4 ms·

> once you get used to a lack of latency How _do_ you get used to latency? Writing with a pen has no latency, so anything worse than that automatically throws

> once you get used to a lack of latency How _do_ you get used to latency? Writing with a pen has no latency, so anything worse than that automatically throws me off.

danShumway 5y ago
Short answer, you don't, you kind of force your brain to accept it. The writing experience on a tablet will (as far as I can tell) always be an inferior experience to writing on paper. It's not just latency, there are a thousand things that are almost impossible to replicate: jitter, texture, ink flow, pen nib texture/shape, offset, etc, etc. But the other benefits -- instant digitizing, easier referencing, the ability to fully erase (I use a pen when I take physical notes, I refuse to take notes in pencil), layers/resizing/cropping, quick document transfers, the ability to quickly mark up PDFs or digital content, the ability to merge into my other notetaking/bookmarking systems -- are often high enough that it's worthwhile (at least in some situations). So imagine that there are a series of thresholds for digital note-taking: A) Take notes physically, print and re-scan PDFs/images that need to be annotated B) Take notes physically, digitally mark up stuff that would otherwise need to be printed/scanned C) take a mixture of physical/digital notes depending on context/mood, do any markup digitally D) most notetaking is digital Hitting each threshold of usage requires the writing experience to progressively stink less. This is different for everyone, it comes down to how much you can tolerate. With the older tablets I grew up with, I couldn't have forced myself to hit something like threshold C. IMO it's not really that you get used to the higher latency, it's more that you learn to force your brain to deal with it to get at the other benefits, and the better the experience the more that it becomes possible to do that. That's for comparing digital notes to paper though. The different problem with comparing digital notetaking devices directly to each other is that once you're at a threshold where you expect a certain kind of experience, it's hard to go backwards. Every time the experience gets better, it's like a breath of fresh air, it makes it easier to actually use the device. If my notetaking is at threshold C, and you give me a device that's only good enough for threshold B, then I'm going back to threshold B -- I can't force myself to pretend it's good enough for threshold C, no matter what your other platform features are. More likely, I won't even use the device at all, because I know threshold C exists, and the only reason I tolerate the current problems with texture/latency/offset/jitter/etc at all is because it's physically impossible for me to get a device that has lower latency. In the digital vs physical debate, a digital medium with worse texture, offset, latency, and "flow" still has upsides over a physical medium. But if you compare two digital mediums, it's hard to tell what upside would would ever be big enough to justify using one with a worse experience. Tolerating any latency at all needs to come with some kind of wild benefit like "you can go get your printer recycled and never print another document ever again." There are some exceptions, but most platform-distinguishing features aren't big enough or important enough to overcome an inferior writing experience.

> once you get used to a lack of latency How _do_ you get used to latency? Writing with a pen has no latency, so anything worse than that automatically throws me off.

danShumway 5y ago

Short answer, you don't, you kind of force your brain to accept it. The writing experience on a tablet will (as far as I can tell) always be an inferior experience to writing on paper. It's not just latency, there are a thousand things that are almost impossible to replicate: jitter, texture, ink flow, pen nib texture/shape, offset, etc, etc. But the other benefits -- instant digitizing, easier referencing, the ability to fully erase (I use a pen when I take physical notes, I refuse to take notes in pencil), layers/resizing/cropping, quick document transfers, the ability to quickly mark up PDFs or digital content, the ability to merge into my other notetaking/bookmarking systems -- are often high enough that it's worthwhile (at least in some situations). So imagine that there are a series of thresholds for digital note-taking: A) Take notes physically, print and re-scan PDFs/images that need to be annotated B) Take notes physically, digitally mark up stuff that would otherwise need to be printed/scanned C) take a mixture of physical/digital notes depending on context/mood, do any markup digitally D) most notetaking is digital Hitting each threshold of usage requires the writing experience to progressively stink less. This is different for everyone, it comes down to how much you can tolerate. With the older tablets I grew up with, I couldn't have forced myself to hit something like threshold C. IMO it's not really that you get used to the higher latency, it's more that you learn to force your brain to deal with it to get at the other benefits, and the better the experience the more that it becomes possible to do that. That's for comparing digital notes to paper though. The different problem with comparing digital notetaking devices directly to each other is that once you're at a threshold where you expect a certain kind of experience, it's hard to go backwards. Every time the experience gets better, it's like a breath of fresh air, it makes it easier to actually use the device. If my notetaking is at threshold C, and you give me a device that's only good enough for threshold B, then I'm going back to threshold B -- I can't force myself to pretend it's good enough for threshold C, no matter what your other platform features are. More likely, I won't even use the device at all, because I know threshold C exists, and the only reason I tolerate the current problems with texture/latency/offset/jitter/etc at all is because it's physically impossible for me to get a device that has lower latency. In the digital vs physical debate, a digital medium with worse texture, offset, latency, and "flow" still has upsides over a physical medium. But if you compare two digital mediums, it's hard to tell what upside would would ever be big enough to justify using one with a worse experience. Tolerating any latency at all needs to come with some kind of wild benefit like "you can go get your printer recycled and never print another document ever again." There are some exceptions, but most platform-distinguishing features aren't big enough or important enough to overcome an inferior writing experience.