Comments on: Scoring Topper on the Tablet

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:19:57 +0000

I went to a place that had Macbooks in every room connected to a wall-mounted display, seemed totally paperless. While it appealed to the geek in me, I didn't feel too awesome knowing my records were digital. The kicker was that their records system ran on Vista within a Parallels instance.

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:16:49 +0000

Yup, I remember seeing a lot of those grimy off-white keyboards back in the day. Dell skirted the issue by making them black so the white wouldn't fade and show off how dirty they were. Win if you're into the aesthetics, but definitely a hygiene fail.

By: bex

bex — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 22:14:22 +0000

in my opinion, the less a doctor has to touch paper, the better. Hospitals never quite optimized themselves with “para-professionals” that could make the doctor's time more well-spent. If you're a small town general practitioner, then doing your own paperwork with an iPad app might save money because you don't have to hire a nurse or a clerk. But, for any hospital with more than 10 doctors, it's probably a huge waste of time.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:50:04 +0000

Computer keyboards can get some gunked up, it's horrible! Give them a quick shake, and out falls a load of fluff, hair and crumbs. It'd be great to be able to have a wipe clean one.

Someone in our office +never+ cleaned his keyboard, and when he retired his keyboard had a thick crust of gunk on each key, rubbed clear on the impact point but grimy all around the edges, and then seriously crusty down the sides. I don't think his keyboard was re-used! I think that was an extreme example though.

Like you say though, nasty!

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:19:57 +0000

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:16:49 +0000

By: bex

bex — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:14:22 +0000

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:50:04 +0000

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:26:54 +0000

Interesting. I'm surprised he agreed to sit down with them at all, being Steve Jobs and all. Maybe his public persona is overstated.

I can see the issue with keyboards. I saw a piece on TV years ago that measured germs on a public toilet seat vs. other places, including the average keyboard. You know which one was nastier.

I do love my keyboard though. If it were flat and tacile only, with no keys, that would allow me to clean better.

I've always wondered about doctors and paperwork/data entry. They must hate doing it (like police reports), but it's a necessary evil I suppose.

By: bex

bex — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:21:38 +0000

I saw it on a mac rumors blog about 4 years ago… Steve Jobs had a sit-down with a bunch of hospitals who were literally begging him to make a touch-screen tablet. Something that would be easier to disinfect than a keyboard. He gave them many reasons why the market just was not right for the kind of tablet they were wanting.

Of course, then he made the iPhone… so things are a bit different now.

In general, software makes your hospital LESS efficient, not MORE efficient. Most of the systems I've seen really cannot prove their value. Asking a doctors to do tons of data entry really isn't the best use of their time…

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:45:13 +0000

Where did you read that? That doesn't sound like Apple, i.e. being pushed. The fear of germs makes sense, but the use case I've heard is the doctor carrying one around instead of charts. Sounds bogus.

By: bex

bex — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:09:19 +0000

actually, the health care industry historically pushed Apple the hardest to make a tablet. Hospital keyboards are practically germ warfare factories. They'll purchase them in boatloads even if they just have a web browser.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:47:24 +0000

I always get those backward. You were right initially, jailbreaking (i.e. from Apple) to control the iPhone OS is what I think people will do immediately to install what they want and take advantage of multi-tasking, etc.

Unlocking, i.e. removing from AT&T for use with any carrier, is less likely.

By: Spamboy

Spamboy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:28:27 +0000

The one disagreement I have regarding jailbreaking: what drives people to jailbreak isn't just carrier preference, but also application preference — if you want the ability to install and run what you want (vs. what is available to download), you will jailbreak.

By: Jake

Jake — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:10:35 +0000

Apple's website says wi-fi plus 3G triangulation. So, good enough GPS. Re. camera, it's definitely coming in a later version, probably with widescreen viewing another miss.

I don't know about multi-tasking. I thought I'd miss it on the iPhone, but I haven't. Actually, the iPhone OS has multi-tasking, it's just not exposed to developers, e.g. the iPod and Phone apps run in the background.

We should start a predictive market around how many days after its release the iPad will be unlocked. Jailbreaking won't be as desirable for the iPad, since it's not a phone and isn't super portable. Even so, it's going to be jailbroken too, if only to pwn AT&T.

By: Spamboy

Spamboy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:05:12 +0000

Sensors: from what I've read, it's not true GPS but cell-tower-assisted triangulation. Any confirmation?

Front Facing Video Camera: correct, no camera — however, the insides of the iPad have room to store one in the appropriate location

The *one and only* thing that keeps me from getting excited about the iPad is a lack of multi-tasking, but I suppose it could be “jailbroken” to handle that.