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The Stylus is Making a Comeback

‘If you see a stylus, they BLEW it’

-Steve Jobs

7986400732_4d90b1c2d1_zIf anyone had asked me a week ago, “When was the last time you wrote something with your hand?”, it would have taken me a long time to think of a time when I was actually writing with my hands. I recently got into handwriting for a few minutes a day and I also started sketching designs on my whiteboard which I had not used in many years instead of doing it directly in Photoshop.  I have heard many times that the act of writing something with your hand connects different portions of your brain and in doing so you retain more information and are more likely to follow through on what you write about.

However, now I am beginning to fall in love with handwriting again. So much that I am actually contemplating on cancelling my order for the Galaxy S6 and getting myself a Note 4.

samsung-galaxy-note-4-9024As you may already know the Note 4 uses a stylus with many interesting and productivity boosting features. You can easily write a note with S memo. You can do cool things like smart select to select text freely with the Stylus. Write on a screenshot or existing picture and do some doodling. A stylus mostly is thinner and more precise than your fingers and that gives finer control over what kind of strokes are applied to the image or document that you are working on. It acts as a cursor on the screen so you can do things more accurately. Taking out the S pen from its docked state fire up the Air Command to allow you to quickly start doing some work with your pen.

surface-pro3-pen-2Microsoft Surface, the tablet/laptop hybrid also uses a stylus.

The Surface Stylus takes things up a notch with the ways in which you can use it. You can click the top button to open OneNote. Double-click to capture a screenshot. The right click button acts like the right-click button on a mouse. Click it once in apps like OneNote to open a menu, to choose pen color, thickness, and other options. Microsoft on Friday confirmed it bought the stylus and display interface technology for the Surface Pro 3 from the company that made it. This signifies a big win for the stylus.

Other tablets that use a stylus are the Lenovo ThinkPad 10, Asus VivoTab Note 8, Toshiba Encore 2 Write, Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1Samsung Galaxy Note 12.2HP Slate 7 Extreme.

Not only that, it is rumoured that Apple’s new iPad will also use a stylus. Steve Jobs was strongly against the use of a stylus and even said

“if you see a stylus they blew it.”

“Who wants a stylus? You have to get ’em, put ’em away, you lose ’em. Yuch! Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus.” – Jobs said while introducing the iPhone

“God gave us 10 styluses. Let’s not invent another”  Jobs said about the stylus, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography.

So if the rumours of the iPad getting a stylus is true, it is definitely a big deal! The stylus is really making a come back!

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Software Technology

Did the Lion Really Roar? – A Quick Look at Mac OSX Lion

Apple calls it “The worlds most advanced operating system advances even further”. Could it be? Could apple have come up with another ‘Magical Thing’? Just like the IPad2?… Wait.. what? Is that sarcasm? Maybe… or maybe not.

My first reaction which I tweeted was, “The new Mac OSX Lion gives me stuff I wanted, but takes away stuff I need and then gives me stuff that I neither need or want…”

Then there were a bunch of “WTF”, but now slowly using it for close to 3 weeks I am getting accustomed to the so-called features that advances the most advanced operating system even further.

Here’s a few things that I like about the new OSX Lion.

  • Mission Control – and the Grouping of Apps.  Lion’s predecessors created a mess of all the open apps and files in one big clutter. At first this grouping feature felt a bit annoying because I was so used to looking at all my files at once. But now that I have gotten use to it, this is so much better. It keeps things organized and saves you time in the long run(once you get used to it)

  • Desktops – spaces were removed and replaced with Desktops, and I know many people who are complaining about this. Some even going on a rant like little kids who just got their candy stolen from them. I never really used spaces on my Snow Leopard because I actually thought it sucked (yet another technical term) in comparison to Ubuntu’s desktops and how easy it was to move from one desktop to the other and move files around. Lion actually does it different now and at first glance (just like all other new additions) seems like a very wrong thing that Apple did. But it’s actually much easier to move files around and keep things separated and spawning off new desktop is a breeze… just drag and drop

 

  • New Finger Gestures – I am still not a 100% satisfied with this.  I no longer can zoom in and out in Finder, or go Top-Bottom with 3 fingers in Firefox. Safari seems to have crashed a few times, but that’s why I use Firefox 99% of the time. And they took away my 4 finger swipe to switch between apps, instead of I have to use Command+ Tab, feels like windows again. But I can use that to switch between Desktops so I guess it’s still okay.

  • LaunchPad – This feature is something that I have totally ignore and is of no use to me, and it just feels annoying to say the least. However, it may still come in handy for most people out there. It organizes all your applications like the Iphone, and the Ipad and uses the same kind of finger swipe to switch between pages of applications. A plus for the average user – not for me.

  • Air Drop – have not used it and A bit disappointed because it only works with Lion. Not Cool.

  • Full Screen mode – nice but not a must. If they took it away tomorrow. I wont even notice it.

 

  • Mail & Calendar – I like the fact that exchange support is better than before and Create Account wizard is much like that on Iphone and IPad, some improvements in the Mail and ICal interface. So overall its a nice improvement, but I still wont be using it because it’s not enough and simply no match for Gmail and Google Calendar.

  • THE LION REMEMBERS – I saved the best for last. This by far is my most loved features. When you want to shut down your computer it asks you: “Reopen Windows when Logging back in?”. and I gleefully say Okay :). And the next time I turn my computer on, the Lion remembers all my open applications and files and arranges the windows the way I had left it. When I get to work, I want to get started right away. This gets everything ready for me and I don’t need a note to myself, or even have to remember what I was working on the night before. It’s right there… This is one feature where I can say “The Lion Roars”