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How HP Could Turn a Novelty Into a Revolution
RobotsDinner writes "HP's TouchSmart desktop is cool, but a blogger suggests it could be the beginning of a revolution if HP were to finally make the move of ditching Windows and building a Linux distro around the TouchSmart UI. 'Hello, HP. The UI of your latest TouchSmart computer says something about you. You may not have recognized your own weaving-in of meaning, but it comes across quite clearly if one reads just right: You want out. You want to escape the world of Windows to which Microsoft has sequestered you for the better part of two decades. Ah, but you can. No longer does Bill Gates stand guard outside your cell ... It's time to ditch Windows and build a Linux distro around the TouchSmart UI ... Your captivity of innovation under Microsoft is over. You're free. Free to invent, as you might put it.'"
A pure Linux fanboy wrote that blog post that made its way to Slashdot's homepage. He just wants HP to put Linux on the hot new product, when really this is a Windows Tablet with a few new cool apps writen for it.
Not sure how this qualifies as Slashdot frontpage worthy. Sure its a neat UI that hides much of the visable portions of windows, but its still windows, with all the good (app. compatibility) and bad (M$) that it brings with it. "Just" switch it to Linux is a hell of a lot harder than this rambling blogger makes it sound.
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
From personally using/selling this computer for about a month, I can say it is nothing more than a gimmick. It's nothing more than a glorified tablet with a glossy screen. If HP were serious about trying to revolutionize an industry, chances are, they'd have to partner with Apple to use their patents. As it is now, the screen is uncomfortable, buggy, and horrifically unprecise. Plus, the computer itself is nothing special, being built on the same platform as their DV5 series of laptops. The processor is just a Core2 Duo T5750 which barely clocks at 2.0ghz. They try to make up for the mediocre processor with 4gb of 333mhz DDR2, and fail. The screen has no multi-touch capability, so using an on-screen keyboard is a pain because response time shows as much latency as someone trying to play WoW on a 28.8kbps dial-up connection. HP will never turn novelty into a revolution. These companies do nothing more than market the norm with a little more glitz, and unfortunately, the age of the keyboard and mouse is not yet over. Give me a capacitive multi-touch screen with haptic feedback that runs linux with Enlightenment or one of the other eyecandy desktop environments on a low profile desktop form factor, then we'll see if touch screens are the way of the future.
Now that I've established my street cred for you young whippersnappers, let me tell you how it is:
I'm sure you've noticed how there's nothing new coming out of Hollywood? Just the same old stories, over and over again. They've even resorted to crappy old TV shows, trying to find a new angle. There are only so many ideas out there to build on, and in about 100 years, they've gone through them all at least once.
Same thing with video games: I used to repair arcade games, so I saw every game imaginable for 15 years. They too started repeating after a while, didn't they?
The same goes for Operating Systems. There's only so many ways you can engineer a user interface, because Humans are as finite as everything else in this godforsaken Universe we live in -- and what's worse, we're just slightly smarter animals than the rest of the meat on this planet. That's one of the main reasons that Windows has been so succesful (aside from marketing skills): It caters to some of the lowest common denominators of humanity, and it does it well.
I will assign MacOS as being the second place OS, and all flavors of *NIX as third place. But there is a common thread between all of them, now isn't there? It's just like Hollywood, or video games, or novels for that matter: There are only so many ways you can do a specific thing, and after a while the themes just repeat. At their most basic, all GUIs are basically the same, aren't they? There are specific details that are different, and I'm not taking technical issues like stability into account (because the average end-user doesn't give a damn about that until something goes wrong). In the final analysis, you have icons, you have a desktop, and you have a pointing device and you click on things with it. The rest is all window-dressing (excuse the poor, unintentional pun).
So: Don't be bringin' your "revolutionary OS" talk around here, laddy-buck. Now be a good boy, and get off my lawn, K?
I'm not trolling at all when I say this anonymous blogger has absolutely no idea what's involved with software development. Anyone familiar with the underlying technologies (.NET, WPF, and the Tablet API) knows that the TouchSmart UI code makes up 1% of the GIGANTIC software stack required to make it possible. Running away from windows? I'd say they're doing exactly the opposite.
This brings me to my second point: this person also has no sense of history--Windows OEMs have been doing shell replacement since DOS. Remember Geoworks? I'll bet the Compaq half of HP remembers Tabworks. They used it as their Windows shell from 3.1 all the way through their first year of Windows 95 (I supported in 1995 as a Compaq employee). TouchSmart is way more capable than any previous shell replacement, but what this blogger doesn't understand is that he has endless Windows APIs to thank for that.
Yeah, that was true with the kind of bulky, heavy tech they had then, mounted with the screen straight up and down. I hear no such complaints from users of Wacoms, including the Cintiqs that are also screens. The key issues are that the pen needs to be very light and the screen should be mounted at the angle a drafting table would be, about thirty degrees from horizontal.
Also, frankly, most a y'all were never taught how to hold a pen properly. Those of us who took drafting classes back in the pen and ink days were taught to hold a pen in the ways that make it practical to work hour after hour, decade after decade, just as draftsmen, illustrators, and engineers had for generations.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.