Singers' view on the world

[quote]

Apples tablet the iPad is announced and the whole world is waiting for its release in March 2010. The iPad is running a modified version of the iPhone OS 3.2 and the iPad SDK has been released to developers around the world. The usual fight between people who like the product and others who doesn’t see any future in the product, has begun. It has always been like that with Apple products and it was exactly the same back when the iPod was first introduced. Something is missing in the iPad though.

History

I’ve always thought about getting a tablet or some kind of touchscreen device for taking notes at school. I like to have all my notes stored digitally so I can easily search and reorder them, but one of the downsides of digital notes is when you need to draw figures – it’s just not the same as drawing them by hand. I personally think OneNote does a pretty great job as a note-taking/storing application but it’s only for Windows and I have no plans to install Windows 7 just so I can run OneNote. I’ve tried quite a few drawing applications for Mac OS X but just haven’t found one that I really like yet. So what do I do when I have to draw a figures – well it depends on the situation but I would do one these things:

1. Draw them on a piece of paper and then make a reference to the paper, put it in a folder where they are all ordered. This kind of works but it’s annoying that you have to switch from MacBook to folder to MacBook and so on.
2. Draw them as good as I can in some kind of drawing/painting application.
3. Get a screendump from a Windows user with OneNote – they usually look okay
4. I guess I could take a picture of the presentation/figure.
5. Draw it on a piece of paper and then scan it into my notes program on my MacBook – takes a lot of time

There is some solutions to this problem, Livescribe for example is a great little product. It’s a pen which records what you draw and write and then you can download the content onto you computer with the Livescribe application. Sounds pretty great but a little expensive and there is some limitations.
I’ve had a little drawing app on my iPhone 2G(Silverback) since I first bought it back in 2007 and I’m really impressed by how sensitive and precise the touchscreen really is. Clearly the iPhone screen is way too small for serious note-taking and handwriting recognition.

Touchscreen enabled device

I really love using touchscreen devices because most of them are so intuitive and easy to use. As Scott Forstall states:

“If you see something[on a website], you just reach out and tap it. It’s completely natural, you don’t even think about it. You just do!”

It’s so true and I feel exactly the same way about multitouch-screens, you really just do what comes natural to you. If you want to zoom you pinch; if you want to move a picture you move your finger around, just like you would do with physical objects.

Now just for a moment imagine you are in a class or a meeting and someone presents you with a figure and you would like the have this jotted down on your computerm but you don’t have any applications that does this the way you would like to. Now with a multitouch-screen tablet computer, like the iPad, it would be so easy and intuitive. Just look at how Apple made a iPad version of their iWork suite, they fitted it for multitouch control/navigation. As you probably saw in Apple Keynote January 27th the iWork apps were so easy to use and probably even a small kid could use the applications successfully.

I still can’t understand why Apple didn’t “redesign, reimagine, rebuild” the Notes.app – that application is not even doing a good job on the iPhone and this was the perfect change to upgrade it. They could have implemented handwriting recognition and a bunch of other things, it wouldn’t even be that hard to do. They didn’t and that’s why I want you developers out there to start developing a great note-taking application for the iPad.

iPad application mockup/sketch/concept/idea

I was saddened that this doesn’t already exist because if it did I would imagine that every student around the world would want it on their iPads. The first developer that deciphers the code of note-taking applications and makes an awesome iPad note taking application is going to be a very successful iPhone OS developer. For me this application just comes by as natural and I’m still surprised Apple didn’t do this themselves.

Now I’m not a graphic designer at all so that’s why this mockup isn’t a graphic beauty but more like a sketch or a jot down of my idea and thoughts. I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this but as far as I know no one has a ready application or anything so.

Now if any of you Graphic Designers out there feel like doing a great concept mockup then please feel free to do it. If you do make a mockup then please contact me and I’ll show it here – as it will probably represent the idea a lot better than the thing of horror that I did.

Think of the application as a iPad version of OneNote but of course with a lot better design and features. I like how intuitive and easy OneNote is to use and this application should be the same. Ability to place text and figures wherever you want to, it doesn’t have to include handwriting recognition but it would be a great feature. It seems that Apple have been working on some kind of handwriting recognition but that might just be for their Chinese users. The Newton even used handwriting as input so we know they have somekind of technology – but why aren’t they using it?

The demo of Brushes[iTunes] at the Apple Keynote a couple of days ago was fantastic and this just shows what developers are able to do on this new product. An application that uses some of the same features and techniques would be really cool.

(20 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)

 Loading ...