Rumors of an Apple Mac tablet are circling the news media again. Its a little annoying because I think this would be a great product.
Apple has been sitting on some really nice handwriting recognition software for awhile - all the way back to the Newton days! And their smashing success with the iPhone should bode well for more consumer friendly products.
If I were the head of product development, I'd be working on a tablet that was kind of like a mix between the Amazon Kindle, the iPhone, and the original Newton:
- A really long battery life (Kindle)
- Lightweight and easy to travel with (all three)
- Easy to watch and listen to media on (iPhone)
- A document reader (Kindle)
- Wifi and mobile networking (Kindle and iPhone)
I've always found typing on hand-held devices like the Blackberry or even a Netbook to be very difficult. With something sub-compact, I'd really like to use a stylus for handwriting. The Nokia n800 used one, but the handwriting recognition just wasn't that good. It worked for sure, but I often opted for the virtual keyboard instead.