Montblanc Augmented Paper Range Discontinued.

 

Our little online blog is beginning to become a record of things that no longer exist.  Just last week we wrote about Loro Piana discontinuing their sunglasses range, and now we are discussing Montblanc's much talked about augmented paper range going the way of the Dodo.

The augmented paper range, launched in 2016, was an ambitious project, that saw the brand produce a range of specialised notebooks, and pens, which with the press of a button will transfer handwriting to text within a digital application.

Designed to give Montblanc a foothold in the emerging digital handwriting space that has rapidly emerged since tablets such as iPad's began to be used, the range now is no longer on any of their websites around the world, and cannot be found in stores.

It's our suspicion that the technology and systems were simply not advanced enough to keep pace with digital handwriting advances.  Apple iPad with Apple Pencil are now at a very advanced level of handwriting recognition, and can easily transfer the scribblings of users into text for use.  Not to mention the latest versions of Andriod and IOS can capture images of handwriting and transfer them also to digital text.  Further, the Starwalker Montblanc pens designed for use with the augmented paper were unattractive, and impractical when not used with the specialised paper.  

All these were a recipe for disaster.  While theres no way to know for sure on sales as Montblanc don't publish the figures, we suspect this sold very poorly if at all.  We doubt it will have a replacement in the future.