Gillespie Clan Treehouse

Axio Modbook

First of all, I think you should know that I’ve linked to it in my wishlist – the Axio Modbook is a sexy, sexy beast of a computer. It’s a slate-style tablet notebook built out of a Macbook, with Apple’s blessing. I’ve been aware of such an ingenious little device for some time now, but I hadn’t seen much about it other than text until today, when I was reading the archives of Tom Richmond (of MAD Magazine fame)’s blog. He posted a video of a Hawaiian daily show that did a feature on the Modbook – using a cartoonist, a DJ and a photographer to demonstrate how you might use it in each situation. Also, GPS!

My favorite part of the video is where the hostess gets all embarrassed, and they cut in a bunch of clips of random people laughing at her. It reminds me of the episode of Space Ghost where they played sounds of babies crying and goats bleating whenever Fran Drescher laughed.

There are more videos on Tom’s Blog of the Modbook in action. Tom also makes a good point to note that this is 1st Gen technology – meaning, not all the bugs are worked out. I agree with him in that I might want to wait until a 2nd or 3rd release of the item (like, when they release a MacBook Pro version); but if I received it as a present, I think I’d still be stoked with the 1st Gen. One of my concerns would be that I’d want to use a keyboard with it on occasion (since my handwriting is both atrociously illegible, and nowhere near the speed at which I type); but in one of the videos, a reviewer reports that he hooked up a standard iMac keyboard to the tablet and it worked just fine.

Overall, I’m just glad to see that SOMEONE recognized the fact that designers want a damn Macintosh tablet notebook. Quite frankly, I was confused that Mac didn’t jump on that bandwagon sooner; but on the other hand, I suppose they have been trying to reach a broader market of late, and a notebook with no keyboard could potentially be very frustrating for anyone who wasn’t comfortable with the graphic pen format of interaction. I’m curious to see how Axio will further evolve the Modbook (hopefully in the near future!).