I don't think they hate the tablet pc so much as are disappointed that Windows 7 doesn't seem to be leading with a much leaner kernel/OS. I think they're have already been interviews with the designers that this version will build off of Vista, a prospect that thrills almost no one.

As someone who uses and enjoys the "niche" Tablet abilities of the OS, I can safely say that most people are not that inspired by touch interface. The keyboard has conquered all, in productivity circles. I'm ok with it being a novelty I enjoy rather than pretending it's filled with untapped innovation for all forms of private and financial matters.

Have I mentioned how mainstream media is produced by deskbound typists who work entirely in text? Yeah, that's why they hate Tablet PCs.

The article said it itself ". . . sits on a desk".
Nobody needs tablet or touch if they are chained to a desk.
Amongst mobile users, I have yet to inspire envy when I start using my tablet . . . and THEN to hook up to a projector an DRAW PICTURES - that just puts them over the edge!

Because Steve Jobs hasn't told them that Tablets are cool.

--

MS is really, really missing a trick by not turning their lead in inking, handwriting recognition, etc. into system requirements for new portable computers. People want XP instead of Vista? Fine, sell XP Tablet PC Edition as the only version of XP and require U*PCs to have at least touch screens if not active/passive/multi-touch.

heh, i was thinking about the apple angle to. if apple rolled out a tablet it would be a must have feature for all future computers.

also, i suspect that they cant envision a screen on a non-vertical angle. ms surface was flat. nice as table but lacking as work area. and the win7 demo was done on a tx in laptop config of all things?!

show them a drawing board done using multi-touch and they may get it. but again, only if it runs osx...

UMPCs have failed. Tablet PCs are niche vertical market PCs. Most people don't need or want Tablet PCs. They won't pay more for touch screens.

there's still support for the platform from OEMs, unfortunately not in one area, being that of making more tablet's that have larger screens. 13.3 or 14 on laptops that have LV or standard voltage processors. I think that would make them easier to accept, since many folks I talk with I'd love to get them to buyin a tablet, but when they need more performance, they're a bit limited, especially with many OEMs putting in ULV processors. I really think the OEMs need to step up here, and quite fankly just make the digitizer standard, and maybe the touch an option. You can always put standard XP professional or remove the tablet features in Vista if you don't want to use them and use up resources.
I will say once difference I see in those that us them and those that don't, tend to be the folks that spend a lot of time in meetings, training, school, etc, and really like having the option to write. I'm finding many users out there that run around with their paper notebooks or have post its all over there office are easy to convince if you show them how it can help them.
With MS, I'd say they're doing a decent job with the OS, but I think they're biggest shortcoming is frankly not showing the advantages and making the software standard that make the tablet standout. The first thing I tell folks about when I show them the tablet is OneNote. It practically sells the concept for me, and quite frankly, not only should be pimping that app, but should be including it for free on every tablet

The software programs are not tablet pc friendly.

There must be a way to incorporate keyboard shortcuts into a pen interface.

For me, tablet digitizer is faster for some programs that don't require much typing ei photoshop.
However, usijng in tablet mode without being able to use keyboard short cuts "alt+hold+click" for cloning for instance is an excersize in frustration.

I do like being able to use my laptop on my lap, without having to dig out a mouse, thus a smaller footprint.

I think the whole thing with Windows 7 having touch capabilities is what's frustrating many, including me.

As the article points out, it doesn't do a lick of good to have a desktop with touch capabilities since you are already in a position for typing (sitting down).

Touch is great at kiosks, checking on items, getting information in a store. But on Windows 7 that will be 90 - 98% desktop bound? No, this really isn't a great idea and does border on the ridiculous.

Like Steve said above, on mobile computers (tablets, UMPCs)? Absolutely! On the next main Windows OS that will probably be sitting on desks around the world? No, I'll pass until Windows 8.

I think Microsoft looked at multi-touch on smaller form factors like the iPhone and said "We can do that too." Problem is, they forgot the reason multi-touch is so cool on the iPhone is that people are already holding a small device with their hands, so touch is a natural.

Touch is not natural on the many thousands of PCs sitting in offices around the world, especially when you can't create a spreadsheet using touch.

I've been using touch in Excel for the last few days and it's great. And, like many other touch users, once you have integrated touch into your work...often in conjunction with a keyboard and mouse and/or touchpad...you find yourself impotently jabbing "dumb" screens on other computers, instantly feeling that you've backpedaled to a less elegant time. [actually I did that twice just now on this machine - a Tosh M7 - my day-to-day is a multi-touch Lenovo X61t]

It becomes very natural to use touch as a companion to keyboarding. No longer must you fumble for a mouse or stylus...or tap your pad to wake it up then nudge the cursor into place. You want something invoked?...You want the insert point shifted elsewhere in your docment?...You want the red queen on the black king? Touch it. Just like real life...remember that? Then, if necessary, hop back to the keyboard. Simple and natural.

