Let's say that I agree with what Milhouse wrote Apple should do. Other than that, I'm going to let this part of the thread slide; I'm already sorry I brought it up.

Just in time. Here are the new drawings I cooked up. Let me know what you all think.
[3] [4]
And the previous sketches...
[2] [1]

I like #4 a lot (no, make that A LOT), but not #3 (I think the tablet should stay usable without a keyboard, sliding or separate or whatever, and the three buttons beneath the rocker would be unusable as shown anyway...).
Well done !

Ditto; I especially like the way that the device layout means it can be used in three orientations, and all three orientations have the buttons placed most sensibly.

Totally agree about the three layouts, that idea is simply brilliant! Combined with a tilt sensor, it'll be made automagically...

My own favourite accessory would be a portable docking station:



It'd feature a USB hub, power pack, port replicator, desktop stand, ethernet (using USB); 770 slots in the top and you've got a powerful portable workstation; slip it out and you've got a portable internet tablet.

Versions with a slide-up keyboard or built-in USB hard disk are also possible; not necessarily part of the core idea, but if necessary to be built, I could live with 20GB of storage :-)

Cheers,

Andrew

PS. Forgive the really very poor Gimp skills which demonstrate it, whether you end up using the speaker and D-pad on the 770, or replicate them and only expose the screen is a matter of design.

I hate small keyboards. I took the flip of my SE P910 because pecking those chicklets was even worse than the half-arsed Jot character recognizer (I now use Decuma Alphabetic, which is a lot better, despite the fact that it relies on a dedicated input area). Heck, I can barely tolerate the keyboard on my Psion 5MX and that's universally acknowledged as the best keyboard on a handheld ever.

If the 770 had HWR that actually worked, people wouldn't be so fixated on dumb-pads. As a comparison: on the Newton (yes, I'm incorrigible) mailing list, keyboard-related threads are quite scarce.

You proposal for a universal portrait mode rockxxx though, provided it can be implemented without making the installed software base obsolete.

Thanks everyone. Yeah, I like the fourth design better also. I think the tilt sensor idea is awesome as well. Andrew's portable docking station is something I would have never thought of either. I like it! I was thinking of the cover maybe sliding horizontally and leaving everything but the screen exposed. And have the cover made of some sort of clear [scratch resistant] plastic in order to operate the tablet without removing the cover.

I still wonder what potential the device has that is hidden, think of the connector in the battery compartment. Of course it is a test point and serial but there are a bunch more connections in there.

SIM card, CF or likes output, system bus expansion????



I think a built in GPS would be nice too, lately I've come up with the idea that a location alarm would be nice. Leave a particualar area and an alarm is triggered. Really though, a slide out keyboard would make surfing so much easier.


I have no doubts that the dsp scaling can be utilized to make this a nice media machine with mplayer as the provider. If anyone has noticed the new Nokia media server device has a bluetooth button, I think I can see where the 770 will profit from that

Man. All this from a survey oriented at software.

I like the idea of a window on the case so you can still see the screen. Maybe a slidebar with the magnet on it so you can choose whether the screen is on or off with the cover on.

Otherwise, I really think the existing hardware platform should be tapped for all it's worth. Back in the day, programmers had to cram everything they could into 65K of memory. There was crazy innovation and skill. Now, we live in a world of bloat where a bleedin word processor needs a P4 2.0GHz to function.