Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs Was Wrong About Touchscreen Laptops
theodp writes "Don't believe everything Steve Jobs and Tim Cook tell you, advises The Verge's Sean Hollister. Gunshy of touchscreen laptops after hearing the two Apple CEOs dismiss the technology (Jobs: 'Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.' Cook: 'You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not gonna be pleasing to the user.'), Hollister was surprised to discover that Windows 8 touchscreen laptops actually don't suck and that the dreaded 'Gorilla Arm Syndrome' did not materialize. 'The more I've used Windows 8, despite its faults, the more I've become convinced that touchscreens are the future — even vertical ones,' writes Hollister. 'We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement.' Echoing a prediction from Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood that 'it is only a matter of time before all laptops must be touch laptops,' Hollister wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple eventually embraces-and-extends the tech: 'Microsoft might have validated the idea, but now Apple has another chance to swoop in, perfecting and popularizing the very interface that it strategically ridiculed just two years ago. It wouldn't be the first time. After all, how many iPad minis come with sandpaper for filing fingers down?'"
It's very possible that the reason we think touchscreen laptops are a bad idea has nothing to do with Steve Jobs or Apple.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
" I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs."
You have to be kidding me. That is the most ridiculous way to type anything on a laptop. Ever.
"Don't believe everything Steve Jobs and Tim Cook tell you, advises The Verge's Sean Hollister.
Interviewer: "Hey Steve, what do you think about Touchscreen laptops?"
Steve:
Interviewer: "That's amazing Steve. How long do you think before they go on sale?"
Steve:
Interviewer: "Steve, a lot of people seem to think you're wrong. Care to comment?"
Steve:
Interviewer: "Well, that's it for today! Tune in again tomorrow when we ask Abraham Lincoln what he thought about the play he went to!"
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Touchscreens have been around for decades. If pointing your arm at a vertical surface was such a hot idea for 8 hours a day, why have we not seen touchscreens being used everywhere for the last 30 years? NEC had an excellent touchscreen in the mid 80s. This isn't new technology and writing articles presenting it as new tech doesn't make it new.
Gorilla arm exists. Fatigue exists. Keyboards and other stuff are better input devices than touchscreens and probably always will be, except for the times you *can't* have a keyboard or mouse/tablet/trackball/etc., like a factory floor, restaurant, bar, hospital cart in sugery, etc, where dirt, grime, bodily fluids are a threat to operation, or where ease of portability trumps having a better input device, like tablets or phones (styluses are passe).
If touch was so superior for every day use, we'd already be using it.
--
BMO
Microsoft never ceases to amaze me at their skill in manipulating the press, reviewers of tech, and a certain group of power users into pushing all of this crap down our throats. I take the word of the Independent Software Vendors that have chastised Windows 8 time and time again better than a bunch of pundits working for a bunch of sell-out bloggers and news agencies. Microsoft is a dying empire, with Windows 2000/Office 2000 being it's peak. Ever since then it's been down hill with the occasional plateau. I'm just waiting for someone else to come in and do better. Right now if you're looking to build a whitebox machine and load it up with the latest and greatest, you're going to be full of disappointment.
Sig: I stole this sig.
No, but he's the principal subject of The Book of Jobs...
The Book of Jobs
The "King Steve" translation
In the beginning, Intel created the microprocessor. And the microprocessor was without form or function, and hobbyists lay across the Valley of Silicon. And the brewers said, "Let there be bytes," and there were bytes. And the evening and the morning were the first wave.
Now Jobs was a man of ambition, and he walked in the way of Technology. And it came to pass that he was in the garden, and there he met with the Wozniak. And the Wozniak said, "Come, let us eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of ones and zeros." But they found the tree was barren of fruit, so Jobs and Wozniak fashioned an Apple that others who came looking for the tree might want to buy.
Now many tasted of the Apple and saw that it was good, and Jobs grew most prosperous. And he fashioned a new apple, which he called Mac, because its pictures were most sweet and because it attracted mice. And there was great rejoicing throughout the Valley of Silicon, and the people clicked their icons and waited for the floppy drive to respond.
The Apple grew large and strong, and Jobs proclaimed himself emperor. And Jobs hired a Sculley to help him care for the garden. And the Sculley brought together the holders of stock and he said unto them, "Verily, this Jobs understandeth not how a major corporation maketh its bread by the sweat of others' brows. So let us bring forth a great flood of water that will rain for forty ticks and forty clock cycles, and let us rid ourselves of him." And the holders of stock cried, "Hosanna!"