[just poked this damn display for the 3rd time]
t

I've been wondering why I don't see students with tablets and UMPCs, and rarely with laptops in a convenient place. They used to keep a floppy in their bookbags, then flash drives. Now all I see are phones, some with qwerty keyboards, some not. Class over? Out come the cell phones. Take a break? Out come the cell phones. But for all the cells I see, maybe three times have I seen students whip out a phone to put something on a calendar or enter a reminder. One in fifty "gets" my tablet or UMPC.

I've seen textbook reps with tablets, but these devices were MADE for education, not just sales, and the students don't see it. As soon as I heard about tablets, I knew it was for me, and wished I'd done my whole college/grad school career with tablets instead of notebooks (paper, not laptops).

But it's absolutely true that I can't just hand someone the stylus and have them go to town with it. The right software has to be up, seem unobtrusive and integrate with mouse and keyboard, and be as fun as gaming. To me, that should be OneNote, but it looks too complicated, instead of looking fun. I rarely see it click with people that handwriting is searchable, which makes me think nobody puts in a paper notebook anything they ever expect to look at again.

I remember people saying if Dell jumps in, it'll take off. Dell jumped in in a way that nobody ever expected--or can afford.

But for that matter, I don't see people use computers to even a fraction of their value; most are clumsy with making use of the web, have no idea where to begin, what is available, or why they'd want to know. They don't know how big their hard drives are, and not because they're taking advantage of web 2.0 applications. They aren't happy or disappointed with Vista. And for all the cell phones a teenager has already gone through, they don't know what it can do beyond texting and ring tones.

And for heaven's sake, don't blame the schools. We geeks all learned this on our own because it's useful and interesting.

Tablets are a niche market--but so are all computers.

I think that several of the posts above really hit the nail on the head for this issue when they state that if a new Apple product came out showcasing the value of touch/pen interface on a laptop it would become an instant must-have. The "failure" of tablets to become mainstream is purely one of marketing, and it is just a case study in how Mac has ground-and-pounded Microsoft when it comes to showcasing new tech. Anyone with a 2 year old WM phone knows that their device is easily twice as powerful and expandable than an i-phone, yet the average person still perceives the i-phone as the "new-hotness." (anyone who wants to argue that the i-phone can match an HTC device for raw power and configurability can start by giving an example of one large company that uses i-phones as an enterprise solution, and then demonstrating an example of how multi-touch on a 3" screen increases productivity)

When it comes to laptops, price is not really the issue anymore with the latest business convertibles by Fujitsu and even the "entertainment" offering by HP. I paid just as much for my Lenovo "dumb" laptop as I did for my t2010 ($1400 US). When you can get a convertible tablet for the same price that does everything a standard lappy does with added functionality, even if that functionality only comes into play 10-20% of the time, and it still isn't a huge hit the finger must be squarely pointed at a marketing failure. IN a nutshell, the convertible platform is not a failure, there just has been a failure to make it look cool out of the box.

Case in point, over the last week my partners from the US came to China for a series of meetings concerning our current project. None of them had ever seen anyone use a tablet before. Over the last several days as they watched me use my fuji to take notes during meetings, pull up documents from my e-mail over GPRS, bluetooth to the projector and ink on them during a presentation, draw diagrams, swivel the screen for shared viewing, search notes from yesterdays meetings, mind-map with ink, then sync the fuji with my hermes and update the outlook items I had created with ink during note-taking and fire text messages to our staff....all off of a single battery that lasted an entire day with a computer that weighs 3.5lbs.....they were blown away and all three of them have called our tech guy in the states to order convertibles. As they fumbled with sheets of paper and ballpoints drying up, forgetting to bring the right notebook (my notes sync online automatically) etc. I looked incredibly organized and "slick" even though my file organization is atrocious (thank you search function). The benefits of using a tablet are obvious, they had just never seen it before.

If the OEM's or Microsoft would make a cool commercial out of my week, tablets would be an instant hit with business users,and I am sure that any number of students on this forum could describe an equally impressive academic usage scenario as well. Heck, just show a guy trying to use a standard laptop in a coach-class airplane seat next to a guy with a tablet. The slate form-factor is indeed a niche product with limited appeal, but the convertible tablet is an incredibly powerful device that can increase productivity for those who spend even 5-10% of their time away from a desk. And if you are spending 100% of your time at a desk, why are you shopping for laptops anyway?

