In the recent Mac celebration of innovation, that normal geeks think of as a release announcement, Jobs claimed about touch screen UI:”We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work,” adding that “touch surfaces want to be horizontal.”
Now I find that astounding! First of all I have at many occasions used my Android phone while being vertical! Actually daily, if not 90% of the time I use it!
I’ve also used my tablet PC – sorry iPad isn’t that innovative in my mind as I have had tablets for 5 years now – in vertical positions, heck even in reverse horizontal positions (as in in bed upside down!)
I have even found myself sat in front of my linux box pointing at windows to move them – yes, it didn’t work – but it showed to me that using the fingers on my vertical screens would actually not fell that foreign, actually it would feel quite natural.
Am I really that different from other people?! Am I that geeky, that I can use my super geeky powers in such innovative ways that I can put my greasy fingers on a vertical screen and expect it to move stuff? Apparently! Or has this position by Jobs something to do with Microsoft’s patents pre-dating Apple’s patents on this, trying to avoid patent wars? I think the latter, and I would have liked Jobs to be upfront about it. I’d actually have praised him for it!!
The problem with Apple is they make claims that all ideas that are not following iCrap rules are wrong and they did tested every other options and only iRule is the right one in the whole universe. For some reason recently all proves differently (antena gate 🙂 ) I honestly hate them now, as they become what MS used to be… we need some good alternative soon 🙂
I wouldn’t say I hate them, cuz I luckily don’t own any of their products (except for one iTunes Album, which I can’t play any more, due to DMA in 2005 – 2006 when I wanted to test iTunes’ functionality). The Mac we have in the office however proves to me that Macs don’t just work! Far from it, what they are really good at is hiding the fact that they break, and that is about it. If you do anything which is a bit out of the ordinary you have just as many problems as you do on other systems.
What I dislike most about them, however, is their business culture, which really sucks!
I suppose we’ll never have a good alternative. Google seems like a contender, they know a lot about us! For the time being they seem nice, because they make more money from being nice than nasty, but I fear they might change their ways if the opposite was true – Money makes the world go around….
To be fair, if you only had a vertically aligned touch screen as your input method, your arms would get tired. And, I notice that, like me, you normally have your computer screen further away than is comfortable for simple screen pressing. Once you have a 24″ wide screen monitor close enough to be able to use it as a touch screen comfortably, you will have to move your head from side to side to read it 🙂
It is a surprise, though, given that Apple design is generally focused on making things that 3 yr olds want to use (and based on a theory of developmental learning – that using icons is easier than using words, which is probably true for the section of the population who can’t read on account of being too young to have learned yet) they haven’t looked at how children naturally try to use television screens as touch devices. Despite being placed out of reach, and not responding to touch, and, oh yeah, being vertical.
I think you underestimate how long my arms are… 😀
I wouldn’t use the touch functionality in desktop as a substitution to a keyboard/mouse setup, but more as an addition. Having said that I’d probably would change the desk completely if the screen was the center of work and not my keyboard…