Bill Gates on the iPad

> The multi-billionaire spoke with Brent Schlender of *BNET* and admitted that while he became [envious of the iPhone](http://blogs.bnet.com/corporate-strategy/?p=101), the iPad has not elicited the same reaction from him. > > “You know, I’m a big believer in touch and digital reading, but I still think that some mixture of voice, the pen and a real keyboard — in other words, a netbook — will be the mainstream on that,” Gates reportedly said. I wonder why Bill Gates would promote netbooks? Could it be because netbooks have been the only growth sector for Windows-based PCs in the past few years?

Here’s the guy who suggested ten years ago that Tablet PCs would be the primary form factor in a few years. He truly believed that the whole world would want to use their computers like clipboards, writing notes with a stylus like the nerd he is. (No offense, Mr. Gates. I actually have tremendous respect for your accomplishments. But you are a nerd.) And he looks at the iPad, and his biggest complaint is that it doesn’t have a keyboard?

The iPhone killed the stylus. It’s dead. Really. I’m serious. There will never be a successful mainstream computer appliance with a stylus ever again.

iPad has great voice recognition for disabled access, but mainstream voice control for computers is still a Star Trek fantasy, not something most people want to do every day. It just feels creepy talking to your computer.

The ultimate next-gen text input method, the replacement for the QWERTY keyboard, has yet to rear its head, but I’m fairly certain it will be neither voice input nor handwriting recognition.