[Sigia-l] When will you buy one?

[Stew Dean]

On 31/05/07, Ziya Oz <listera at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Andrew Boyd:
>
> > Am I the only one that looked at...Scarlet Johansen
>
> Yes. :-)
>
> As Will underlines, the days of v 3.0 is over. In the consumer electronics
> market (which the PC industry is becoming a subset of) you don't have to
> 'invent' anything to be successful. This is what AAPL has taught us with its
> innovation machine. The trick is in smart packaging of components and
> technologies into an attractive whole. The marketplace is no longer so
> forgiving, waiting for technology to be rolled out over multiple years to
> reach v 3.0 and enough manufacturing partners to overwhelm alternatives as a
> measure of success.

Two words - user experience. It's why people google and don't MSN.
It's why the ipod won even though creative where first to the market
and are still in the market with devices that do more.

Apple look set to do the same with phones - quite simply most phones
these days have terrible user experiences.

> I can easily stomach Surface as technology demo. Enough there. But as a
> merchandisable product? Not with multiple cameras/projectors, just the right
> lighting environ, no text entry, size, interface protocols with physical
> objects, etc. Too many holes to fill in.

The product has specific uses - as can be seen from the types of
people interested in the product. It's a show casing product and
appears to be idea for retail spaces and public spaces.

As a home devices it really would have to be very cheap to make it a
viable as it would be a support device.  Also as a home item or even a
restaurant item it has problems in that it's a flat surface - normal
people put a lot of things on flat surfaces meaning you have things
obscuring the display (for test of this look around your desk - if you
have a sparce expanse of space where you are you are in the minority).

BUT there are some good interface ideas in there - I especially like
the white dot to play and pause.  It's no secret that Gates loves
tablet devices and much of this tech would fit well with a portable
tablet device.

If anyone really wants to make a dent in this kind of space what is
needed is an effective text entry system that doesnt depend on a non
tactile virtual keyboard or a stylus. To me that's one problem I've
yet to see solved.

Stewart Dean