So, it's 2018. Anyone patiently expecting for one of these to rock up on their doorstep? I'm not, personally, but it's been an interesting saga that the internet hasn't actually been very vocal on (Or seemingly legally silenced at times*). I thought it would be interesting to put out a call to see if anyone on this forum has had any stake in the controversy. Some of the estimated dates for delivery are all the way back in 2014. Not being able to show a production model 1200 days after the estimated shipping date seems like a bit of a red flag to me. The last update was at the start of March. https://www.kickstarter.com/project...-retina-quad-core-mac-os-x-tablet/description *Pretty sure Tom's had an article on it up for a day or two before disappearing into the void. Looked like they had been threatened.
I have the original Modbook, buggy as hell and a pain to work with. It was innovative at the time and still the only option if you want to run osx app with a digitizer. There are so many better and lighter options now that I can't see anyone going back to it .
I tossed the kickstarter $5 so I could follow the updates etc. and because I wanted to support the theory of building a machine built for creatives by creatives (at least thats what I thought was the case). I feel terrible for all the people Andreas hoodwinked out of their hard earned cash, its pretty obvious no one is ever getting a tablet at this point. It also seems more than just a set of poor decisions, as he continues to pursue further funding and investments from others for this project that is essentially in a constant state of production, updates, etc. My honest opinion is he is actually just a guy who blew all the funding in the wrong places, is in a type of personal denial about it all and its just him now occasionally creating Sketchup mockups of some new additional feature to keep the lie going (for himself mostly at this point). Too bad, as I would have liked to see something like this succeed. Since then of course there has been a slew of amazing devices, and the device that reminds me the most of this design they pitched would be the Vaio Z Canvas, (powerful thick slate) or even the newer ZBook by HP. Anyway, sorry to hear you got caught in that unfortunate mess, ultimately money is just money, but the more damaging thing is just wasting peoples emotional time and headspace making constant promises and never delivering. The comments section on each Kickstarter update is pretty toxic.
Yeah, in my eyes it defeats half the point of going for an Apple product. That and the lack of a touch ecosystem in OSX and lack of touch in general for the tablet. I rarely use touch when I'm doing Photoshop work but for general tablet usability it is a must, imo. That said, to have one, an interesting piece of history, and well, it's "something". Could be worse... Sorry for the misunderstanding! I haven't actually been caught up in it. I've just been curious about it. I thought there would be more discussion considering the amount of money the big backers have put into it. I totally agree with everything you said though. $300k isn't a ridiculous amount and could easily be mismanaged at the RnD stage. Even if he has a fair bit left, that doesn't mean he has enough to ship products. Time scale is also a really big issue on these projects. Even the Eve V, which was largely a success, suffered(and is still suffering) the issue of wait times, with large companies pushing out newer, faster, and more efficient products in the meantime.
I don't have a personal stake, but I am "excited" (at the idea) for the MBPX. To put some context, at the time Kickstarter launched, I had a lengthy chain of emails with Andreas about the internal specifications and possibility of a touch version. I've also been following the development of tablet, particularly interesting reveals regarding Wacom tech evolution. Also coincidentally at the time of the Kickstarter, I was considering plunking down serious cash for an upgrade for a new workstation tablet. (Unlike a lot of graphics users, I do nearly all my professional work in slate mode, even though I also have a desktop cintiq rig.) I chose the Z Canvas in the end, but I was definitely in the "almost-buy" camp. Personally, I am not as skeptical as @stoneseeker, and do not believe it is pure vaporware. Our own forum member, @Yuureikun has praised the build quality of the original Modbook, and I am inclined to believe the actual prototypes are working and well-manufactured. However (from what I can gather from the updates), they are having problems committing to the tooling within the design-manufacturing pipeline. Having talked the Eve developers, this stage of the design process is extremely thorny and major headache as you must deal constantly with QA and contract negotiations with your foreign suppliers (Wacom, Sharp, etc) and China-based manufacturing partners. To me, it seems obvious they simply lack the capital for this stage of the process. The $300K from the Kickstarter is a pittance, barely enough to cover the NRE of the initial electrical design (EVT) of the I/O and digitizer. So it is not surprising that all they seem do be doing now is seeking new investment. While I do not agree with Andreas' handling of the Kickstarter backers, that shouldn't in itself invalidate the whole project. Unlike Eve, Modbook has the tricky proposition of their base hardware being dependent on another closed OEM (Apple), and whatever final tooling process they commit to must yield long-term revenue. So the move to the the new MBP chassis was absolutely necessary, if completely unfair to the KS backers. Again, not agreeing with how Andreas handled it, but it's unfair to simply write off the whole project.
Really wish that some tablet manufacturer would mimic the hardware list in an Apple laptop so that one could install OS X --- even better would be Apple opening up the licensing to companies making non-competing hardware.
I didn’t realize TPCR had a thread about this. I’m not a backer of the pro x, but I had an original Modbook back in the day so I’ve been following on from the sidelines. I’ve gotten kinda sucked in. Has anyone here seen the film “American Movie”? The Modbook thing reminds me of that. Persistence is sometimes not a virtue.
