Comment by corporalagumbo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by corporalagumbo | Hacker News Reader

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"The pen really has me confused. It would be awesome if it did more than it does. I am a little surprised to realize there is no preinstalled software that transcribes handwriting into written notes nor does any Office application do that."

I feel like hits on a big problem for Microsoft. They've come up with a whole bunch of fancy new gizmos (Metro, Surface) - but it's all resting on top of a mountain of random legacy cruft, and they haven't tied it together or done anything really to iron out the weird inconsistencies. Great, here's a brilliant pressure-sensitive pen. What? No, we haven't made anything for you to use it with. Nope, sorry, no accommodations for it in the OS. Sorry man - too busy coming up with crazy new shit (and slapping it onto small portions of the interface)!

I'm using Windows 8 now, and, mixed with Windows Phone 7.5, Outlook.com, attempts to integrate calendar and to-do lists, being forced to use the monstrosity that is the Zune phone software, I have to say, holy shit Microsoft - time to do some spring cleaning. I really hope instead of charging on to the next big thing, Microsoft focuses on consolidation for Windows 9 - delving in to all the random nooks and crannies, clearing out the legacy cruft, unifying the interface, smoothing out the inconsistencies between Metro and Desktop, streamlining their mobile-desktop integration, streamlining their web services. Otherwise, god, how much longer can they go on coming up with the new Next Bestest Thing to mash into the pile of random crap that Windows has become?

> The pen really has me confused. It would be awesome if it did more than it does.

This reviewer is (admittedly) clueless about OneNote, which basically has its own cult following. He also doesn't seem to be the kind to be heavily using a "poor man's Cintiq." I look forward to a review from one or both of those groups. Yes, a stylus is kind of niche. It's not exactly obscure, either, though. I'd like to see reviewers go into detail about graphics and design related programs.

My wife used the original version of Onenote back in the day on her Toshiba Portege tablet convertible. After picking up the Surface I called her up (she was working on a Saturday, yuck!) to ask, "So, uh, does Onenote actually recognize handwriting or what?" I described the silly assumption I had made that Onenote might have a mode for transcribing handwritten notes as-you-write and she laughed at me.

Good thing the pen wasn't a chief deciding factor. I thought it would be awesome. It's not.

Maybe in the future. The pen hardware seems solid.

I described the silly assumption I had made that Onenote might have a mode for transcribing handwritten notes as-you-write and she laughed at me.

OneNote, or more accurately, Office, does have this feature. I used it quite a bit in law school on my HP TouchSmart tm2 (a tablet/laptop hybrid that comes with a stylus and which predates the iPad). It's enabled in the Office Language Settings bar/menu.

OneNote also has an OCR function which can convert images into text (but not in realtime). It's only as good as the legibility of the image to be converted.

Are you referring to the black handwriting panel that you can switch to from the virtual keyboard? If so, yes, someone else pointed that out and that's nearly what I had in mind. I'm going to have to give it a test run to see if I can use it efficiently enough.

That said, my delusional/fictional Onenote--the application I had in mind when I thought, "Surface Pro pen + note application = awesome" was one that converted text scribbled on the page into digital text in-place as I wrote.

It may end up being a mostly academic difference, of course. I look forward to testing the black handwriting panel.

Isn't onenote for metro a free download from the windows store?

I tried to get my wife interested in the tablet PC (I have a Samsung tablet running win8 with a waccom digitizer), but she says its kind of small for sketching and the hand obscures the screen anyways, not as good as her Intuos; she has never tried an Cintiq.

It is a free download. It's pretty slick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kownnnxs7eI There has been a pen input method since Vista at least.

Yes, this review was obviously written with very little research. On the one hand this, pen input works very nice since XP tablet edition. Even in windows phone 6, pen input was very advanced. On the other hand, the reviewer asks about how apps are closed. You can either swipe from top and drop it down, or on the left swipe you get open apps and can right-click/tap continuously to get contextual menu and close.

A review with not much research is still a valid review - namely on what even somewhat technically savvy users aren't able to intuitively find out about Windows 8 usage. See also the inability to close metro/new-style/whatever apps. I didn't find that out myself when I tried Win8 for 10min or so. And it's not like killing those apps isn't necessary like on iOS, since the behavior changes when they are open, i.e. Windows button doesn't switch to Desktop anymore.

I am not questioning the validity of the review. But it is a review that demonstrates how things look to a totally new user in her/his first hours with the OS. I am myself a somewhat technical savvy user and could not find these things out initially with Windows 8. I believe that it takes about one week to get used to. Not that bad. But if this one week is too much for the eventual adoption it remains to be seen. Not killing the apps still gets you to the start screen, though. It is only that if you press it twice it gets you back to the application. Some of these things seem intuitive (i.e. like clicking start twice in previous windows versions, or pressing the start button twice, was opening the start menu and closing it again.)

See, the root of the problem with the start screen behavior for me is that the desktop is treated like a metro app. It's true that you can get used to this, but I'm pretty sure it's one hell of a stretch for 'normal' users. It just looks and works too differently from metro apps and you don't get any kind of benefit, since for example the charms don't work and there is no additional touch integration.

Additionally, the non-techy user is most likely never going to research how to get around their frustrations. First impressions and all that.

Somewhat agree with that too. Actually the non-techy user is likely to flood the techy with questions, until they get to the speed of use they are used to. Some will never close their applications or will do it once in a while from task manager. But, as non-techies, they will not even consider downgrading back to windows 7, either.

Thank you for posting the video, wbkang. I'm going to give that a try.

As you can imagine, I jotted all of this down as a first-impressions stream of consciousness.

As a pen-input newbie, I wasn't even aware the virtual keyboard had a pen mode. That's close to what I had in mind. I still find it bizarre that it's not more integrated with Onenote.

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