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Of mice and graphics tablets
A personal odyssey of frustration, hope, and the unquenched desire for a better peripheral
Tech optimism is addictive. For example, my App Store history is littered with note-taking apps, and I’ve spent far too much time and money searching for the perfect keyboard. The right app, the right keyboard, is always the next one, because the one I have now inevitably falls short in some small but unavoidably irritating way. And so I keep looking, buying, installing, hoping.
The next note-taking app will organize my life. The next keyboard will make me a better writer…
My personal doom loop of tech optimism isn’t limited to note-taking apps or keyboards. I’ve been hunting for the perfect graphics tablet for almost two decades. Every year or so I find myself trying a new model, each purchased with a heart full of hope—hope soon dashed by flaky drivers, bizarre Bluetooth dongles, wobbly pen nibs, sporadic wireless connections, or Kafkaesque software.
I’ve tried nearly every brand and configuration. None has hit that sweet spot between ideal form and flawless function. Some have been downright infuriating. Wacom, for example, littered my Mac with so many inexplicable drivers and background utilities, I continue to unearth them years after my last interaction with one of their tablets.
