Samsung Launches Galaxy Note 10.1 With Impressive Features
techpp.com
techpp.com
Also, once the App Store opened, I think we would have seen a zillion straightforward ports of applications that did not work with a finger at all.
Now, times may have changed. Perhaps, customers are savvy enough to see which apps work nicely with fingers, and which require a stylus.
On the other hand, there are a lot of people who wonder whether Microsoft makes the right choice with Surface, giving developers the choice between TUFKAM (The UI formerly known as Metro) and supplying straight ports of Windows apps.
Steve also said that native apps weren't needed because Web apps would be just as good.
Are you sure about that? My completely unscientific anecdote is that people buy the galaxy note for it's size, but end up never using the stylus at all. I see a lot of galaxy notes in the wild, but never seen someone who actually used the pen. People usually tell me they tried, found it terrible and gave up.
Are my anecdotes too off? Are you guys seeing something different? Maybe someone has some good data on this?
That said, one of the things I really liked about the iREX Illiad (RIP) is that it used an honest to god Wacom stylus digitizer. That can capture tilt, pressure, and doesn't require a conductive connection between your finger and the tip. I've argued for a while that blending the two would provide a really useful combination.
The Wacom only allowed single touch so using capacitive touch as 'modifier' keys would allow for combined intent+action type things.
When i hear stylus I think of a tiny plastic pen that exists because interface designers didn't want to know how to make finger friendly ui and hardware. At the time there had been many devices (anyone remember the ipaq?) where users were stuck in tap the tiny menu options with a plastic stick hell and I think that's what jobs was rightly slamming.
But a true pressure and tilt sensitive pen in addition to touch is a fantastic idea. Browsing, viewing, navigating are much better done with touch but writing and drawing can be better with a pen. There's a reason the masterworks of art aren't all finger paintings. Sometimes an intermediate tool is best but only in the right context.
Screenshot: http://cdn.techpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Capture1.jp...
That keyboard looks like someone took the iPad keyboard and beat it with an ugly stick a little bit. What makes this especially sad is that the default Android keyboard is really good and they should have just used that, but in an attempt to "differentiate" they basically just badly copied the iPad.
As much as I dislike Apple for the current lawsuit mess, I'm starting to dislike Samsung just as much because unlike most of the rest of the Android ecosystem Samsung clearly DO have a problem with badly copying Apple's design elements to a confusingly similar degree which gives an unfortunate truth to at least some of Apple's claims which then makes it harder for the layman to see when Apple is overstepping.
Fix your shit, Samsung. Hire a couple of real designers.
Maybe even the G1 took hints from iOS, but I'd be dubious to believe Apple created or holds any merits over much of their design(s). Does Samsung lift Apple designs? I think so. Does Apple own much of the designs they have legal documents over? I think not.
I don't believe this is about confusing customers; I think it is about closing the gap with customer awareness. I'd love for most of these interfaces to share common grounds; I think it is a large reason to why Windows, OSX, and GNU/Linux <insert GUI> are so fragmented and unfamiliar to those that have to or are looking to move between platforms.
Sadly, the resemblance of the keyboard is going to be what generates the most discussion, not the new (and very impressive) features.
[1]: experienced eyes will spot readily that it's much uglier, and waaay less polished.
This "there's no other way to do an X" argument is getting really tiring. I don't really care about this Apple vs Samsung nonsense (let the judge decide) but i think theres pretty strong evidence that you can do innovative and creative design if you put yourself to the task.
I've spent a lot of time with Windows Tablet PCs and latency issues aside, they have excellent recognition capabilities, even reading my slop. Aside from latency, it would also help to get the digitizer physically closed to the actual display elements.
I'd kill for an iPad with a truly high-resolution digitizer. It would finally replace carrying a thin stack of index cards everywhere.
At the time I was expecting Samsung would follow Apples lead and ship updates for years to come. Instead... nothing.
I'm going to stick with Apple from now on.
$750 (list $800) for a 16 GB 3G version.