PROPHET AND LOSS
So Jobs was cast forth into the wilderness. There he wandered for many years until he dropped down onto his knees, weak with boredom. And he cried out, "Oh, Great CPU, do not forsake me. I have followed in your footsteps since teletypes roamed the Earth, and it hath rewarded me not--except in fame and fortune. Please, Oh Calculating One, give thy humble servant a sign of what to do next."
And lo, the last word he spoke rang in Jobs' ear. And Jobs understood that he must next build a NeXT.
And Jobs built his NeXT of black, and it was one cubit long by one cubit wide by one cubit tall, making it a cubit cubed. And to operate the system he hired many Eunuchs.
So it came to pass that the NeXT was at last ready, and Jobs showed it to the multitudes. And the multitudes were sore impressed by the NeXT's greatness, and they cried hosannas out loud and fell down on their knees and sang songs of praise to Jobs. Then they pulled out their cards of credit and purchased thus great numbers of computers running Windows.
And Jobs, most puzzled by the multitudes, cried out, "I shall stop making my NeXTs of black, and I shall sell the labor of my Eunuchs to those whose machines run Windows." But he did not realize many men were made frightened by Eunuchs, and many women liked them not.
Then Jobs did grow bored of the Valley, and he wandered out into the Point of Richmond, where he looked with envy to the Land of the Holly Wood. And he made for himself a Pixar, or at least he paid others to make it for him. And he said, "If the people will not buy my toys, then I shall tell a story of them and win great Oscar."
THE PRODIGAL FUN
Now it came to pass that as man did buy of machines that ran Windows, the Apple began to shrivel. And as it shriveled, those who holdeth stock did demand the head of the Sculley. And the Sculley was cast out into the wilderness, with naught to keep him warm save a parachute of gold.
But the Apple found no happiness still. For although the Apple's followers did proclaim their love daily and most annoyingly, they continued to leap through Windows in great numbers.
So the holders of stock were filled with great anxiety, and they gnashed their teeth and swore great oaths. And they asked many men of White to fill the sandals left by Jobs and th
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I don't even see the mouse as complementing the keyboard. The lack of accelerator keys on web sites/browsers is frustrating, the inability to alt-tab out of the various VMs and VNCs is frustrating. Touch is going in the wrong direction.
Here's the direction computers should be going in: Intelligent User Interfaces. Computers should guess the next noun/object or verb/action and list them in descending likelihood -- kind of like IntelliSense. Quick keyboard commands 1-9 or first-letter/auto-complete select out of the prioritized list. We're so far away from that that file selector dialogs don't even default -- let alone remember to! -- sort reverse chronological. (Nor do they remember last directory, cross-application)
OK, mouse is good for panning 2D (Google Maps), and zooming and sliders. Maybe there's something touch is better at than both mouse and keyboard, but I don't know what that might be.
First priority is to fix keyboard UI.
Until you've actually used a touch/laptop hybrid device, don't go knocking it. When I say "use", I don't mean "try", I mean actually used it for day-to-day tasks for a couple weeks. Not "poked one in the mall and didn't know how to do everything right away, so I gave up," or worse yet, "saw a picture or video online and haven't even tried one in person." Spare me the "but I know I won't like it," because until you've actually used the device, you don't know.
The overwhelming opinion of people I know who have actually used these devices that are neither a tablet nor a laptop, but really a bit of both, is that they work well and are not just a gimmick. New things can take some getting used to. That doesn't mean they're bad.
Anything that forces you to break concentration and shift into another mode kills productivity. It's why mice have been so hard to replace. I can easily use a mouse and keyboard at the same time. Having to reach up to do an operation would seriously piss me off and cut my productivity in half. For everyday playing people love gimmicks but I think people will get tired of it fast. It's why i hated to see Windows go down that road. If vendors start requiring it to use software I'm going to have to find different software. He said they were a bad idea and I have to agree, he didn't say they wouldn't sell some before people got sick of them.
The Surface Pro does include touch support - 10 point multitouch, in fact. It happens to also have an active digitizer to support pen input. It can do both.
The fact that you didn't know that implies that you really have no idea what you're talking about.
It's funny how the criticisms of touch get brushed aside and people like you and SINternet insult the people criticizing.
"You haven't used it long enough!"
"You're a luddite!"
"You're lazy!"
"It's really great, you're just old!"
"Look, this 3 year old can open a program! If you don't like it, you're stupider than a 3 year old!"
And on and on it goes.
Good job selling us on this. Really. Good. Job.
> New things can take some getting used to
Hey, this isn't marmite in this sandwich. It smells like shit! Hey, wait...
"Just take smaller bites!"