There does seem to be some complacency around the Tablet PC. Mindjet have not updated their ink mode for 3 years. Vista Ink to Text is now much better than MindManager's Ink mode converter. Using pen flicks and TabTip works but is not as fluid as MindManager's gestures. Will Mindjet ever update it?

The failure of tablets is not purely one of marketing. As SAM said, most software is not tablet friendly. The reason multi-touch is such a success on iPhone is because the iPhone OS thoroughly integrates multi-touch into the user experience. Using it is smooth, intuitive, and natural. The UI was custom crafted to take multi-touch into account.

That simply hasn't been my experience with WinXP Tablet. There, for most programs, the pen is essentially a mouse. They do nothing to take advantage of the pen, or to take into account that your hand may be blocking parts of the screen. If you have want handwriting recognition, you have play "find and hit the tiny rectangle" to pop up a TIP. (Even worse, you have to know that you have to play this game.)

The few programs with interfaces designed specifically for tablets are nice. (e.g., they replace the pulldown menu with some sort of flick based circular menu.) But they are the exception, not the rule. Without many more of them (as well as thorough integration into the OS's UI), it's hard to demonstrate why using a tablet PC is better, as opposed to merely different (and occasionally more inconvenient since the software clearly wasn't expecting a pen or a finger rather than a mouse).

It hardly matters at this point. The tablet will become the dominant form factor within the next 5 to 10 years, and here is why.
For all of microsoft's bull-in-a-china-shop approach to the software industry since it became the behemoth that it is, it is still the dominant OS in the world by far.
Windows 7 will apparently have built in multi-touch.
It is not going to be convenient to be handling your screen while it sits open in notebook mode... it will just tip over, tip the screen out of position, etc...
Also, it provides limited viewing for multiple people.
No... the obvious way to use this is a tablet open on the desktop (or slate)... ala all the built in table tops with touch which have been much displayed of late.
It is useful? Yes.. I think so.
Will it change the world? To some minor degree, sure.
The big thing though is that it is major eye candy... it doesn't matter what it actually will do for people.
It is shiny and fun and just what sci-fi movies have shown for years and people will want it.
It will be there for delivery in THE major OS (whether people like it or not) for nothing but the cost of a touch screen added on to most every lap-top.
THIS IS the KILLER APP the tablet has been waiting for, for years now.
Doesn't matter what people do with it...

my two cents...
Mike

... to take my previous comment a step further.
This will not only make the tablet or slate the dominant mobile form factor of notebook size, it will also change the field for desktop monitors.
Lickity-split desktop monitors will start showing up with digitizers built in and surfaced for touch.

I think I will go check out the price of wacom stock, and maybe hedge it a little with n-trig.

- m

Why does the mainstream press dismiss the tablet? Because it is the Mainstream press. At the present time the tablet is not mainstream.

Why not? As many have pointed out (and as I believe) the tablet is ideal for students and for office workers whose job revolves around attending meetings, reviewing documents, and handling email.

The problem, in my mind, is that inking and touch have been developed, marketed, and seen as "and also" features. They are an add on to a keyboard centric software and hardware platform.

The one area where this was not the case was the PDA. Unfortunately, when Palm had the opportunity to revolutionize the phone market, they went with a thumboard design in the Treo instead of extending the TX's full screen touch design into a phone.

It took the iPhone to bring to the mainstream the idea that you didn't have to revolve around a keyboard. Some PC manufacturers did bring screen centric slates to market but they were still betrayed by a keyboard centric software suite. It took Apple to get it right by redesigning both the hardware and software.

I continue to think the PC world will eventually come around. Maybe EverNote can develop a touch centric browser. Maybe Origami can become the basis for a new OS. Maybe the OLPC effort can start a touch revolution. Somebody will do it because QWERTY is many things but intuitive is not one of them.

I have to agree that Tablets are a complete failure, for three reasons.

First, price. Even tablet costs at least $1000 more than the equivalent notebook. That is an insane markup when you compare it to the price of a separate USB Tablet.

Second, pressure sensitivity in Photoshop. Wacom won't release Wintab drivers that really work because then tablet PC's would compete with their overpriced Cintiqs. And who knows why Adobe refuses to support anything but Wintab drivers (conspiracy theories anyone?).

