Where I’m writing from

When Apple brought the touch screen and the tablet together they kicked off a new revolution, one that moves us all one step closer to direct manipulation of the digital world at our hands.

As a writer, I suppose I have naturally gravitated toward the realm of writing and editing, where we’re still following “word processing” conventions developed in the late jurassic era, and a model of interaction with screen objects sometimes referred to as WIMP (windows, insertion point, mouse, pointer), revolutionary when first developed at PARC but increasingly feeling like a remote control apparatus in a world of immediate and direct manipulation using our senses and our hands.

So for the last couple of years I’ve been working at a startup called CloudOn where we make a document editor for mobile people that lets you store your stuff in the cloud, get to it from anywhere, and work on the devices you prefer.

We’ve learned a huge amount from the product we launched in 2012, a few months before I joined, and soon we’ll be rolling out an updated version of CloudOn that I honestly believe will change your mind about what is possible on an iPad. You’ll start to wonder why you can’t just reach out and touch, move, rotate, and position everything you work with.

So where am I writing from? Anywhere I want.

Our launch is coming up soon, so I wanted to share a sneak peek with friends, family, and well wishers. This little video gives a preview of what we’ve come up with.

You can watch it here or drop by our signup page to be notified when it’s available.