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Why Did Touch Take 4 Decades to Catch On?
theodp writes "You probably saw media coverage of Bill Gates showing off touch-screen technology to his CEO play group last week. With the introduction of the iPhone and iPod Touch, touch (and multi-touch) technology — which folks like Ray Ozzie enjoyed as undergrads way back in the early '70s — has finally gone mainstream. The only question is: Why did it take four decades for its overnight success? Some suggest the expiration of significant patents filed during '70s and '80s may have had something to do with it — anything else?"
I agree with the fixed position, but I invite you to think a little about the remote control issue.
My DVD recorder's remote has so many buttons! For example, there are 3 keys to go to on-screen menus:
* Top Menu - where you can choose what to watch from the programs recorded on the internal HD;
* Home Menu - goes to the player's menu where you can go to the "top menu" or change player settings;
* Menu - goes to the DVD menu, if there's a DVD in the player.
I know this remote control is awfully designed and could do with half of the keys, but this is only one example of how a "contextual key pad" could be used. And you need a graphical interface for that, in my opinion.
And I can't really used this remote without looking at it, I can assure you.
One could argue that a DVD recorder/player with an internal HD is a multi-function device and I could agree with that.
I think the reason you haven't seen touch catch on before now is because of how horrendous it is. Tactile feedback isn't just a side effect of current interface methods, it's an important aspect to input. Even ignoring problems with touch that may be solved as the technology matures (dirt/grease, unintentional gestures, dirtying up a display that doubles as the input device, losing finger position), touch simply doesn't feel like interaction.
As far as actual devices go, having sold both touch and classical variants on appliances, I can say that the more often someone uses a touch interface, the less inclined they are to continue using it. When someone's favorite model transitions to a 'touch' type interface, they can't return it for what they had been using fast enough. It's the hot new thing that nobody likes to use, but everyone thinks is real pretty.
Even Star Trek, the hands-down Sci-Fi 'King of Touch' acknowledged the technology's limitations. To quote Tom Paris: "I am tired of tapping panels. For once, I want controls that let me actually feel the ship I'm piloting."
What the heck is a 'sig'?
A finger is a rather clumsy interface device compared to the pinpoint precision offered by a mouse. And when the OS and all of the software on that platform is designed for a keyboard and a mouse, then change becomes hard.
Read Apple's user interface guidelines for developing applications and web applications for the iPhone. Touch screen interfaces truly require (to overuse the phrase once again) a new interface paradigm.
Multitouch trackpads, on the other hand, simply overlay gestures on top of existing mechanisms. A two-finger tap is a "right click". A two-finger scrolling gesture translates easily into "scroll wheel" input. All events which existing systems and software understand.
A "pinch", however, is a new type of input that has no translation. As such, software has to be reprogramed to understand that type of event, and then perform the appropriate behavior.
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The one piece of tech that really makes touch possible is flatscreen LCD technology with scratch-proof surfaces and rapid response. That's important. But what's even more important is designing products for touch, not just slapping it on.
Take the iPhone. When you use it, you're not just using your fingers - you're also using the hand holding the item, keeping it in place and even moving it a little to assist in accuracy. Physically it is better suited to touch than a laptop, which up until recently were thick and heavy. Also, laptops generally have a mandatory keyboard getting in the way. Worse, the keyboard/mouse combo is more convenient for the GUI OS in place. The iPhone on the other hand completely reinvented the GUI to support touch. Other new technologies like the touch table are doing much the same thing, albeit in different ways.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
To do that with my remote involves pushing the "Watch Movie" button, and when the DVD ends, pressing the "Watch TV" button.
Its not touch screen, just a Logitech Harmony 670.
The thing that this line of remotes does differently is that you don't control devices, you control actions. My housemate doesn't have to remember to switch to "Video-2" to watch cable tv, or "Component-1" to watch a DVD, the remote knows all that and hides it all behind the simple activity options.
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OK, I never flew f-16's, but I did fly C-5's... lots of buttons, switches and MFD's... waaaayyyy too many. As much money as the USAF pays for avionics, my alpine iva-w205 has a tactile feedback on the touchscreen that is way more advanced than what I worked with in FRED... The feedback system is kinda weird and creepy at times... but its basic idea is innovative.. why is this in a car stereo and not on some cool computing devices or lcd based fingerworks touchstream keyboard?
Perhaps some braile-based feedback touchscreen could do it... More fun : apply small electrical shocks to the user's fingers for even better feedback possibilities... but I am not sure that's gonna sell.
JP102235
typed on a fingerworks touchstream keyboard
with no feedback whatsoever!
jp
That's partly true.
I have a Compaq Concerto, one of the first touch-screen notebooks. I bought mine in 1994, but they were available for a couple of years before that.
The touch-sensing hardware is good enough, but the cpu (486/25) struggles under the load and the computer feels unresponsive.
The big problem though is software. MS introduced Windows for Pen Computing for this computer, and it sucks badly. It was never really updated either. Unfortunately, that was also when the Windows monopoly started to bite, so there was no other player to pick up the touch computing slack, and the concept withered until now.
I'd say the monopoly was the biggest problem.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."