Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A few observations from a few more days with the iPad. You touch the iPad with your hands, even with dirty hands. Handwriting recognition software is one of the apps that could change everything.

A few more impressions after a few more days with the iPad.

The number 1 question:

What can that thing do?

I don’t recall the last time anyone asked me that question about any other computer I was using. This means something, I am not sure what, but it means something.

Something my wife told me while we were in the kitchen with the iPad:

I can’t touch it, I have flour on my hands.

I didn’t start a discussion of how it is made of glass and aluminum. In hindsight, I should have as all the cooking utensils she was using are made of glass and aluminum and we have no trouble cleaning those. It seems that a “computer” is something that you only touch when your hands are clean. The iPad is touchable with dirty hands. Hmmm, that may mean something. I wonder if Apple or anyone else has done testing in harsh environments (dust, dirt, rain, mud, humidity). The buttons, connectors, and speaker openings don’t appear to be weather sealed, but …

And then there is software.

Computers always come back to software as software has been the defining characteristic of computers since the 1960s. The early Apple II computer “made it” in the marketplace by the creation of the VisiCalc spreadsheet. The iPhone app store made the iPhone work. We are waiting for the good apps for the iPad.

What we need is handwriting software. I have yet to find handwriting recognition software for the iPad. If I am missing something here, please let me know. My daughter-in-law was looking at the iPad Sunday. She is in her early 20s, and the first question she asked was:

Can I write on this with my finger?

The next question was:

Does it have a stylus?

Hmmm, one of the more interesting things I read about the iPad this week was this piece by Tim Bray. He discussed the handwriting on the glass and ended with this comment:

OK, I’ll make a prediction. The most important way that the tablet is different from the computer is that it’s optimized for analog, not digital, input. Whatever the applications are that are best driven in an analog way, those are the ones that will drive the tablet ecosystem.

That makes sense. If a Doctor can sign a chart, if a Fireman can initial a page, if a coach can draw a play, and on and on all with dirty fingers in the rain and muck and sweat and all those other things that keep all those other computers out of sight…then maybe these pads and tablets and slates can stop being computers and start being common appliances, like the glass and aluminum utensils my wife uses in the kitchen.