Late to the Party

Cool. While surfing Google Reader mobile tonight on my N95, I realized that they finally added a link to share feed items. Hallelujah! Still wish there were an easier way to blog about items from Google Reader mobile, but this is a welcome addition.

While perusing a discussion thread on Internet Tablet Talk about must-have apps for the N800 (trying to find apps that still work for the 770…), I initiated a Google search that led me to this interesting page comparing the interfaces and quirks of the Nokia N800 to the Apple Newton.  It’s quite an extensive article, so I just skimmed it, and bookmarked it for later reading.  However, I was reminded of something that I feel is a big deficiency in Tablet PCs — you can’t directly ink in text fields.  There may be applications to help get around that in some cases, but the OS itself is not architected such that you just directly ink your text into text fields.  The Newton supported this way back in the mid-to-late 90s!  A quote from the N800 v. Newton page:

The Newton has real, systematic handwriting recognition. Not just a better HWR engine (and it’s far superior to the very slow, inaccurate one in the N800), but one which is part and parcel of the GUI itself. On the Newton, you write directly in text fields and entry areas. Various on-screen and hardware keyboards and other input systems are still available if you wish them. The Newton’s HWR even cleans up shapes and doodles, has sophisticated built-in handwriting gestures (“scrubbing” a word to delete it, writing a caret to make space to insert a word, etc.), and allows you to turn off the recognition or delay it indefinitely (it’d then store and display the handwriting exactly as you had written, or if you preferred, in miniaturized form).

It is amazing that even now, in Vista, you still have to use a floating Tablet Input Panel (TIP) to initiate inking text, or tapping it out on the virtual keyboard, if you prefer.  At least on Tablet PCs you can ink out words freeform — in print, cursive, or a mix of both — rather than being limited to individually inking letters to spell out words (there is this option in the TIP, though) on the N800.

I remember back when UMPCs were first announced, and there was a fledgling discussion forum for Origami devices (can’t recall the site at the moment).  Someone had asked a general question about whether or not you could write directly in a text field, like the address bar in a browser, and one of the moderators, being a total newcomer to the Tablet PC platform himself, answered that he wasn’t sure, but would find out.  I cringed to myself thinking that if I answered that question, I would have to tell them that they’d have to tap on the TIP before being able to write out their text.  And it’s still that way today!  It’s inefficient, and when you think about it, rather unintuitive, given the paradigm of text fields on paper forms.

I love the Tablet PC platform, even though I find myself not using it as much in my daily routine as I used to (due to several different circumstances which I won’t discuss now).  I am glad for the updates to Tablet functionality in Vista, though I don’t use Vista on my current TPC.  But I really hope that the inking interface will be updated to be even more intuitive so that you can ink anywhere, especially directly in text fields, instead of depending on the TIP all the time.  It would be awesome if that were implemented in Vista SP1 or SP2, or beyond…  Or even in other non-Tablet-PC devices that are now starting to use handwriting input, like the N800.  I’m still waiting for Apple’s update to the Newton, or competitor to Tablet PCs…

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Noticed that in Google Reader, where there are audio files embedded in the RSS post, there’s now a little link to pop the embedded player out into a separate window.  I think before if you navigated away from the post it would disrupt the player, so being able to pop it out is a nice little touch.  Even if the player didn’t stop if you went to another post, it’s still nice to have it in a separate window for easier access.  I don’t usually stream from Google Reader, but in a pinch it’ll do.

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Thanks to the hubby’s job, I got to see a couple of HP’s PDA phones with built-in GPS, QWERTY keyboards, and square screens a la the Treo.  I didn’t think much of them, being more enamored with HTC’s offerings.  However, recently I had made a decision that I didn’t want to use Windows Mobile devices anymore.  Was too annoyed with the bloated-ness and especially was annoyed with the lame web browser offerings.  I jumped ship to Nokia and S60 devices with my first Nokia phone (and first slider phone), the N95.  Love it!  Thought I would miss a touchscreen, but since I had increasingly tried to use my old T-Mobile MDA without using the touchscreen, I got used to the N95 pretty quickly.  Actually, I think if I had to go back to a WinMo device, I would choose one running the Smartphone edition (don’t remember the new and improved WinMo 6 terminology ), like the T-Mobile Dash, or its successors.  I’ve heard good things about the Dash from many tech bloggers, including the MoTR hosts.

Anyway, the real reason why I’m blogging is because I saw a new HP Smartphone that I didn’t even realize existed.  I saw it in a banner ad on Boing Boing, actually.  Here’s a pic of it snipped from the website the banner ad lead to:

To my surprise, it looks pretty good.  Nothing like HP’s other dated, blocky PDA phones, a pretty sleek candybar form factor.  While it’s not flashy, it could give the HTC candybar phones a run for their money, I think.  I’m not really willing to buy one just to try it out, but I am pretty curious as to how well it works compared to something like the Dash.  I certainly wouldn’t complain if I got an evaluation unit to play with for a few weeks, hint, hint, hint, HP.   Perhaps something for Matt Miller, Man of a Million Phones?

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But sometimes it’s funny. Case in point:

That’s leet!