This remembers me of the Modbook, back in... check notes... 2008? I'm old. They would take a Macbook, re-case it and transform it into a tablet. Super cool. Looks like they kept doing this for a few iterations.
$139 (early Kickstarter price) feels surprisingly low if it works like they claim - a wacom with a display is significantly more expensive, lower display resolution, less portable, and totally different ergonomics (for good or bad). Though they are also a second screen.
Makes me wonder if it'll work on other computers. Not as slickly of course, but it'd probably still function, except maybe for the software (if any)...
Wacom is a big name brand. You can get pen displays from brands like XP Pen and Huion for not much more (https://www.amazon.com/XP-PEN-Artist12-Battery-Free-Multi-Fu...). And they are true second displays. If all you want is a pen tablet then those are much less expensive.
You won't get any of the subtle display animations and UI niceties for a capacitive touchscreen on desktop. It will function like those old Nokia touchscreens/Windows Mobile stylus point and click.
I'm good without the animations, thanks. I disable them everywhere already.
Small touch targets is true, but with how expansive UIs have gotten since Windows Mobile it's FAR less of an issue and I've used it just fine in the past (external touch display). The most difficult target is usually the window close button, but the consequences for missing that are nearly zero, and practically everything else is more than large and space-buffered enough if you don't close your eyes before reaching for the screen. And that's before liquid glass redesigns.
Without deep OS support for this kind of thing, I can't imagine it will feel anything like a native experience. There are already much better touch screen experiences with years of development behind them, in the Linux, Windows, Android, and iOS platforms. There's no need to have a janky hacked together version for macOS to try to make it to the same thing.
I'm not saying this product is good, it's looks interesting but in reality will suck (due to not being able to just close the laptop) but I found when I used to use a windows laptop the touch screen was great.
You just naturally get used to using it for reading documents/email/slack when you are using the laptop portable.
It's specially good when you are on a couch/shit surface where you would normally use the touch pad awkwardly, it's also great when you are "one hand" holding the laptop and then scrolling/showing someone something. I found it also great in the small ass meeting rooms for zoom calls.
> I'm not saying this product is good, it's looks interesting but in reality will suck (due to not being able to just close the laptop)
It's one of those situations where the more seamless they make the experience, the quicker the user will end up totalling either the laptop screen / hinges or the touchscreen. Given the position of the connector and how people generally close laptops, it's the perfect lever to crack something.
To be fair, those keys are missing from many (most?) laptops. Certainly Apple laptops, which also lack the much-more-important Delete key (instead, they only have a Backspace key mislabeled "delete").
Pretty much every school in the US has students using touchscreen Chromebooks. It's funnyish when a young person tries to touch my MacBook screen to do a quick action, and I have to tell them that it's necessary to go to the touchpad, diddle a little to find the cursor, then do a move action to get to get to the target. Dragging is even more puzzling, touch and drag on a screen vs. move, double-tap or ctrl-click, then drag, then tap to release. I'm sure some will help me with faster touchpad methods, but that aside, I've used Mac laptops for 30+ years, and generally feel that those who perceive touchscreens as a gorilla-arm problem just haven't used a touchscreen laptop. They provide a much more efficient interface for some common actions. Touchscreens are so common now that most Windows and Chrome devices have them as the norm. Always strikes me as a bit strange that Apple-priced Mac laptops lack a feature found in low-price competitors.
"Pretty much every school in the US has students using touchscreen Chromebooks."
Pfff, what a laughable claim. Meanwhile, just because people CAN use to learn something doesn't mean it's good. Touchscreen computers, especially laptops, are dumb for a few reasons. They already have a touch interface (the trackpad), and touchscreen on a computer requires dumbed-down interfaces with oversized controls and an M.O. that tolerates your hand and arm blocking your view of what you're trying to work on.
And also the screen's hinges must be (and perpetually remain) stiff enough to sustain people pressing on the screen the whole time.
With people doing so much on phones and tablets now, you can bet that when they fire up a legitimate computer, they want a computer's capabilities. That means a real keyboard, a precision pointing device, and software with a proper computer UI.
I wish there were a way to disable the touchscreen built into my thinkpad, which I never use - except occasionally by accident, when my sleeve brushes it or the like. Why would I want fingerprints on my monitor? Of course I'm not going to touch it.
My significant other uses her touchscreen laptop as a consumption device (for video and prose; a lot of fanfictions!) in the bed (a beefy tablet with a built-in stand resting on her belly, if you will). In that context she's very happy with a touchscreen and is a factor when buying a new laptop (fortunately that Thinkpad X1 Yoga from 2017 is still going strong).
