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Comment by hashberry | Hacker News Reader

My tablet has been replaced by my Chromebook for everyday usage. I like my keyboard and not having to "set up" the screen for viewing. With a tablet you have to hold it in your hands or get a fancy case or prop it up against something. And I cannot escape my love for the tactile keyboard! Does anyone actually enjoy writing and editing emails or comments on a tablet versus a keyboard?

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Touchscreens have one big win over keyboards: they can work with any language. Never great, but always better than the wrong keyboard. For instance I'm currently writing on a Japanese keyboard: I cannot write in French with it because I cannot input accents in an acceptable manner.

I could get away with either an American or a French keyboard, but I have none at hand (well, technically there is one, but an accident involving a cup of coffee makes it only useful to write text without the letters 'u', 'i', 'o' and 'p'). So when I need to write French I write it on my iPhone and email it to myself, then copy-paste...

Pretty niche use-case, I admit.

Sure, I write most of my HN comments on my iPhone or iPad. It'll work better when Apple fixes that completion bug. My girlfriend no longer even uses her Mac, she just reaches for the iPad.

Anyway, we could exchange anecdotal stories all day. A quarter of a billion tablets is still pretty good. They sell 50 million more PCs? It's really only a matter of time. If Apple doesn't evolve the tablet, Microsoft will.

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