Scoble reports rumors of Mac Tablet


Abstract: Industry guru Bob Scoble reports new rumors of a MacTablet. I think this is sorely needed for education and I hope he is right.

(From a Starbucks in Ashland Oregon) I believe Tablets are way more than super PDA's or a laptop with pen input. Their vertical format is a big plus. This opens up a possibility that tablets could be a tool that could replace textbooks and enable textbooks to include time based media. IMHO the big problem with e-books as they were first implemented was that the traditional implementation of them on computers that included such non-book things as keyboards made them much less convenient than books.

Also, tablets could replace paper notepads. Paper notepads are still the standard note taking tool during class lectures. For a lot of folks paper note pads are a better way to take notes during lectures than laptop computers based upon keyboard input. Some people don’t keyboard as well as they type, plus keyboarding limits people to just text input. I think notepads can do for input what graphical displays did for output.

Lastly, I think that tablets could replace laptops. They include the ability to do what laptops do and so much more.

I think tablets are real "disruptive technology" that just needs evangelism to take off. I think this is going to happen with or without Apple. I hope Apple does a tablet because I love Apples and I’d hate to have to switch from them for my portable computing needs.

Posted: Sun - August 15, 2004 at 03:06 PM      

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