As a daily fighter in the paperless revolution, I am always on the lookout for new and exciting technologies that bring about the end of wasteful paper uses. You know, those endless copies of documents and reports that clutter up our desks, lives and landfills.
There are the common solutions that I stand behind, like using a desktop or laptop computer leveraging a wide range of desktop document management applications and supporting integration with tools like the iPhone. But, as good as these solutions are, there are drawbacks. What if you don’t use a computer all the time? That laptop can be a bear to carry around all the time. That 2 hours of battery life only gets you so far. The iPhone is a great way to manage portable documents, but it really only is a 3″ screen. Reviewing a document with a coleauge or client can be a challenge. Then, you can only read documents, not edit or mark-up.
Any Star Trek fans out there? Remember in the original series, some type of clerk would always bring Captain Kirk that digital clip board? Some have speculated that the realization of this device was the Tablet PC. I think not. I don’t believe that this device was a full out computer with a touch screen. That is overkill in the actual application of this idea. If the main application of this device is only to review and annotate documents, then why do I need a device as powerful as a full laptop?
What if there was a device that was more like reading a real document? Something that was light weight, portable and robust. A device that provides an application specific solution. What if there was a device that would allow me to upload hundreds of documents and take up no more room then a standard folder? Some of you may be saying, “What about Amazon’s Kindle?” Come on, the Kindle? Really?
Enter Plastic Logic. This one really blew me away. Not only are they bringing a concept to market, but they also created the supporting software and the actual product hardware. Take that Microsoft. These guys made an LCD device that is flexible, light weight and amazingly resilient. A device that is the size of a traditional document and is readable in almost any lighting situation, even bright sunlight. This reader even supports features like markup and has a touch keyboard for attaching notes.
Watch the video and see for yourself. Laptops, tablet PCs, future ideas for a MacTouch, all these ideas are great, but the idea of having a device that could contains multiple full manuals, technical documents, schematics, etc . . . all in a robust, damage proof, portable and light weight device. That is gold my friend. Gold.
His initial statement that Apple has ’stopped’ with the iPhone is laughable. History has shown very clear that when Apple introduces a new idea to the market, they need to give that product as much attention as possible to ensure it’s success, but that does not mean that they have stopped there. If that were true, they would still be trying to sell us the Newton. After all, the iPhone is really the Newton v2.0. But we will leave that kind of product development to the other guys.
I agree with his next statement that a multi-touch touchpad on a laptop is not revolutionary. But what I feel Apple is doing there is trying to bring a new UX to the laptop but not trying to force an experience into a UI environment that it was not built for. Why duplicate the mistakes of the tablet PC?
Really, the thing that makes the iPhone compelling and all other ’smart’ phones lame is the User Interface was clearly designed to match the User Experience. Apple did what no other company could do before, but created a fluid user experience that would resonate with users. They just didn’t replace the mouse click with a finger tap, they re-engineered the whole experience of human user interaction.
Clearly, the failure of the tablet PC and smart phones was the assumption that they could simply replace the mouse with a metal stick. Not very innovative. The UI is no different from a mouse interactive application. There is even a little pointer that follows the metal stick! Wow, revolutionary! NOT!
With the iPhone, Apple killed the mouse. In a handheld device, this is easier to pull off as the experience is more focused. A users tasks are more centralized. One window or application at a time. All actions are performed sequentially and independent. This is great for an iPhone, but not for a laptop.
One thing I feel that was lost with the iPhone UX is that it is Device Centric, versus User Centric. This always forces a user to circle back to a single start point to move forward versus always being able to move forward. I can’t tell you how many times I have read an email, clicked a link to go to Safari, but when I am done with that web page, I have to click the home button to tap the Email icon to get back to where I was before. Then my issues with email, the fact that when I am in an email folder and want to move to another, god forbid another account, I have to tap back-back-back, then forward-forward-forward.
I do consider the iPhone the first Beta application of what is to come. And I think that there are great things to come. Things that may even address my petty issues.
In order to really perfect a product, you need to get it out in the market. You need to allow the market to speak clearly about what is good and bad. But of course Apple’s Betas are so wonderful that most people consider this the final product. But I don’t think so. Apple has used the iPhone as a spring board to bring innovations to the market what few have thought about or have the vision to achieve.
But for a whole computer to adopt a real touch user experience, this is an exceptional challenge and one that requires careful thought and planning. Where MS failed is where Apple needs to succeed. And simply introducing a laptop what tries to replace the mouse with a finger and not develop the experience to go with that would be as much of a failure as the Moto ROKR. A clear example where Apple took the short road to the market. Bad apple, bad . . . .
What do I think that the TouchBook will look like?
I see a device that flips open like a macbook, but the entire space is touch. No standard keyboard, no track pad, etc . . See, where this experience needs to succeed is that the interaction of the human and the machine needs to be as natural as possible. That means allowing the UX to be fluid, three dimensional, spacial and relational. You will be able to push things in the background (far away) and be able to bring things forward. As you choose one action, related actions are brought up to the front.
Really, to make this a reality, Apple not only needs to reinvent the OS, but there will need to be significant investment from software developers. This would be the first revolutionary UX advancement since the invention of a window and a mouse click.
Do I think that Microsoft has an opportunity to gain ground?
Hell no! The fact that people consider MS gaining ground with the big ass table is laughable. Their execution is along the same lines as what HP did with their new touch desktop. All they are giving is a simple software application that sits on top of the same old crappy Windows that we have had for decades. Yes, decades.
What is so revolutionary about that? Nothing I say. Until you unlock the potential of the whole OS to a touch world, simply putting ‘touch’ applications on top is nothing to claim victory over.
I imagine that when Apple releases the TouchBook, this will be a revolutionary device where the human interaction is unparalleled. Or at least I hope.