Idea: Tangible Text
I have one of the multi-touch Macbook Pro’s. The ability to manipulate my documents and web browsing experience with swipes has really accelerated my workflow. This performance yield has yet to be extracted from word processing though. Hence TangibleText: A killer feature that enables anyone who has to edit significant amounts of text (professionals, executives, etc) to do so in a way that embraces re-organization as a key component of that process.
When I’m editing complex documents generated by someone else (happens with some frequency) I reorganize a lot more than I add/subtract. For the latter two operations, my keyboard is good enough. Click, type, or click and drag and delete. For reorganizing, I don’t want to be limited by the constraints of this approach.
If I cut/paste, I can’t see the text I’m playing with. If I copy/paste, I have to deal with two copies and delete the original. Neither solution is optimal. This is where swiping/a tablet interface really helps out. Select some text, then drag it around (as a snippet, not the vertical bar that’s currently allowed) with my fingers. Place where I want to, lock it in with another click. Done.
There’s even room for an entire office suite that has multi-touch ingrained at the DNA level (not the superficial application we’ll see ingrained with the next release of MS). Think about building (multi-touch takes that verb to a whole new level in the context of computers) a slide deck this way. Could be very useful, and fun to boot!
-Shlok
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