--
BMO
So you're suggesting that we should never have transitioned from horses and buggies to motor cars, because driving a car takes some getting used to? The fact of the matter is that if you haven't used something, you can't make an informed opinion of it. You can have an opinion, and you're welcome to have that opinion, but it won't be an informed opinion.
It's true. Windows 8 has ruined non-touch monitors for me forever. It's just so easy and natural to want to reach up and touch the monitor now. In fact I get very frustrated when it doesn't respond. All screens should be touch.
I find I touch the screen of my Windows laptop, and get frustrated when I realized it isn't a touch screen. But that's NOT because a vertical touch screen is any good. It's because I'm so use to using tablets now that I EXPECT it to be there on Windows boxes.
If you see a picture of food on your monitor, do you try to eat it too? I mean after all, you've eaten food before so you'd expect... see where I am going? I think your problem is that you have to adjust your brightness.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
More like, should we transition from horses and buggies to llamas and rowboats?
Because that's what Microsoft is now expecting us to do with Windows 8.
Anyone remember the Vadem Clio/Sharp TriPad? I do. For all it's clunkiness, if it wouldn't had such a problem with audio quality that would have been my first "tablet" (back in 2000 or 2001). [Oblig. wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadem_Clio ] The whine during media playback killed it for me, and I wasn't willing to settle for the price so I ended up returning it. Other than that, and WinCE, it was a very useful device.
I have had the ASuS TF101 plus keyboard now for about a year and I still like it, even if my daughter has taken it over. Plus how many people run the iPad in landscape/vertical using a special case as a stand? I know I do. I can touch type pretty quick on it too (though I prefer it more of a slant then strictly vertical, probably about 60 degrees up from the table). And don't forget about the Lenovo S10-3t convertible? It was the first "laptop" with a touch screen that I've used, and even though the 1024x600 display kills the usability IMO, I still have a hard time putting it up on eBay because I find the touch screen form factor useful in a pinch.
The bottom line is the touch screen laptop is a very usable configuration and I'm surprised it's taken this long to see more of them. I think an almost perfect machine would be something like a macbook air (either 11 or 13 inch), with a quad core i7 (or comparable), 16 gb of RAM, an iPad 3 retina display w/touch for the display, a detachable keyboard (ala Transformer) or possibly rotating keyboard (Vadem Clio, Lenovo Yoga). It should also have 5+ hours of battery life and not get uncomfortably hot. I don't ask for much. :)
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Lies, damn lies, and statistics...
Microsoft says it has sold more than 40 million Windows 8 licenses, but the information is worthless in absence of key data the company won't divulge.
We don't know because Microsoft isn't saying. We don't know how many of the 40 million licenses come from low-cost upgrades, from volume licensing sales that kick in automatically, or from direct sales to consumers. And we don't know how many of the 40 million licenses are sitting on systems that have yet to find a buyer.
So why won't Microsoft provide a breakdown? What is it hiding? Its silence speaks volumes or, perhaps more accurately, low volumes.
http://www.informationweek.com/software/windows8/microsofts-windows-8-numbers-meaningless/240142865?cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I have one of the Gateway 6971 all-in-ones. I paid the $15 or whatever to get the Windows 8 upgrade. My computer before this one was a 24 inch iMac I'd had for 5 years. I have to say that I don't regret the change at all. When it comes to reading a website, I'm more likely to reach up and scroll than even use the scroll wheel on the mouse. When I'm playing music or watching videos, I don't have to be sitting at my computer desk. All I have to be able to do is touch the screen. The article is right. It complements the mouse and keyboard and allows for more relaxed use of the computer.
^THIS^
Back in the CRT days, "pokers" were annoying. There's no need to physically touch the screen to point at something on it. Just get close. It was worse with early LCDs because they were very fragile. Pokey-McGee could destroy a $500 14" monitor with a single jab. "Do you see the colors bloom when you do that? That's not a good thing!"
At least we have Gorilla Glass and similar compounds to protect the panels these days but I still wouldn't want to work on a schmootzy screen or have people smear my laptop screen with their "french fry" fingers flicking thru a document instead of using the PigUp/Down keys. And I certainly wouldn't want to have to clean my 27" monitors every day because of the practice.
I like my tablet but I have to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the prints off it. Same with the phone. It's tolerable because these are "sometimes" devices that I don't stare at for hours a day.
I for one cannot imagine using a touch-the-screen solution on the desktop or laptop.
But TFA is correct. I've spent a day messing around with a tablet running Windows 8, touching away, and then when I go back to a regular PC with a monitor -- also running Windows 8, FWIW -- I automatically start reaching for the monitor for the first couple of moments. And this is for the Desktop UI, too. Once you get used to certain habits on one device, you want to do the same thing on other devices, especially when they are running the exact same OS and everything looks virtually identical to you. You know the touch points are supposed to be there, so you reach for them.
