Remember the Modbook? The Axiotron Modbook, a modified MacBook-tablet combo was sold in the UK by Computer Warehouse back in 2009. It was a slate-style tablet that enabled users to draw, sketch and write directly on the screen, cleverly combining a MacBook laptop with an industry standard Wacom graphics tablet. We even reviewed it, here.
The Modbook has been revived. A new pro version will be available this autumn.
Modbook creator Andreas Haas claims that despite the popularity of the iPad (which launched in 2010, around the time the Modbook fell off the radar) there is a market for the Modbook. He told Arstechnica: "Finger painting is fun when you're five years old. But when you start getting into it, you're going to pick up a pen."
Haas blames the recession rather than the iPad for Axiotron's disappearance. Two weeks after Axiotron went public, ”Lehman Brothers went belly up and took us down along with the financial system,” he claimed. Haas has salvaged what he could from Axiotron and started up a new (privately funded) company now.
He also claims that there were never any legal issues with Apple. Some had speculated that Apple was responsible for the disappearance of the company. On the contrary, Haas claims: "As soon as the ModBook came out, Apple came to us and asked us to become a proprietary solution provider. "That didn't end up working out, but we were moved to a developer contract. We are now an Apple 'developer' and we have a great working relationship."
In fact, prior to Axiotron, Haas was a part of Apple's Newton Systems Group, notes Haas, according to a Engadget report. He said: “When I joined that group I actually wanted to see the pen on the Mac, because I remember there was a development unit that was shown to Andy Warhol to draw on a Mac, and he just loved it. I always felt, that is what I wanted to do”.
The 13.3-inch Modbook Pro, referred to by the company as "the world's most powerful and largest-screen tablet computer," is slated to ship early this autumn.
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Comments received
olsonbw said on Fri, 29 Jun 2012
"Look out iPads". For what? There might be .0001 percent of people that might think about buying a modbook instead of an iPad. If that.
Who would that market be? Extreme nerds. Extreme nerds are not buying iPads because they can't get through their minds how powerful an iPad can be. If they did, they would be writing iPad apps to allow themselves to be doing what they would do on a modbook.
The market for modbooks are people that are either already buying Apple laptops and want to be able to have an Apple laptop with a touch screen, or people buying Windows or Linux computers and wished that Apple made a touch screen laptop and only if they would they would buy that instead of a "PC".
"Watch out iPad". Yeh right. Ok. Everyone. Nothing here to see.
Macdemon said on Sat, 30 Jun 2012
I think there WILL be a market for the Modbook, but it will not be the consumer market because the unit is too large at 13.1 inches.
It's strengths lie in the graphics & publishing files, where laptops currently reside. I also think it will bring a fresh & vibrant new look to media industry too.
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