Multi-Touch
-
we got used to (and dependant on) mouses so I'd say touch screens will go the same route.
'--8<------------------------ Ex Datis: Duncan Jones Merrion Computing Ltd
Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
we got used to (and dependant on) mouses so I'd say touch screens will go the same route.
But for a developer or even the average home/office user does multitouch have any advantages over a mouse? In my experience, any new technology has to be significantly better than the current technology if its going to make any inroads.
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
What ever happened to VR? Why cant we put on some forcefeedback gloves and VR goggles and do things like it should be done? :sigh: Now imagine typing on a virtual keyboard, and the gloves giving you feedback, drool. Complete IMAX desktop, yummy. How hard can it be?
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008) -
What ever happened to VR? Why cant we put on some forcefeedback gloves and VR goggles and do things like it should be done? :sigh: Now imagine typing on a virtual keyboard, and the gloves giving you feedback, drool. Complete IMAX desktop, yummy. How hard can it be?
xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
IronScheme - 1.0 alpha 4a out now (29 May 2008)leppie wrote:
Now imagine typing on a virtual keyboard, and the gloves giving you feedback
Last time I checked, which is right now, my keyboard gave me feedback. ;)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
-
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Forgetting the applications you write
Gladly.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
forgetting your users
What users?
Mike Mullikin wrote:
does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves
For the kind of development I do, not really. I can see it being part of the general OS and helping with file operations (moving files), flicking between files and applications, responding to notifications quickly (instead of moving my hand back to the mouse I just lift a finger up and hit "Yes, merge and destroy my code") etc. Actually writing code though will still be heavily text-based. I don't use WYSIWYG editors which is about the only area I can think of multi-touch helping. I do graphical design but the mouse or pen-tablet is more accurate than my manly fingers :) I'd say it just makes using the OS faster/better/nicer and so in that way adds to the experience/productivity. But it has to be natural, really well thought out and not "replace all keyboard shortcuts with swipe gestures because we can." Also when collaborating with someone over a desk it could be handy. Put the tablet flat on the desk and we all cluster round. Instead of a clumsy mouse people can just reach out and touch the bits they think need work. hmmm... so yeah, more of a tablet (full-sized or iPhone sized) benefit than for a vertical screen with keyboard and mouse input.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
Paul Watson wrote:
so yeah, more of a tablet (full-sized or iPhone sized) benefit than for a vertical screen with keyboard and mouse input.
Do you think any benefit from multitouch or the "coolness" factor itself will be enough to make tablets mainstream?
-
Paul Watson wrote:
so yeah, more of a tablet (full-sized or iPhone sized) benefit than for a vertical screen with keyboard and mouse input.
Do you think any benefit from multitouch or the "coolness" factor itself will be enough to make tablets mainstream?
Mike Mullikin wrote:
Do you think any benefit from multitouch or the "coolness" factor itself will be enough to make tablets mainstream?
It will help but more needs to be done. I think tablets haven't found the right form factor yet. Most I have tried are 15" and too thick. I'd get one if it were A5 and 0.5" thick. It needs instant on too and the interface must be responsive, not a slug. I use my iPhone at home quite a bit for looking up things while on the couch or in the kitchen. It is quicker and more convenient than opening the laptop. I want a tablet that works like a tablet, not something that is trying to be a desktop computer too. I want to be able to drop it into a shoulder bag, flip it out for a quick note check, slide it across a table to show someone something or have it in a stack of books and papers. The charging dock should just be a pad too. Place the tablet on it and it charges. No cable or plug, make it something you can leave on a kitchen surface or on one side of your desk. Something a kid can throw the tablet onto as they run out to play in the garden. An Apple iTouch but A5 in size would be nearly exactly what I want.
