It's 2am here (edit: I'm done writing, it's 2:38am now), and I really ought to be sleeping right about now, but for some stupid arbitrary reason, the D9 conference is held at honestly irresponsible hours for us Europeans (and we rock, damnit). So, here I am, MacBook Air on my lap, camomile tea (the Empress of Teas) in my cup, because Microsoft just had to show Windows 8's new interface for the first time at this ungodly hour. Oh, and they unveiled some more interesting stuff about Windows 8. Update: The videos from D9 are up. Mossberg talking to Steve Sinofsky, and the Windows 8 demonstration by Larson-Green.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-01-16
How much of the work that I do all day could feasibly be done on a touch screen? I'd say 100%.
I'm a programmer, web developer, user interface designer, and mobile app developer. There is nothing that I do that could not be done on a touch-screen based computer as efficiently as I do today using a keyboard and mouse.
I'm not saying that it would be feasible for me to swap to a touch-based computer today - I'm talking about what will be possible in a few years. I'd like a large screen, as big as my plasma telly but with at least twice the resolution, that's either horizontal covering a desk top or angled up a little like a drafting table. Given that I don't think I'd want a physical keyboard getting between me and the screen, or a mouse and pointer getting in the way of me more directly interacting with the UI.
Fingers will obviously be the main interaction method for touch UIs, but for fine details you'll grab a pen. I rarely need to do such fine work myself though.
What will make this practical is redesigned user interfaces that bear touch interaction in mind. UI controls that are small and fiddly don't work - things need to be bigger and more tolerant of fat fingers. Using apps made for today's desktop UIs with fingers isn't going to fly - it didn't work too well for pen-based tablets either.
To restate, I firmly believe that 100% of my work could be done using a touch-based computing environment. Were I a graphic artist, a movie editor, or a musician I'd say the same. Pessimistically I'd say that in 10 years time this will be norm for all of these use-cases. Optimistically I expect that within 5 years touch will be dominant for all new machines and software.
The more pertinent question is what work do you think cannot be done feasibly on a touch screen, given a suitably designed UI?
Member since:2010-03-08
Basically, all work which implies having lots of features at once or working on a detailed object. Flat finger-based touchscreens will never be good at this, due to their terrible input resolution. Haptic feedback or pen input would be required before they become suitable for it.
As an example, drawing and handwriting with fingers is needlessly tedious and complicated, because either you use a finger-sized brush and have terrible precision, or you use a pixel-sized brush that writes at a random place on your finger's surface and must be ready to endure terrible headaches.
Coding is another example : the coding workflow (at least mine) implies seeing lots of code at once and being able to select/copy/paste code snippets quickly and easily. These goals are contradictory on a finger-based touchscreen : to allow for fast finger-based freeform selection, text must be really big, and even if you have a gigantic-sized screen it will still feel uncomfortable to visually parse lots of big text at once.
On the feature side... I can't imagine using something like a word processor on a finger-based touchscreen beyond a wordpad-like workflow where formatting is only a matter of changing font size and using underline/bold/italic functions. Packing that much features in an UI that can be used with big fingers while still being able to see what you're writing would mean that the interface would offer only little immediate access to the software's functionality. Tables, styles, pdf export, subscript/superscript, and other "minor" functionality would require switching interface tabs or going through kilometric menus.
Again, all these problems can be solved through use of a pen-based interface, even though in that case text input becomes an issue (as good as pen is for pointing, selecting, and drawing, it's horrible for inputting text, so you need to put down the pen each time you write). A pen + haptic feedback to make text input on a touchscreen comparable to a keyboard experience could do the trick and make touchscreens an acceptable universal interface for tomorrow. But touchscreens as they stand today ? No. Not good for my work.
Edited 2011-06-02 17:59 UTC
Member since:2008-09-11
The more pertinent question is what work do you think cannot be done feasibly on a touch screen, given a suitably designed UI?
All things productive. From programming to writing 20+ pages in Word. All things that take many hours of work and requires to write a lot and use many buttons. Even gaming will be a nightmare with touch screen only.
Member since:2007-09-22
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing."The Verge has learned that HTC's Chief Product Officer, Kouji Kodera, left the company last week. Kodera was responsible for HTC's overall product strategy, which makes the departure especially notable on the heels of the global launch of the make-or-break One. It's not just Kodera. In the past three-odd months, HTC has lost a number of employees in rapid succession." I really hope HTC pulls it together.
"It is with huge pleasure that the Debian GNU/Hurd team announces the release of Debian GNU/Hurd 2013. This is a snapshot of Debian 'sid' at the time of the Debian 'wheezy' release (May 2013), so it is mostly based on the same sources. It is not an official Debian release, but it is an official Debian GNU/Hurd port release." Important note: 75% of Debian packages are supported bu Debian GNU/Hurd. Impressive.
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run."There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Member since:
2005-09-21
Yes very nice. You still haven't explained how serious work will be done using a touch interface. Don't get me wrong, I think tablets are awesome and for casual data interaction and light data creation tasks they work great, but think about what you work on all day. How much of that could feasibly work on a touch screen? 10%? 20%?, Maybe even 50%? I don't think we will ever get to 100%, because touch interaction is not suitable for a "sit down at your desk and work" use-case. It just isn't, no matter how clever the interface is.