Yes, apple made a big statement with their iPad launch. It looks very nice and still needs to find its real place in the digital world, as many opinion makers are discussing it today. It comes with a nice set of consumer software and iWork tools. But the most surprising is its user interface. You can do everything without the mouse but with your fingers. People used to the iPhone will just find it the next small step. For keyboard addicts, like me, questions come up. Like how fast can you type ? As fast as with a regular keyboard ? And how long can you do it ? Keyboards are very ergonomic today and you can type for hours.
Sure, Apple has a docking station (very small as well) to which you can connect your keyboard. And then I found this small device (see the picture) that is a small keyboard, compentary to tablet PCs, if you don’t want to use the touchscreen all the time. But it does not look very bright either.
But where is the character recognition that we got as early as 10 years ago on the Palm Pilot ? You had to write character per character on a special place on the screen. It worked, I have seen people using it. But today, with all sophisticated computers and software, it seems it got lost somewhere. Microsoft supported it on their early tablet PC software. Now it got lost ?
And what about voice ? My neighbor got himself a brand new car. He was complaining about the fact that it was voice controlled and that the learning curve is very steep. Luckily enough there is no written control or mouse in the car 
But this also seems not to have taken the market.
How long are we going to stick to the keyboard ?
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Posted by: Jean Calcada
Hi Jean-Marie,
I totally agree with you. It’a a pity Apple did not follow-up on their own initiatives even before the Palm Pilot. Actually Apple was a predecessor in digital ink recognition with its in 1993 introduction of the Newton. It missed the market due to its high price tag and connectivity restrictiveness. As so often the intelligence put by Apple R&D was way far ahead of competition but their eagerness for keeping it a closed framework spoiled the breakthrough. The Newton’s character recognition software was not limited to a single character recognition but was a self learning process of your handwriting. It adapted to you instead of the opposite. I still a Newton in the drawer and besides being a collection unit it’s a piece technological work and intelligence.
Posted by: Jonathan Beesoon
Let’s take a step back and compare: how fast were u guys “writing” on your palm compare to my 9yr old boy writing an text (SMS) on a 12 key keyboard ? I bet he’s way faster than you. I however see the future in gestures together with the emergence of PicoProjectors working together with micro-cameras. (cfr Nintendo WII, Microsoft Natal) - the virtual projected keyboard is neardby..and using gestures we will write - software will provide predictive dictionaries helping us writing faster.. i