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
I could see it being useful if we took a whole new look at the interaction with the UI *and* how the touch was integrated. It seems to me that for it to be *really* useful, multi-touch needs to be integrated in the screen, like it is in the iPhone, or could be in a tablet. It needs to be pressure sensitive. The UI apps need to be re-thought, for example, the gestures that Opera has are very easy to use and get used once you know they are there. I could easily see this being a great way to navigate UI's if used properly. But just added on, in a trackpad? Doesn't do much for me.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
For my old GIS work multitouch would have been awesome (rotating, zooming, etc) Apart from that the most obvious to me would be in zooming/resizing. Just seems natural.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
In the near term, I think a touch screen display would make a good "input device" in addition to the monitor/keyboard/mouse setup. Something that would be context sensitive according to the currently selected application. Just think of the possibilities: - For VisualStudio, how about program it to show buttons/macros of your choosing... and perhaps a trace log while you're in the middle of running your app in debug mode. - For Photoshop, it could display various color palettes and tools that you can select with your finger. - For MS Paint, you can zoom in/out of the picture and essential finger paint the image. The pixel changes you make on the display will be reflected on the monitor. It would be like a more useful "Windows Sideshow". Anyways, those are my random thoughts for the day.
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
A touch screen (like MS Surface) basically eliminates one of two layers. The mouse layer device becomes your finger. The problem is precision. IMHO, the display you're interacting with would have to be exponentially larger to have the same precision. Works great for kiosk apps (atm, directories and such). Adding a stylus (ala the old palm pilots) just means you need supplemental support, which defeats the purpose of eliminating a layer. Doable and useable? Sure. And it'll happen. The best analogy I can think of is the old rotary phones. People, at first, detested pushing number keys instead of rotating a dial.
-
A touch screen (like MS Surface) basically eliminates one of two layers. The mouse layer device becomes your finger. The problem is precision. IMHO, the display you're interacting with would have to be exponentially larger to have the same precision. Works great for kiosk apps (atm, directories and such). Adding a stylus (ala the old palm pilots) just means you need supplemental support, which defeats the purpose of eliminating a layer. Doable and useable? Sure. And it'll happen. The best analogy I can think of is the old rotary phones. People, at first, detested pushing number keys instead of rotating a dial.
Bert delaVega wrote:
The best analogy I can think of is the old rotary phones. People, at first, detested pushing number keys instead of rotating a dial.
Sure but ultimately telephone keypads proved faster and added lots of features due to touchtones for no additional cost. These features were available and apparent to the vast majority of telephone users. I'm just wondering if multitouch will offer anything to a majority of users that can't already be done now without additional cost.
-
Bert delaVega wrote:
The best analogy I can think of is the old rotary phones. People, at first, detested pushing number keys instead of rotating a dial.
Sure but ultimately telephone keypads proved faster and added lots of features due to touchtones for no additional cost. These features were available and apparent to the vast majority of telephone users. I'm just wondering if multitouch will offer anything to a majority of users that can't already be done now without additional cost.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
due to touchtones for no additional cost
Ah, that's just it. Touch tone service was an additional cost. People started using dialpad phones with the rotary service at first. Then it shifted to touchtone for both the physical phone and service (faster response time). It won out. Then the phone company made it a standard. That's what I'm getting at. If it makes sense, incrementally people will adopt it and "un-learn" the old way. We're sitting here with a CRT, a keyboard and mouse: CRT - Invented in the 1920's Keyboard - Invented in the late 1800's Mouse - Invented in the 1970's I guess my point is that the rotary dial phone and service offered the majority of users something useful. Touchtone service was an additional cost (and provided the same service to connect) but people adopted it because it was quicker, easier and faster.
-
Mike Mullikin wrote:
due to touchtones for no additional cost
Ah, that's just it. Touch tone service was an additional cost. People started using dialpad phones with the rotary service at first. Then it shifted to touchtone for both the physical phone and service (faster response time). It won out. Then the phone company made it a standard. That's what I'm getting at. If it makes sense, incrementally people will adopt it and "un-learn" the old way. We're sitting here with a CRT, a keyboard and mouse: CRT - Invented in the 1920's Keyboard - Invented in the late 1800's Mouse - Invented in the 1970's I guess my point is that the rotary dial phone and service offered the majority of users something useful. Touchtone service was an additional cost (and provided the same service to connect) but people adopted it because it was quicker, easier and faster.
Bert delaVega wrote:
Touch tone service was an additional cost.
Good point.
Bert delaVega wrote:
Touchtone service was an additional cost (and provided the same service to connect) but people adopted it because it was quicker, easier and faster.
I'm thinking that the "quicker, easier, faster" wasn't the big deal though. I'm thinking automated menu systems, voice mail, etc... were the driving forces behind the switch. Both for AT&T to develop and "sell" touchtone phones in the first place as well as users adoption of the phones. New features drove the new interface. I'm just trying to imagine what new features (on a PC) will benefit a majority of users that warrant a new interface (multitouch). I'm not suggesting there are no features just trying to get a feel for them and hear others ideas. So far, Paul's seem the most logical for the most users in the near term.
