Bill Gates Talks Windows Future, Touch Interfaces

Nerval's Lobster writes "In a YouTube interview released by Microsoft, co-founder Bill Gates offered a few hints of where Microsoft plans on taking Windows in coming years. 'It's evolving literally to be a single platform,' he said, referring to how Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 share a kernel, file system, graphics support, and other elements. At least in theory, that will allow developers to port apps from the desktop/tablet OS to the smartphone OS with relatively little work. The two operating systems already share the same design aesthetic, with Start screens composed of colorful tiles linked to applications. Gates also praised natural user interfaces — which include touch and voice — while taking a subtle dig at Apple's iPad and other tablets on the market. 'People want to consume their mail, reading, video anywhere, and they want it to be awfully simple,' he said. 'But you want to incorporate touch without giving up the kind of mouse, keyboard capability that's just so natural in most settings.'"

Comments

One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

If you try to "incorporate touch without giving up the kind of mouse, keyboard capability that's just so natural in most settings.", you end up with Windows 8, Unity, and others I don't even want to know about. Keep touch interfaces out of my desktop, please.

Re:One or the other

[flirno]

Some. Not all.

Touch is great for accessing and consuming content.

Touch is currently horrendous for producing or modifying content.

These are not yet 'unified' avenues of usage as yet.

Re:One or the other

[Anonymous Coward]

Touch is also heavily dependent on the distance between user and monitor.

Basically, if you have to move your shoulder *at all* to reach the display, that repetitive motion will get very tiresome very quickly.

Tablet/phone: Touch works great.

Laptop with keyboard: Touch is just so-so. Even with the notebook right on your lap, you have to move your shoulder a bit to reach it. If it's on a desktop in front of you, it gets worse.

Workstation with large monitor: Touch is horrible. I don't want to move my 30" monitor any closer to me, and I don't want to reach way out to it.

Re:One or the other

[fustakrakich]

Workstation with large monitor: Touch is horrible. I don't want to move my 30" monitor any closer to me, and I don't want to reach way out to it.

Lay the monitor almost flat on the table. It would feel like drawing with pencil and paper. Upright is fine if it's mounted on the wall, and you're standing in front of it, like they they show in the movies

Re:One or the other

[Synerg1y]

Also requires A LOT of screen cleaner... an excellent investment opportunity for anybody that believes that touch screens will skyrocket in popularity in the near future.

Re:One or the other

[danomac]

Yes, I have. Well, not exactly Windows 8, but Windows Server 2012, which is the same interface.

It took me 15 minutes to figure out where Windows Update was. This is a server and doesn't need a stupid touch interface that makes it impossible to find sysadmin tasks. If anything, it should be an option on RDP servers, and that's it.

I really wonder what the hell the devs were smoking when they put a touch interface on a server.

Tip: Use the bottom-right corner of your screen to find the search tool. Instead of clicking the Windows button and typing a search string. Oh yeah, the interface is so much better now. [/sarcasm]

what a difference a decade makes

[tverbeek]

It's ironic that the guy who was telling us a decade ago that tablets (with styluses) were the future of personal computing, is now such a big fan of the mouse and keyboard.

Each input method (touch, stylus, mouse, keyboard) has its uses. Different devices need different methods.

Re:Like Apple?

[gmack]

Nothing to do with Luck. Microsoft's mistake was assuming people wanted a desktop experience on a device too small for it to be effective. They have now come to their senses and come up with a good cell phone experience but now want to do the opposite and inflict a mobile interface on their desktop users.

As for Apple: The core kernel may be similar but their interfaces are completely different between desktop and mobile.

Re:Like Apple?

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

Open letter to M$... It's clear you're trying to copy Apple's success in the tablet/smartphone world by creating so-called unified interface for both them and desktops. But if Apple is such a clear leader and their vision for the future is so good, then why doesn't OSX look like iOS?

Am I the only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

who doesnt want to put fingerprints all over my freaking monitor?

Re:Like Apple?

[nine-times]

Also attributing it to luck doesn't really make sense since Apple had been planning the device for years, and only released it when the components had become cheap enough to sell the device at what they believed to be a reasonable price point. Also, cheaper components and better touch screens are insufficient to explain where the iPhone came from. Why is it that Apple was first to market with a device like the iPhone, and it took other manufacturers years to catch up?

The iPhone was not obvious. When it was first demoed, people responded in one of two ways: (a) "Holy shit, that's some amazing sci-fi tech right there and I want one,"; and (b) "No physical keyboard, less Exchange support than a Blackberry. Lame."