Jeff Han & Perceptive Pixel blew everyone’s minds with their multitouch demo a year before the iPhone debuted. Six (!) years later he demonstrates their 82″ (!!) multitouch display featuring pen input:
Here’s hoping we see more pen-enabled goodness & lay that “If you see a stylus, it means they blew it” dogma to rest. [Via]
John,
the quote from Steve Jobs (“If you see a stylus, it means they blew it.”) you are citing was targeted at competing smartphone manufacturers.
Having a stylus as an input device for displays that big that they can be used as replacements for chalkboards and flip charts is something completely different.
[Let’s hope so. I don’t think people at Apple are stupidly doctrinaire. One does, however, hear noted Mac fans scoffing at even the *option* of including a stylus. –J.]
Huh? I would think the smaller the display, the more helpful a stylus could be. I could finger paint on a chalkboard size screen, but I want a pen for input on a post-it size screen.
You misunderstood that quote. If stylus is a primary way to interact with the interface, they got it wrong. He was mostly referring to early Windows tablets.
[I don’t think I misunderstood, and you’re welcome to read what I wrote on the subject 18 months ago. –J.]
In this demo video stylus is optional just like it can be for iPad (although not as detailed.)
[I’d argue a stylus isn’t really optional on iPad–not if you want to match even the basic pressure sensitivity I had on my Mac in the early 90’s. Third parties demoed prototypes soon after the iPad shipped, but Apple hasn’t made it possible for them to ship. I continue to hope that’ll change. –J.]
I was psyched about watching this video, but now I see it’s kind of more of the same. I didn’t see pressure sensitivity with the pen strokes. Isn’t this just a big iPad with a special stylus?
Well, for some specialized work, a stylus is very helpful. But Steve wasn’t talking about that. He meant the overall experience. And considering that Apple has sold stylus’s for iOs devices going back to when one first came out, I wouldn’t call them dogmatic about it.
I have two, but they’re more of a nuisance than useful for most things.
The annotation doesn’t appear to be working….48 seconds into the clip he attempts to annotate or “mark up” a document aaaand no dice.