7 ms·

steve jobs was soo off with the stylus being out of fashion. totally wrong... the apple pencil is probably THE only strong differentiators for the ipad.

kgraves 7y ago
Agreed, I have some artist friends using the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. I imagined it would be for that usecase. I didn’t understand the “who needs a stylus” statement, but I guess that is for the iPhone.
- coldtea 7y ago
  The statement wasn't who needs a stylus, but "if you see a stylus, they blew it" (they being the designers, and in context meaning: if you see a stylus bundled with a tablet as the primary means of interaction). He was commenting on past tablets that were meant to be used with a small stylus -- and the interface was totally unfriendly (and sometimes unusable) for hand touch.
coldtea 7y ago
He never said the stylus was out of fashion. He said it shouldn't be the primary method of interaction with a tablet...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pvg 7y ago
Steve Jobs was quite right that a stylus is not great for a small portable device with a touch screen. It's clunky, you can easily misplace the stylus and you can't have multi-touch gestures. There are lots of specialized tasks that are better with a stylus but there are a lot of specialized tasks that are better with a combine harvester.
- ClassyJacket 7y ago
  I have a Galaxy Note and you can pry the stylus from my cold dead hands. I love it. The Apple Pencil feels clunky to me - it's so big you can't comfortably do art with it.
- stordoff 7y ago
  One thing I've noticed since getting an Apple Pencil is that I tend to use it even for general tasks, so I would tend to disagree.
  - pvg 7y ago
    I'm sure there are also some people who drive a combine harvester to work and find it an optimal commuting vehicle.
- petecox 7y ago
  The iPhone popularised capacitive touch. His comments on styluses should be seen in light of the technology of the time (Newton/Maemo/Palm OS/WinCE etc) whose input was stabbing at a resistive screen. (That's not to repudiate finger input being superior to pen for many interactions but styluses of 2019 use vastly different tech to those of 2007.)
  - pvg 7y ago
    His comments on styluses should be seen in light of the technology of the time I think his comments are general, not about the technology of the time. He's arguing that direct manipulation is better than not-that. That's been a central tenet of UI-stuff for a very long time.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    I'd say Steve Jobs' public comments should be seen in light of his main role as a product pitchman. When the 9.7" iPad was the only model available, he criticized the ergonomics of smaller models by Samsung, claiming that "you'd need sand paper to sand down your finger" to use them [0]. Meanwhile, he was overseeing the development of the 7.9 inch iPad Mini, which wouldn't come out until late 2012. [0]: https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-about-7-inch-ipad/ https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-abou...
dlivingston 7y ago
You misunderstand why he said that. At the time, you effectively could not buy a touchscreen device without a stylus being required. Nintendo DS, Palm Pilot, Windows tablet, etc., it was a bundled experience. Letting you use not just one, but multiple, fingers on a touchscreen without the need for a stylus was a sea change.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- dingaling 7y ago
  You could buy a touchscreen LG Prada in May 2007
  - dlivingston 7y ago
    They were announced (Prada: Dec 2006, iPhone: Jan 2007) and released (Prada: May 2007, iPhone: June 2007) at approximately the same time. Further, I don't think the Prada had multi-touch capabilities, like pinch-to-zoom
rhinoceraptor 7y ago
It's kind of like using an external mouse with a laptop, it should be an enhancement, not the primary input device.
NikkiA 7y ago
OSX has some really top class handwriting recognition built in (since about 10.1 I think), I wish apple would bring it over to ios
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Judging by the fact that Ink is still 32-bit, I'm not confident in it sticking around for the next version of macOS…
jxdxbx 7y ago
You shouldn’t need a stylus to use a device. Styluses are great for things you can’t do with your finger, like precision drawing.

kgraves 7y ago

Agreed, I have some artist friends using the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. I imagined it would be for that usecase. I didn’t understand the “who needs a stylus” statement, but I guess that is for the iPhone.

coldtea 7y ago
The statement wasn't who needs a stylus, but "if you see a stylus, they blew it" (they being the designers, and in context meaning: if you see a stylus bundled with a tablet as the primary means of interaction). He was commenting on past tablets that were meant to be used with a small stylus -- and the interface was totally unfriendly (and sometimes unusable) for hand touch.

coldtea 7y ago

He never said the stylus was out of fashion. He said it shouldn't be the primary method of interaction with a tablet...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

pvg 7y ago

Steve Jobs was quite right that a stylus is not great for a small portable device with a touch screen. It's clunky, you can easily misplace the stylus and you can't have multi-touch gestures. There are lots of specialized tasks that are better with a stylus but there are a lot of specialized tasks that are better with a combine harvester.

ClassyJacket 7y ago
I have a Galaxy Note and you can pry the stylus from my cold dead hands. I love it. The Apple Pencil feels clunky to me - it's so big you can't comfortably do art with it.
stordoff 7y ago
One thing I've noticed since getting an Apple Pencil is that I tend to use it even for general tasks, so I would tend to disagree.
- pvg 7y ago
  I'm sure there are also some people who drive a combine harvester to work and find it an optimal commuting vehicle.
petecox 7y ago
The iPhone popularised capacitive touch. His comments on styluses should be seen in light of the technology of the time (Newton/Maemo/Palm OS/WinCE etc) whose input was stabbing at a resistive screen. (That's not to repudiate finger input being superior to pen for many interactions but styluses of 2019 use vastly different tech to those of 2007.)
- pvg 7y ago
  His comments on styluses should be seen in light of the technology of the time I think his comments are general, not about the technology of the time. He's arguing that direct manipulation is better than not-that. That's been a central tenet of UI-stuff for a very long time.
- rchaud 7y ago
  I'd say Steve Jobs' public comments should be seen in light of his main role as a product pitchman. When the 9.7" iPad was the only model available, he criticized the ergonomics of smaller models by Samsung, claiming that "you'd need sand paper to sand down your finger" to use them [0]. Meanwhile, he was overseeing the development of the 7.9 inch iPad Mini, which wouldn't come out until late 2012. [0]: https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-about-7-inch-ipad/ https://www.itproportal.com/2010/10/21/steve-jobs-wrong-abou...

dlivingston 7y ago

You misunderstand why he said that. At the time, you effectively could not buy a touchscreen device without a stylus being required. Nintendo DS, Palm Pilot, Windows tablet, etc., it was a bundled experience. Letting you use not just one, but multiple, fingers on a touchscreen without the need for a stylus was a sea change.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dingaling 7y ago
You could buy a touchscreen LG Prada in May 2007
- dlivingston 7y ago
  They were announced (Prada: Dec 2006, iPhone: Jan 2007) and released (Prada: May 2007, iPhone: June 2007) at approximately the same time. Further, I don't think the Prada had multi-touch capabilities, like pinch-to-zoom

rhinoceraptor 7y ago

It's kind of like using an external mouse with a laptop, it should be an enhancement, not the primary input device.

NikkiA 7y ago

OSX has some really top class handwriting recognition built in (since about 10.1 I think), I wish apple would bring it over to ios

saagarjha 7y ago
Judging by the fact that Ink is still 32-bit, I'm not confident in it sticking around for the next version of macOS…

jxdxbx 7y ago

You shouldn’t need a stylus to use a device. Styluses are great for things you can’t do with your finger, like precision drawing.