-
Bert delaVega wrote:
Touch tone service was an additional cost.
Good point.
Bert delaVega wrote:
Touchtone service was an additional cost (and provided the same service to connect) but people adopted it because it was quicker, easier and faster.
I'm thinking that the "quicker, easier, faster" wasn't the big deal though. I'm thinking automated menu systems, voice mail, etc... were the driving forces behind the switch. Both for AT&T to develop and "sell" touchtone phones in the first place as well as users adoption of the phones. New features drove the new interface. I'm just trying to imagine what new features (on a PC) will benefit a majority of users that warrant a new interface (multitouch). I'm not suggesting there are no features just trying to get a feel for them and hear others ideas. So far, Paul's seem the most logical for the most users in the near term.
Mike Mullikin wrote:
I'm thinking that the "quicker, easier, faster" wasn't the big deal though
Actually, it was. You're probaby way younger than I am. Automated menus systems, IVR and voicemail weren't in the equation until the mid/late 90's. In the beginning (80's), it was not having to wait for the "clicks" and delay. Touchtone made it quicker, easier and faster. Initially, the only feature was speed. There really wasn't any other value added service or benefit to the end user (it was the same call on the same network with the same quality). Instead of a 30 second dial on rotary, it became 10 seconds. That was it. But that benefit changed the entire landscape.
-
Mike Mullikin wrote:
I'm thinking that the "quicker, easier, faster" wasn't the big deal though
Actually, it was. You're probaby way younger than I am. Automated menus systems, IVR and voicemail weren't in the equation until the mid/late 90's. In the beginning (80's), it was not having to wait for the "clicks" and delay. Touchtone made it quicker, easier and faster. Initially, the only feature was speed. There really wasn't any other value added service or benefit to the end user (it was the same call on the same network with the same quality). Instead of a 30 second dial on rotary, it became 10 seconds. That was it. But that benefit changed the entire landscape.
-
I'm 26 so do I. Until it broke in 02(?) my parents kept an old rotary phone around for incoming calls. It's replacement is a faux antique with a J shaped handset and the buttons arranged in a ring like a rotary phone. :rolleyes:
You know, every time I tried to win a bar-bet about being able to count to 1000 using my fingers I always got punched out when I reached 4.... -- El Corazon
-
I'm 100% sure there were advantages for AT&T. The end consumer was what I was writing about, which I think was your original question? :laugh:
-
leppie wrote:
Now imagine typing on a virtual keyboard, and the gloves giving you feedback
Last time I checked, which is right now, my keyboard gave me feedback. ;)
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
All of our products use touch screens. I can't imagine how multi-touch would help, considering some of the issues we've had with single touch. Our environment might be on the fringe, however. Our touch screen is a control panel for a machine. Most operations are via buttons. Our most complicated operation is a slider-like control that sets a numerical quantity.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
Yours screams as well?
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
Only when I do this; www.microsoft.com, enter. :rolleyes:
regards, Paul Watson Ireland & South Africa
Fernando A. Gomez F. wrote:
At least he achieved immortality for a few years.
-
The new Mac notebooks use multi-touch on their touchpads for various on-screen manipulations. The 2 finger scroll is nice and easy to remember but IMO most of the others are kind of arcane. Time will tell if it really "does" much. Rumor is that Apple may introduce a multi-touch tablet in the not too distant future. Microsoft showed us Surface displays a while back that certainly look cool but appear to be a niche market at best. Misters Ballmer and Gates showed a bit of multi-touch in Windows 7 the other day. Here is my question: Forgetting the applications you write and forgetting your users - does multi-touch offer anything to developers themselves. Can any of you fathom where it might be helpful to you in your daily work? Personally, I'm not seeing where it does much. Secondary question: Does multitouch really offer anything to the millions of home users who surf the web, write letters, print birthday cards, etc...
Won't do anything for me - I just checked and my regular screen position is about 6" from the end of my outstretched fingers... Not sure if this means I have bad eysight or short arms though :)
Apathy Rules - I suppose...
Its not the things you fear that come to get you but all the things that you don't expect