Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Igniting Touchscreen PC Market
ericatcw writes "Apple Inc. may still be coy about whether it plans to launch a touch-screen tablet computer this year, but Windows PC makers are forging right ahead. In the past three weeks, five leading PC makers have announced or been reported to confirm plans to release touch-screen PCs in time for the multi-touch-enabled Windows 7, reports Computerworld. Many appear to be using technology from New Zealand optical touch vendor, NextWindow, which already supplies HP's market-leading TouchSmart line, and Dell's Studio One. NextWindow's CEO says the company is working with partners on 8-10 products set for launch within two months, in time for Windows 7's October 22nd release."
The real key to the whole touchscreen interface is multitouch and dynamic dragging.
iPhone really took off because it offered an interface that few had ever experienced. The interface is natural, easy to master, and effective. All truly revolutionary technologies have these aspects.
Second, if touch is natural, then wanting to move things around the screen is too. There should be support for this built into the OS. Unfortunately, it is limited to only a few specialized programs (photo viewers, for example) at this time. Full OS support would allow me to do things like move the stupid +- bar that separates the story from the comments link here up to the title area and turn it into a couple of buttons. But neither the engineers at Microsoft nor the engineers who build OSS software interfaces have the first clue as to how to design for usability, so I hold very little hope.
Wash your damn hands after you go to the bathroom, picking your nose or dealing with some body fluid.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I guess when they say "touch" they mean models that can use a finger instead of a stylus. Tablet computers have been with us for some time now, but nobody seems particularly interested, other than delivery services taking signatures, and those are more like a PDA than a computer.
But the real WTF is the title "Windows 7 Igniting Touchscreen PC Market." Seriously? That's 100% marketing speak. How is Windows 7 "igniting" this market, when there are no actual units being sold, and thus no idea if it will actually "catch fire" or not?
... and then they built the supercollider.
So now people will have to put greasy fingers on the screen to do anything ? is the same junk as multitouch , they might seem cool, but they aint productive. I want to keep my hands on the keyboard for typing not having to move them down for a a trackpad, for the touch screen, riight, aint any keyboard there at all in tablet mode anyway.
Is this one of those "let's feed a positive story to the press to create some good vibes" type of story - straight out of marketing?
Count me cynical, but expect to be regaled with Microsoft-scripted adverti- er "news stories" between now and the official release.
I am anarch of all I survey.
It's cute for a little while. But your body's not evolved to stare at your hands for eight hours, or touch the object of your gaze for the same.
If the screen is at a good viewing height, it's strain on your arms and shoulders. If it's at desk height, it's strain on your neck. In between it doesn't fit the work environment.
So... it's an interesting interface for special purposes or brief interactions, but not a good platform for evolution of an interface because if the news guy that makes it look cool had to use it all day he'd morph into a troglodyte in short order.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Score 1 troll? Who marked that? Informative, if anything.
It's funny because it's true, sadly enough. Reverse the release dates of the Zune and Ipod. OH NO! MS put out a mp3 player first! It's going to suck! OH LOOK! Apple put out a mp3 player as well. They're not MS, so they're better AND cool because they put a superficial "COOL" edge on things.
Now put them back to their original dates. OH LOOK! Apple put out a mp3 player first! It's gotta be cool! They're such pioneers! And it's called Ipod! It makes me think that *I* matter because it's mine! .... sad.
In that case I better invest in some screen wipe stocks, or better still in a screen wipe factory.
AZERTY!
No, I'm not French, but I do realize there are more keyboard layouts than QWERTY and Dvorak.
nothing beats a mouse and querty for input speed
You know normally I'm willing to let spelling errors go without saying a word. But you actually had to type "querty." Didn't you notice that there was some kind of pattern there, that seemed just a bit off? Did you look down at your keyboard and see a word that looked almost, but not quite, the same?
How much you want to bet he typed "querty" almost as fast as if he'd typed "qwerty"? Typing non-words is slower than typing real or could-be words.
And since you bring it up, has anyone ever told you that people who touch type can usually type most things faster than someone who (I'm betting such as yourself, since as I said you bring it up) looks down at their keyboard?
Anyway, he was half right. Nothing beats typing for input speed. Not even a mouse. Study referenced in "Tog On Interface" showed that people continue to think a mouse is faster despite being proven by their own hand that it's not.
There used to be a niche market for tiuch screens attached to large copy machines used in a large copy shop chain. After too many complaints of sore finger tips and tired wrists and too many insurance claims for carpal tunnel treatments, they got rid of them.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Indeed, I'm very surprised to see this story at all, normally you won't hear about a new development in technology on Slashdot until Apple does it (especially when it comes to mobile phones). Although I note it still has to start with the irrelevant qualifier "Apple Inc. may still be coy about whether it plans to launch a touch-screen tablet computer this year". So? With any other company, rumours about unreleased products are looked down upon as vaporware, not hyped up and used to advertise the company even when though don't have a product.
Are we going to preface every computer game story with "3D Realms may still be coy about whether it plans to launch its FPS game this year"?
When they release it, we can have a story about it (which is still more than most computer companies get for their new products).
Sometimes it backfires though. Anyone remember the Mac Air? Thought not. But at the time, there was loads of hype of it being a "cool" thing, because they'd produced a laptop that was a millimetre smaller than other laptops, at only several times the price.
And then the netbooks came out of nowhere, offering much smaller devices at a fraction of the price, and we never heard about the Air again.
Will Microsoft win share with their touch screens? Consider: Apple has a touch screen on iPods and a heavy bank of apps that are all touchable.
Indeed, which is why I find it very worrying that everyone seems to be rooting for Apple.
Consider, what would you prefer the marketplace of mobile computing (phones, handhelds, netbooks etc) to be in ten years' time?
* A locked down platform from one company that has a hardware and OS monopoly on the market, where applications can only be run with the approval of that company, where many hardware features are disable unless you hack the device, and where the the architecture of the hardware is incompatible with laptops and desktops.
* Platforms that basically operate with the same openness of PCs today - anyone can make the hardware, which are compatible with each other and PCs by an open standard, where anyone can write or run whatever applications they choose. You can run a variety of OSs on them, including open source ones - and even if it turns out that a certain company has an OS monopoly here too, that might be a shame, but at least they're not stopping you doing anything else.
And to think that Slashdot was once a place where people supported and promoted open systems.
"Apple popularized USB for hardware interconnect"
errm no they "popularized" Firewire, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the USB arena and even then they have their own non-standard version of it, read some history
Apple loves proprietary connectors, ipod dock, ADC, non standard 3.5mm speaker connectors, power adaptors, display port
Its not Apple who is doing the locking down. Its the phone carriers. Apple is basically forced if they ever want to enter the market to play by AT&Ts sandbox rules or make their own park.
I heard in Europe its a different story and you can actually buy one phone and use it on several networks and there are no ridiculous contracts.
Windows powered phones are the same as the phone companies make money charging $3.00 for a ringtone and do not want an inch of competition. I heard you can hack some of the windows smartphone in order to run your own apps but this is ridiculous.
MacOSX is not that locked and Apple owns the whole platform. Until we have some real telecom competition and new anti trust laws this will be the norm for awhile.
http://saveie6.com/