Third, reliability. After upgrading to Vista SP1, I still have reliability problems coming out of sleep. It always takes at least 30 seconds before the touch screen starts responding, assuming it ever does. The tablet stuff is USB under the hood, and Microsoft has never been able to get USB drivers to play nice with sleeping. They probably never will.

Jeff: Office Depot is selling the HP tx2000 for $600. Can you get an equivalent notebook for $1000 less than that? If so, please tell me where because I would love to get a $400 rebate on a free notebook.

My Tablets are all now laptops or docked desktops with "hidden powers beyond those of mere PCs"

Maybe Apple can do something to increase demand or usefulness of the Tablet PC. Or give us a better OS geared for the Tablet form.

I gave up fighting handwriting recognition, battery life, dropped wireless, lack of reliable N speed wireless, and I gaped in open-mouthed horror at all the convulsions caused by Vista as posted by the infinitely tolerant experts at GottaBeMobile.com.

I wish I could make my living convincing people to use Tablet PCs, but I make mine treating patients. They don't have time or patience to watch me reboot, change batteries, swap computers and try to get the TIP to recognize reliably. And neither do I. So now my office has a hardwired XP small form factor PC in each room with a 19" touchscreen LCD. Dull? Yes, but so much easier to deal with and I spend more time being a doctor and less being a PC tech.

I will keep following here because I think Tablets will someday go mainstream. I just couldn't wait any longer.

Business user resistance to TabletPC

1. Resistance to Vista. The improved tablet experiance availabe in Vista is not generally available because XP is the norm for even new putchases. MS is missing the boat not porting down as much as possible. (The WOW factor is diminshed if every comment a tablet evangelist makes includes either "of course it is much better with Vista" or "It's GREAT! ..... but they won't let me connect at work ..... VPN work sometimes/sortta .....")

2. As previously stated, lack of keyboard short cut eqivalents. There are many nice utilities, but for a business user, evaulating several, figuring out which is best, and continually updateing/evaluating is too time consuming. Once there is a "best of breed" MS will incomporate it. MS really should take the lead now.

3. Lack of support by software manufacturers. I use AutoCAD, but only with a keyboard. The stylus is a mouse substitute. It could be so much more.

4. Form factor. I use a 14" Gateway tablet as a desktop replacement - moving from location to location, more than using it as a hand held device. With 55 year old eyes, working in cad drawings, large spreadsheets and detailed tables, a large screen is needed. Also a powerful processor is needed. The selectioon is limited.

5. A new form factor. I use a 14 inch convertable. For my use the slates are to small, generally less powerful, and substantially more expensive.

What I want is a SLAB computer... Like a slate, but bigger. I don't want to pay a premium for small size, low weight, etc. Just a fast processor and tablet functionality. Touch as an option would be OK.
Weight similar to a standard laptop/convertable would be OK.
Tablet Screen, battery, HD, DVD all in one unit. NO HINGES OR SWIVELS to break.
Light weight top with or without keyboard. This has been done before (PaceBook never came to market in USA, Motion did it with smaller light weight price premium slates.)
Functional port replicator with minimum 24 inch cable. I want to set up an external mointor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, head phone connection, network, etc. at my desk and position the tablet on the desk or even in my lap for comfortable inking. Disconnect one cable, go to a meeting or throw the tablet in a bag (with mini keybaord and mouse of MY choice, and take off.

This could be comperable to a regular laptop. Many users add an external mouse and keyboard to a laptop, so these would not be missed.

I am in sales and went with a Thinkpad X61 tablet last summer. I almost never use the tablet features and I am sorry I got it. My thinking was I would find ways to integrate the tablet into my daily routine, but this has not happened.

I use onenote to organize my customer info, but that involves keyboard entry and sending to onenote from Outlook. My personal take is that Outlook should simply look and feel like onenote. The biggest barrier to using a tablet is that it takes time to boot into a useful application to write when I need it. By the time I am where i need to be it is simply easier to key it. For me, writing is painfully slow and I will go out of my way to type something that looks better as a result and can be composed much faster.

Obviously I'm missing the point somehow.

Sumocat: I had no idea that the HP had come down so much in price, not having priced them recently. When I was shopping last fall, even the cheapest tablets were $1500 or more, when similarly configured notebooks were around $500.

Jeff: Yep, HP is making a huge push with the tx2000. One of my co-workers got a 30% discount on his after bumping up $300 from the $1000 base price (which then brought it below the base price). Current base price from HP online is $800 (after discounts, of course) with dual-touch standard. I called the tx2000 as the one to watch this year, and I haven't been disappointed since. Can't blame you for not knowing about the pricing though. It's surprisingly under-reported even here.