5 ms·

Yes, but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad in terms of content creation. Even now, there's nothing on the iPad that works as well

Yes, but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad in terms of content creation. Even now, there's nothing on the iPad that works as well as OneNote (yes, that includes EverNote), and Courier extended far past OneNote to integrate a bunch of more advanced, integrated design ideas.

tvon 15y ago
The Courier was never demoed publicly, let alone shipped to consumers, it's a bit silly to say it was leagues beyond anything at all.
Hari_Seldon 15y ago
"Yes, but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad" With all due respect, the courier was not a shipping product, the video mockups were cool, but to compare a successful shipping product with a vapourware concept video - and to conclude that the non-existing one is better, is not particularly useful.
- colin_jack 15y ago
  I agree with you to some extent but you missed out the last bit of his sentence "in terms of content creation". I do think the original iPad was poor for content creation, thats fine as it was a brilliant device but I do think there was a chance the Courier could have been better in that regard.
  - saturdaysaint 15y ago
    "Creation vs consumption" is a completely false dichotomy. By far the biggest constraint on "creation" is the person operating the device. We have no shortage of guitars, computers with attached keyboards, and cameras, yet there's not a notable surplus of great music, writing and movies. For an actually creative person, the surplus of accessible content is inspiration to create, not some sort of impediment. Actually creative people also see limitless creative potential in these "consumption devices".
    - contextfree 15y ago
      Creation = me writing this comment on Hacker News (for which I'd like to have a keyboard) or writing a letter to my mom (for which I might even like to write in my own handwriting, perhaps on a pen-based tablet). It's not only about creating works of genius.
forgottenpaswrd 15y ago
"but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad in terms of content creation" Really? I only saw infographic videos that were made by artists. We did not see the real thing in action. You must be thinking that someone canceled the Hoverboards that the film series "Back to the future" displayed "working" in the same way MS displayed Courier "working". To dream (and to fake is way easier than create).
Terretta 15y ago
OneNote is such an amazing piece of software I owned Gateway's M285-E just for it. See this pic on the right: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/167988348_fb452a3ad2_z.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/167988348_fb452a3ad2_z.jpg Hacker News likes VisiCalc, and in the same vein, for handwritten notes on the iPad, try VisiCalc author Dan Bricklin's "Note Taker HD". That said, you'd have to blend Note Taker HD with Evernote to get OneNote. OneNote's amazing. It would be a fascinating story to share how it managed to get traction at Microsoft and how it lost its prominance once the tablet PC push died out. That said, Note Taker HD is also amazing, as are Evernote, OmniGraffle, Keynote, Pages, iA Writer, Index Card, Tiffen Photo fx Ultra, Snapseed, PhotoForge2, Inspire Pro, Sketch Book Pro, Garage Band, iMovie, OmniFocus, Textastic Code Editor (compatible with TextMate syntax definitions and themes), and the list goes on.
- blasdel 15y ago
  OneNote on a TabletPC was pretty much tailor-made for middle management at Microsoft to use while sitting in meetings all day. That's how it came to exist, as the most delicious dogfood.

tvon 15y ago

The Courier was never demoed publicly, let alone shipped to consumers, it's a bit silly to say it was leagues beyond anything at all.

Hari_Seldon 15y ago

"Yes, but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad" With all due respect, the courier was not a shipping product, the video mockups were cool, but to compare a successful shipping product with a vapourware concept video - and to conclude that the non-existing one is better, is not particularly useful.

colin_jack 15y ago
I agree with you to some extent but you missed out the last bit of his sentence "in terms of content creation". I do think the original iPad was poor for content creation, thats fine as it was a brilliant device but I do think there was a chance the Courier could have been better in that regard.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  "Creation vs consumption" is a completely false dichotomy. By far the biggest constraint on "creation" is the person operating the device. We have no shortage of guitars, computers with attached keyboards, and cameras, yet there's not a notable surplus of great music, writing and movies. For an actually creative person, the surplus of accessible content is inspiration to create, not some sort of impediment. Actually creative people also see limitless creative potential in these "consumption devices".
  - contextfree 15y ago
    Creation = me writing this comment on Hacker News (for which I'd like to have a keyboard) or writing a letter to my mom (for which I might even like to write in my own handwriting, perhaps on a pen-based tablet). It's not only about creating works of genius.

forgottenpaswrd 15y ago

"but the Courier was leagues beyond anything you can do with an iPad in terms of content creation" Really? I only saw infographic videos that were made by artists. We did not see the real thing in action. You must be thinking that someone canceled the Hoverboards that the film series "Back to the future" displayed "working" in the same way MS displayed Courier "working". To dream (and to fake is way easier than create).

Terretta 15y ago

OneNote is such an amazing piece of software I owned Gateway's M285-E just for it. See this pic on the right: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/167988348_fb452a3ad2_z.jpg http://farm1.static.flickr.com/52/167988348_fb452a3ad2_z.jpg Hacker News likes VisiCalc, and in the same vein, for handwritten notes on the iPad, try VisiCalc author Dan Bricklin's "Note Taker HD". That said, you'd have to blend Note Taker HD with Evernote to get OneNote. OneNote's amazing. It would be a fascinating story to share how it managed to get traction at Microsoft and how it lost its prominance once the tablet PC push died out. That said, Note Taker HD is also amazing, as are Evernote, OmniGraffle, Keynote, Pages, iA Writer, Index Card, Tiffen Photo fx Ultra, Snapseed, PhotoForge2, Inspire Pro, Sketch Book Pro, Garage Band, iMovie, OmniFocus, Textastic Code Editor (compatible with TextMate syntax definitions and themes), and the list goes on.

blasdel 15y ago
OneNote on a TabletPC was pretty much tailor-made for middle management at Microsoft to use while sitting in meetings all day. That's how it came to exist, as the most delicious dogfood.