Not sure that your example proves that YC is no longer interested in RFS #5. I think RFS# 5 covers companies that could be huge, but I'm not convinced that I would ever want to code on a tablet.
RFS #5 has nothing to do with the essay linked. See http://ycombinator.com/rfs.html for all the "Request for Startups" bullet points.
Personally, I think it's a dumb RFS to begin with. From a professional standpoint, I couldn't handle developing on anything else but two 24+ inch monitors (if not three) and a mechanical keyboard.
Not that I couldn't do it on a laptop or tablet, it just makes me about 300x more productive -- and that's what matters.
There would definitely be some pains going from huge monitors to a small tablet. The bigger side of our plan was that it wouldn't just be possible to develop from a tablet, but really, from anywhere. Develop iPhone apps on your Windows box, or Chromebook, for example.
I think that in the future it might be possible that developing on a tablet might just mean hooking your tablet or other sub $300 device up to two 24+ inch monitors. Think developing iPhone apps from a $25 Raspberry Pi, thanks to the cloud :-)
You shouldn't have to use a QWERTY-like keyboard to enter text into a tablet. The very idea of a flat space with a list of letters which has you individually selecting letters (or moving your finger around on a full list of letters) is a huge waste of space on an already small screen.
>You shouldn't have to use a QWERTY-like keyboard to enter text into a tablet
Why not - If I can smoothly transfer touch typing skills then thats a pretty big win.
> huge waste of space on an already small screen.
Hence my comment about slightly larger screen. I can almost touch type on a 10 inch...bit more and it could work. The capacitative aspect might even work better than a physical keyboard for "touch" typing.
I could see it with a graphical programming language -- one where a FOR loop is a large box into which you'd drag other commands, where each variable and equation is an icon you drag out from the side. Almost like a physics flash game.
We mostly expected people to attach a bluetooth keyboard to their tablet or phone. For people who insisted on using a touch screen, we were working on a graphical context sensitive system like you describe -- except for existing languages (Objective-C)... because nobody wants to keep tapping semicolons and parenthesis :-)
What if the tablet was as big as a desk? or I saw a demo of some microsoft tech where the monitor level was transparent and you could reach behind it and interact with 3d objects.