Whether this is a "good" thing or not is open to debate.
Breakfast served all day!
Touch-screen-ing an 82 inch display makes sense, but at desktop scales that's like sitting 3 inches from your monitor
If you continued to read the rest of my comments you'd see I was meaning these massive displays make sense because you're NOT USING THE COMPUTER, you're just using a PHREAKINHUGE DISPLAY (think touchscreen enabled TV WeatherMan, lecturer in a classroom flipping electronic charts, etc)
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
This article reads like something a cheerleader on Microsoft's payroll wrote. It it is, that should be disclosed. I am not impressed with Windows 8 at all.
That's Bigboo TAY! TAY!
What about those of us whose electrical conductivity are beyond the norm? There are people that cannot use touchscreens with accuracy due to their bodies own electrical impulses (I can't wear a digital watch, for instance, or a smartphone with a touch screen for more than a few seconds before it becomes unusable)). Are these people going to be forced to adapt to a world where they cannot use computers due to the propagation of a trend technology, where people are led to believe the next thing coming down the pipe is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Simple truth is: if it isn't broke, don't fix it. Personally, I have as much use for a touchscreen, and Windows 8, as I would a second anus. And can you imagine trying to play WoW or anything more complicated than a flash-based game on a touchscreen? Are these people insane? Oh, wait . . . we're talking about Microsoft here, so of course they are. . .
We transitioned to cars because there was a great many advantages to do so - speed, load carrying capacity, etc, etc.
What are the advantages of using a touchscreen over a keyboard/mouse in everyday situations?
Mobile? Well sure, if you're wandering around and you want to quickly tap something out or go through a few apps, there's a good advantage to a touch screen.
But at the office? I don't know. The time taken to take your hands off the keys, reach out and tap something... is that quicker than getting the mouse and clicking? I don't really know. I'd suspect that that with my setup (2 x 24" monitors) it's going to be slower. And I'd bet that if I was forced to use a touchscreen in an office situation where I still had a keyboard, I'd be learning a lot more keyboard shortcuts quick-smart.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
This. I have Win8 on my Fujitsu T5010, and love touch scrolling with it. So much more natural. I've touched my office monitor and my wife's laptop screen a couple times now without thinking. I love having a convertible laptop/stylus/touch PC (the T5010 has a 'dual digitizer'; the active stylus digitizer is awesome for my comics, but the touchscreen is better for games/surfing/reading), and I'm never switching back to an ordinary laptop.
Oh, and by the way, I'm a web developer who has written thousands of lines of code on a convertible tablet pc. That's what the keyboard is for.
I got one of these for work the first day they came out. Here's how I use it:
* At the office, I use it like a traditional Windows laptop, running virtual machines and whatnot for development.
* On the train, I turn it into a tablet and read books, play games, read the newspaper and magazines. There's a great PDF reader and a Kindle app. Also, I use it in a singing group I belong to for my sheet music.
In short, it's a laptop plus an iPad.
Also, I've had zero problems with smudging on the screen. I've had the device for over a month and have never cleaned the screen. Maybe I'm just super clean? I keep it in a soft case made for a Mac Air, so maybe sliding it in and out of that case cleans it off.
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
Why stop at 10? I can think of 21 points on my male body to poke the screen with.
I don't see an advantage of this to normal laptops. Only possible advantage over a tablet - you can use a real keyboard as opposed to the virtual one that appears on the screen, which may be more comfortable to type, but not if it's a laptop form factor.
Only thing - in more recent laptops, I've seen the touchpad come in the way of typing, and unlike previous laptop models, the stupid thing can't even be disabled, despite forum hunts. Sticking a mouse in an USB port? Nothing. No PS/2 ports, so I can't stick a PS/2 mouse in it, even if I had one. I got 5 of these in the office, and everybody complains how typing is a pain since the cursor automatically moves when the palm accidentally touches the touchpad. Nothing that I do will disable them. Previous models would have a separate switch to disable the damn thing, but not any more. Only other solution, which I haven't done, is attach an external keyboard to the other USB port i.e. have a docking strip like solution. This would be the only advantage of such a solution - get rid of trackpads altogether, and use either the touchscreen or the mouse.
The economy flights that I've been on barely have enough room to fit the laptop (with screen closed) on the tray. There is ZERO room to open up the screen and tilt it back far enough to read comfortably (at least not with my 14" one....maybe with a smaller screen it might be possible).