Axiotron finally ships Modbook OS X Tablet

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Posted Jan 1st 2008 10:10AM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Tablet PCs

Welcome to 2008, readers, and if Axiotron's announcement that its long-awaited Modbook is finally shipping -- several weeks ahead of schedule -- is any indication, it looks to be a good year indeed for consumer electronics fans. First unveiled nearly a year ago at Macworld 2007, the MacBook-based, Wacom-modified Modbook has definitely seen its share of delays, although in the days and months since, the 13.3-inch slate has gained the distinction of being one of the few pieces of non-Cupertino, Apple-approved hardware. The world's first OS X tablet can be yours immediately starting at $2,290.

fast forward to the last presentation about the tablet,,,you can write on it and it transforms the text to print

http://www.forbes.com/video/?video=fvn/tech/km_coolest011708

Writing copy and turning into type is built-in to OS X via Inkwell. This program has been around since the early 90's because of the Apple Newton.

Wacom tablets can take advantage of this technology!

I played with it at Macworld and um, sorry there is no way I would want one of these.

The problem is that if you want to input text, you would either have to use the pen and write (this relies on Apple's Ink Well (old Newton) technology) OR you would have to use a USB or Bluetooth keyboard which defeats the purpose of a tablet.

Don't get me wrong, I really got pretty good at writing on my Newton back in the day, but those were small amounts of text. I couldn't imagine writing this post using inkwell.

Imagine everything you typed in the last 24 hours: emails, URLs in your browser, passwords, etc. and having to write them and hope that the computer could interpret your handwriting correctly.

If this product is really going to be successful, it needs an on screen keyboard. Otherwise it will continue to be a niche product aimed at artists that want to draw or Photoshop users wanting to do retouching. In its current form it's not good enough to replace a laptop or desktop computer or for general computing use.

The first place I saw this was in an artist mag, so I think the main goal was for it to be an artist's canvas; the "all-in-one" feature is primarily to avoid the "dongle" feeling of being tethered to an external computer (if one only used a Wacom tablet)