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Bill Gates Talks Windows Future, Touch Interfaces

Posted by timothy on from the objective-stance dept.

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.'"

6 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. One or the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:One or the other by flirno · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:One or the other by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:One or the other by Synerg1y · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. Re:Like Apple? by gmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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