This is pretty cool. The only (a huge issue imho) is the fact that the macbook screen does "not go all the way", meaning you cant use it as youd normally would draw or write (from a 90 degree angle)
I never liked Wacom tablets or the (Fujitsu) touchscreen on my laptop. worked in design and graphics environments that gave me a few of them for free and it wasn’t for me.
This is one of the ideas I wish worked well for me but I loathed it. And would maybe revisit.
Still clutching to the mouse and still clutching to photoshop 30 years later, I’d change either one out if I enjoyed their replacement.
Had to laugh out loud when checking this out. So now you're expected to keep two pieces of glass clean in order to a) not see smudges and b) not scratch the original display because there may be dirt on the touch screen and you can't just close your laptop shut anymore if you're in a hurry?
Not even a hint of a price region as well. Can't imagine anyone really asking for this. Just get an iPad.
Edit: Correction on the no price thing, it's relatively cheap for Kickstarter.
This device is obviously a non-starter, iPads exist already, and the laptop form factor isn't right for this ergonomically.
iPad and Macbook should've already converged at this point.
I say that even as a very happy user of a Macbook with the fancy non-reflective screen coating that wouldn't be a thing on a touchscreen.
I expect the new cheap Macbook that's rumoured will be a hybrid.
Nicer windows laptops have had this for a long time and it works great, other than the janky OS and app support. Just being able to lazily scroll content is worth it some of the time, and there are no downsides. Just like having built-in 5G networking, it's a bizarre blindspot for Apple.
My old-ass Chromebook Pixel (retired due to Chrome no longer having worthwhile adblocking) had a perfect form factor for hybrid tablet/laptop use, though not the software - Beautiful 180 degree hinge, 4:3 aspect ratio.
This remembers me of the Modbook, back in... check notes... 2008? I'm old. They would take a Macbook, re-case it and transform it into a tablet. Super cool. Looks like they kept doing this for a few iterations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modbook
$139 (early Kickstarter price) feels surprisingly low if it works like they claim - a wacom with a display is significantly more expensive, lower display resolution, less portable, and totally different ergonomics (for good or bad). Though they are also a second screen.
Makes me wonder if it'll work on other computers. Not as slickly of course, but it'd probably still function, except maybe for the software (if any)...
Wacom is a big name brand. You can get pen displays from brands like XP Pen and Huion for not much more (https://www.amazon.com/XP-PEN-Artist12-Battery-Free-Multi-Fu...). And they are true second displays. If all you want is a pen tablet then those are much less expensive.
That one is still twice the price and half the resolution, and I don't see anything about touch.
I mostly agree though, Wacom is far from the cheap option.
You won't get any of the subtle display animations and UI niceties for a capacitive touchscreen on desktop. It will function like those old Nokia touchscreens/Windows Mobile stylus point and click.
I'm good without the animations, thanks. I disable them everywhere already.
Small touch targets is true, but with how expansive UIs have gotten since Windows Mobile it's FAR less of an issue and I've used it just fine in the past (external touch display). The most difficult target is usually the window close button, but the consequences for missing that are nearly zero, and practically everything else is more than large and space-buffered enough if you don't close your eyes before reaching for the screen. And that's before liquid glass redesigns.
If this is exciting and you don't need the EMR stylus but you want a project instead of a product for a Macbook: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805921231769.html
If this is exciting because of the EMR stylus but you want a project instead of a product for a Macbook: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46537489, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igVscvWAR1s
Without deep OS support for this kind of thing, I can't imagine it will feel anything like a native experience. There are already much better touch screen experiences with years of development behind them, in the Linux, Windows, Android, and iOS platforms. There's no need to have a janky hacked together version for macOS to try to make it to the same thing.
That looks like a crappy way to work. Holding your arms out in front of you all day sucks.
The baffling thing is that Apple hasn't made the Pencil work on its laptops' (defectively) oversized touchpads: https://imgur.com/gallery/another-baffling-missed-opportunit...
I'm not saying this product is good, it's looks interesting but in reality will suck (due to not being able to just close the laptop) but I found when I used to use a windows laptop the touch screen was great.
You just naturally get used to using it for reading documents/email/slack when you are using the laptop portable.
It's specially good when you are on a couch/shit surface where you would normally use the touch pad awkwardly, it's also great when you are "one hand" holding the laptop and then scrolling/showing someone something. I found it also great in the small ass meeting rooms for zoom calls.
I wish the MacBook had it.
> I'm not saying this product is good, it's looks interesting but in reality will suck (due to not being able to just close the laptop)
It's one of those situations where the more seamless they make the experience, the quicker the user will end up totalling either the laptop screen / hinges or the touchscreen. Given the position of the connector and how people generally close laptops, it's the perfect lever to crack something.
