Links I enjoyed, and iPad musings

C++ 1 Minute

Appetizers: Three cool links

The Design of Design by Fred Brooks (Amazon)
Yes, a new book by the Fred Brooks. Started reading it in Stanza on my iPhone today…

A Turing Machine (aturingmachine.com)
I’m in love. This is my favorite computer ever. I so want one.

The Evolution of Visual C++ in Visual Studio 2010 (VS Magazine)
A summary of what’s new in VC++ 2010, from the C++0x language and library features, to concurrency runtime and libraries, to faster and more accurate Intellisense (running the EDG engine), and more. All I can say is that VS 2010 is available imminently…

Entree: My favorite link this week

What the iPad Really Is (Michael Swaine, Dr. Dobb’s)
Swaine gets it. The iPad is a “read-mostly” and “anywhere” device.

That’s why Steve Jobs is correct that this segment between notebooks and phones exists, and that serving that segment expands the market rather than competing directly with either neighboring segment. The tablet, spelled with “i” or otherwise, mostly doesn’t compete with desktops and notebooks (except for users who only do read-mostly stuff) or smartphones (except for users who need a bigger screen); it complements both. I’ve been using Windows convertible tablets off and on for years for this part of my computing life.

For my tablet needs, the iPad as launched had only two disappointments. The killer piece of missing software was a OneNote equivalent, and the killer piece of missing hardware was a stylus – really, because I want to finally have a real paper-notebook replacement. My convertible tablet/notebook has these covered, but maybe if a dedicated tablet can match this part too it can take over the “tablet segment” for me and I can go back to a notebook that’s a dedicated notebook. We’ll see.

Incidentally, now with Netflix (if it’s not a 4/1 joke) and Hulu and Flickr and ABC joining the burgeoning flood, it looks more and more like “iPad, iPad everywhere”…

Published by Herb Sutter

Herb Sutter is an author and speaker, a software architect at Microsoft, and chair of the ISO C++ standards committee.

Published

4 thoughts on “Links I enjoyed, and iPad musings”

  2. Yes, I have one of those. It’s not quite as nice as a real stylus — bigger tip, have to push hard, not quite as accurate. It’s more of a stiff finger than a pen. And the killer is that applications aren’t built to consider or exploit stylus support because the stylus isn’t a standard part of the system (even though it’s sold in Apple stores as a semi-popular third-party add-on). I really want a stylus + OneNote (specifically including “ink” support).

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