looks into history – both financial and social – and shows how predictable it actually was.

Segue into my education soapbox and you will see – particularly in the last episode of the series – a great indictment of the education system (and for that matter every other part of modern western civilisation).

The episode points out that the “finest minds,” the most “educated” (should it say schooled?) people on the planet were not able to predict the financial crisis.

In the big crunch, the pinnacle institutions, the biggest brand names of modern schooling all lost their shirts in the GFC. For example, according to the series the credit crunch cost:

• Harvard 11 billion dollars
• Stanford 30% of its value
• Oxford more than 100 million pounds.

Quoted on this fact, Professor Robert Reich, Former US secretary of labour said of the “brightest minds” who were in charge at the time, “They were not wise, they were not talented. In fact, they were quite stupid!”

According to the series, the so called “smartest guys in the world” hadn’t a clue that the credit crunch was imminent.

In fact Professor Ian Goldin quoted in the documentary pointed out, “the overwhelming majority, I’d say 99% of the profession, didn’t see the economic crisis coming… one has to wonder about the profession.”

If these guys couldn’t get it right, then what hope is there for the rest of the schooled masses? Of course, even successful street smart investors like Warren Buffet got caught out too. However, there were people predicting the GFC, like the schooled and educated (experienced) Marc Faber.

Back before 2007 Marc Faber, looking at conditions, financial and history cycles predicted the end of the credit bubble.

In 2006 Marc Faber said on ABC Inside Business about the boom market at the time:

It doesn’t change the fact that it is an imbalanced boom and it’s driven largely by credit creation in the US, leading to overconsumption, leading to a growing trade deficit, current account deficit, the accumulation of reserves in Asia and a global boom. But it is nevertheless an imbalanced boom and one day there will be a problem, certainly with the US dollar. The US dollar is a doomed currency.

There were others too, but they are in the minority of public investment commentators.

I guess my gripes with the education system are only a tiny part of the problem. The existence of an mass education system like ours is just one of the symptoms of an empire in decline.

Perhaps it is just one of the great excesses of an empire at its greatest heights to believe that its great wealth was due to scientific management of people, rather than the hard work, effort and cooperation of.

Schooled western countries such as America and Australia are being brought to bear by the so-called uneducated peasants of China and India. In reality, what they are is un-schooled, not un-educated. And as their rapidly growing economic power shows being un-schooled is certainly not a bad thing to aspire to.

I’m riding the train this morning for the first time since connex was ousted and new company “Metro” took over operating Melbourne trains. Things are not looking up…

I’m seriously considering never taking the train again thanks to metro’s new station announcements. Instead of just announcing “now arriving at (station name here),” the bright marketing folks at Metro have decided to brand the arrival announcement “metro now arriving at…”

This is the most stupid and irritating branding idea I have ever heard. It is unbeleiveably annoying! I’m thinking of getting off the train!

The reality is that I just want to catch the train. It needs to arrive on time and get me there on time. I couldn’t give a flying #%^* who operates the train. I can’t wait for an alternately branded train to come along (how I wish I could right now!). So why the hell do I need to be subjected to your incompetent attempts at branding Metro?

I’ve heard the word metro 15 times already this morning… How long will it take for someone to go postal on this thing???