Sometimes it feels like the entire world forgot about using the pgup/pgdn keys for scrolling
To be fair, those keys are missing from many (most?) laptops. Certainly Apple laptops, which also lack the much-more-important Delete key (instead, they only have a Backspace key mislabeled "delete").
That's true, you can still type them using fn + up / fn + down, but it's not obvious.
Pretty much every school in the US has students using touchscreen Chromebooks. It's funnyish when a young person tries to touch my MacBook screen to do a quick action, and I have to tell them that it's necessary to go to the touchpad, diddle a little to find the cursor, then do a move action to get to get to the target. Dragging is even more puzzling, touch and drag on a screen vs. move, double-tap or ctrl-click, then drag, then tap to release. I'm sure some will help me with faster touchpad methods, but that aside, I've used Mac laptops for 30+ years, and generally feel that those who perceive touchscreens as a gorilla-arm problem just haven't used a touchscreen laptop. They provide a much more efficient interface for some common actions. Touchscreens are so common now that most Windows and Chrome devices have them as the norm. Always strikes me as a bit strange that Apple-priced Mac laptops lack a feature found in low-price competitors.
"Pretty much every school in the US has students using touchscreen Chromebooks."
Pfff, what a laughable claim. Meanwhile, just because people CAN use to learn something doesn't mean it's good. Touchscreen computers, especially laptops, are dumb for a few reasons. They already have a touch interface (the trackpad), and touchscreen on a computer requires dumbed-down interfaces with oversized controls and an M.O. that tolerates your hand and arm blocking your view of what you're trying to work on.
And also the screen's hinges must be (and perpetually remain) stiff enough to sustain people pressing on the screen the whole time.
With people doing so much on phones and tablets now, you can bet that when they fire up a legitimate computer, they want a computer's capabilities. That means a real keyboard, a precision pointing device, and software with a proper computer UI.
I wish there were a way to disable the touchscreen built into my thinkpad, which I never use - except occasionally by accident, when my sleeve brushes it or the like. Why would I want fingerprints on my monitor? Of course I'm not going to touch it.
My significant other uses her touchscreen laptop as a consumption device (for video and prose; a lot of fanfictions!) in the bed (a beefy tablet with a built-in stand resting on her belly, if you will). In that context she's very happy with a touchscreen and is a factor when buying a new laptop (fortunately that Thinkpad X1 Yoga from 2017 is still going strong).
Kind of like the Axiotron Modbook from 2008 but cheaper and as an accessory, not a full mod
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modbook
This is pretty cool. The only (a huge issue imho) is the fact that the macbook screen does "not go all the way", meaning you cant use it as youd normally would draw or write (from a 90 degree angle)
It looks a bit like an IR scanner attached to glass, and quite a nice form factor for one.
Does anyone know of a similar product that would work with actual computers (Windows, arbitrary monitors), not just fruits?
nice, this might raise the pressure on apple to release a hybrid.
well it is cool, but im missing the point of it, why?
pushing pixels.
I never liked Wacom tablets or the (Fujitsu) touchscreen on my laptop. worked in design and graphics environments that gave me a few of them for free and it wasn’t for me.
This is one of the ideas I wish worked well for me but I loathed it. And would maybe revisit.
Still clutching to the mouse and still clutching to photoshop 30 years later, I’d change either one out if I enjoyed their replacement.
Had to laugh out loud when checking this out. So now you're expected to keep two pieces of glass clean in order to a) not see smudges and b) not scratch the original display because there may be dirt on the touch screen and you can't just close your laptop shut anymore if you're in a hurry?
Not even a hint of a price region as well. Can't imagine anyone really asking for this. Just get an iPad.
Edit: Correction on the no price thing, it's relatively cheap for Kickstarter.
This device is obviously a non-starter, iPads exist already, and the laptop form factor isn't right for this ergonomically.
iPad and Macbook should've already converged at this point.
I say that even as a very happy user of a Macbook with the fancy non-reflective screen coating that wouldn't be a thing on a touchscreen.
I expect the new cheap Macbook that's rumoured will be a hybrid.
Nicer windows laptops have had this for a long time and it works great, other than the janky OS and app support. Just being able to lazily scroll content is worth it some of the time, and there are no downsides. Just like having built-in 5G networking, it's a bizarre blindspot for Apple.
My old-ass Chromebook Pixel (retired due to Chrome no longer having worthwhile adblocking) had a perfect form factor for hybrid tablet/laptop use, though not the software - Beautiful 180 degree hinge, 4:3 aspect ratio.
> iPad and Macbook should've already converged at this point
No thanks. Unless you mean the iPad should also be running a general purpose operating system fully under the device owner's control...