OK, this was supposed to be a post on the "Rise and Fall of the Smart Airliner Slate." So, what does this have to do with the iPad? Well, I was going to look for an update to the Airliner when Steve Jobs started his rant on the iPad. So, I started to think that the iPad would serve as a nice platform for my screencasting activities. However, the iPad isn't all its cracked up to be! It was supposed to be Mac's answer to a Tablet PC. If that were the case, I could use it, but it's just a big iPod Touch (ie: iPhone without a cell phone or a camera)! If the iPad used Mac OS X, which is just a form of Linux BTW, that would be one thing, but it uses the iPod OS....
So, I figured I'd see if they updated the Airliner and I wanted to see if I could use it in Linux. All this SmartTech stuff tends to work best in WimpDoze. So, what did Smart do? They discontinued the Airliner and replced it with a smaller device! The smaller slate does not surprise me. It fits in perfectly with SmartTech building everything around their Notebook software. They just expect us teachers to prepare every single class, from start to finish, ahead of time as a Notebook file, just like a ppt, and use the tablet just as a remote mouse not a pen!
The new model is the WS200 retailing for $350 with a writing surface measuring just 6.75"x4.25" instead of the Airliner's 6"x8" writing surface...wow. Maybe I'll look at the new HP Slate PC?
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