Slashdot Mirror
A Turning Point for Touch Screens, Says the NYT
The New York Times has a story up on the suddenly brisk market for touch screens and the devices which can make use of them, which it says "has grown quietly for years, both in commercial applications and in consumer devices." Besides the obvious (the iPhone, and Apple's use of multi-touch generally), the article also mentions the recent inclusion of Israeli company N-Trig's version of multi-touch technology in a Dell notebook computer, and some of the other places you can expect to see touchscreens instead of display-only ones in the near future — if the price drops quickly enough.
Forget the optimus, what about a touch screen keyboard? Sure, there's no feedback (yet) but the user could change the input style at will, using it as a mouse/tablet/music mixing device etc.
I was the design manager on Logitech's Harmony One remote and I fought for a touch screen for the programmable controls - in the past these were physical buttons beside the different controls on the remote. Implementing physical buttons close to an LCD are very difficult to implement correctly. I thought the touch panel would improve the quality of the product and give it much cleaner look to the overall product.
I was half right - it is a gorgeous remote but the touch panel just doesn't match the rest of the remote and the time taken in the mechanical design to product an interface that you don't have to look down at to use. Coupled with the cost of the capacitive touch panel (about 10x what it would cost for poly dome and plastic/elastomer buttons) it really isn't worth it.
I'm very unimpressed with the touch panel for typing on the iPhone and iPod touch so I'm going to be watching to see how companies design their user interfaces to give users as positive an interface as they would have with buttons.
If it's not done well, then I would expect a backlash against touch panels by consumers.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
what's always bothered me about touchscreen technology is the screen getting dirty. It annoys me when my non-touch monitor gets smudges as it is. I freely admit, however, that I have very little direct experience with touchscreens and perhaps these new ones (iPhone, etc) have some nifty way of dealing with that.
http://transformativeworks.org/
Over the years I think I've touched my screen a little too much.
Seriously, regarding LCD reliability- has anyone studied it after thousands of touches, some low pressure, some higher pressure? When I touch my LCD screen, it turns dark around my finger. Doesn't look good to me.
Touch screens should re-vitalize computer based porn. Think of the possibilities.
I imagine that the first prolonged, day-to-day experience with a touchscreen for a lot of people would be the Nintendo DS. It's got a user base a lot larger, and demographically wider, than that of the iPhone. This isn't to knock Apple's tech and design achievements with that device and their trackpads, but I think the DS was probably pivotal in getting the general public used to operating devices with purely virtual buttons.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
More innovative than the iPhone and yet they didn't even mention it in the article...
And now pornography has a whole new platform to work with. awesome.
Right, so here's my incredibly important opinion that you must agree with. Apple implemented this nifty multi-touch thing on the iPhone (and consequently on the iPod Touch). What they need to do now is extend this multi-touch thing to the computers as well. Heck, if I can see some darn thing on the screen and I want to drag it around or whatever, why shouldn't I be able to just reach out and do that? There should still be a keyboard and a rat for now. Mouse pads should also incorporate multi-touch. I think the keys on the keyboard should all have tiny displays embedded in them that can display any character. Thus, when you switch languages, the keyboard mapping will change and the keys themselves will show what character they'll type. Push Ctrl, Alt, Fn, Open-Apple, Shift, or whatever, and the keys will immediately change to reflect the characters that will be typed. Thus, lowercase letters will be displayed until Shift is held down, at which point they'll change to uppercase and the number keys will change to the symbols on those same keys. Hit Caps Lock and the appropriate behavior will take place. No more people getting confused why their password isn't being accepted or pushing all kinds of wrong keys looking for that dang ñ key when you're typing in Spanish or whatever. Simple. So, where were we? Oh yeah. Take these computers to the next level. Multi-touch on all computer displays and mouse pads. Keyboards where individual keys display what they will do. And while we're at it, how about a non-broken X implementation like there used to be in Tiger?!?
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Anyone doing outsourced IT work will tell you that Elo brand touch screens are very much alive in the POS (point of sale) market. This article is way out of touch with reality. Where's the "BS" tag when we need it?
Life is not for the lazy.
I guess I'm stuck in my mindset. I can still only see the touch screen as a valid method of data input in a few limited capacities. I see it as a nice addition to the POS systems, gaming systems, phones, and maybe some other small consumer gadgets.
I can't envision me, personally, wanting to code using the screen. I can see me wanting to navigate a GPS unit or a building directory with one.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
All our POS products are based on touchscreen technology. And they work very well.
Of course, on modern POS you don't type in numbers as you used to do in yesteryear - that's why we have barcodes and more recently RFID.
Touchscreens allow you to offer a fully dynamic user interface that adopts to the current situation. It work wells, as long as you do not need to do any sort of more-than-occasional data entry.
Yeah? I think you need to figure out that NOT EVERYONE IS YOU!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I think you are right, but for the wrong reasons. The same things applies to voice recognition, it will never replace keyboards in the office.
How fatiguing and tedious would it be to talk to your computer all day? Imagine how noisy the office would be.
Likewise, how about using a touchscreen all day? Your arm would feel like it was ready to fall off. Like it or not, a mouse takes little physical effort and lends itself to the sitting position.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Human fingers are greasy. Show me a touchscreen that can repel all human grease and then I'll be interested.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne