Between using the iPod Touch and Nintendo DS, I’m ready for a fully touchscreen home desktop. Whether I can tap it with my fingers or use a stylus (preferably a mix of both), I think that interface design has finally caught up.
What’s on the horizon with this technology? Any credible rumors of Apple coming out with a touchscreen iMac or tablet-style notebook?
Windows 7 is gearing up to support touch screens.
Personally, I don’t see the appeal. Why would I want to touch my screen? How will it be more useful to me than a keyboard and mouse?
It’s a boon to mobile devices BECAUSE you don’t have a keyboard a mouse, not because it’s better than either of those.
The only place I can see it working is in niche technologies like the LCD coffee tables I’ve seen. Those are cool, but really just another display device.
Ask and ye shall receive: take a look at the HP Touchsmart series:
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/
They have PCs and tablet-style notebooks that use the technology. Not dirt cheap, but very affordable in comparison to PCs in recent years. The latest versions are apparently better than earlier editions, YMMV (check reviews to see if they’re meet your needs).
For many uses, such as editing video, music software, graphics, etc. there’s a major deficit between how the user naturally wants to interact with the material and a mouse/keyboard interface.
Yeah, and an even bigger one with touch screen.
What a dumb idea.
Just what I want - to work with my arm stretched out all day.
That’s how I envision it happening; having a multi-touch enabled display embedded in the tabletop. I can imagine playing a board game like Monopoly or Scrabble with the gameboard displayed on the tabletop screen. Perhaps you wouldn’t have actual letter tiles for Scrabble, but instead have virtual ones displayed on the board. Or perhaps in the Monopoly game, the game pieces are physical objects as they are now (although perhaps with embedded electronics) but the game board, Chance cards, deeds and money are virtual and shown on the screen. The dice could be either virtual or real, although perhaps even if they are real, they have electronics that tell the game what you’ve rolled.
The key will be for computer monitor manufacturers to build a robust touch screen that users will enjoy, but fail at the proper time requiring users to have their screens repaired, or better still, replaced with another touch screen.
Expensive designed and planned obsolescence is the American Way.
Here’s what Microsoft is working on.
I have the HP TouchSmart iQ504. I got it more because it’s an all-in-one PC (it sits in my kitchen and fits perfectly on our little desk area.) I honestly don’t use the touch screen all that much. It works pretty well, but I’m so used to keyboard and mouse that I haven’t switched over. It’s fun to finger swipe through your music collection by cover art on a 22" screen, but overall it’s more gimmick than useful, IMO.
It’s worth noting that those “niche” markets have developed hardware to address the shortcomings of a keyboard and mouse vs. that activity’s traditional implements, and that a touchscreen monitor probably won’t be particularly appreciated for these uses.
For music, you can plug in a MIDI keyboard.
For graphic artists, Wacom makes a tablet/LCD monitor called Cintiqthat you can hold in your lap and draw on. The designer on TV’s American Chopper uses one frequently. Compared to the resolution and levels of pressure-sensitivity offered by Cintiq, a touchscreen monitor would be like fingerpainting with mittens.
I’ve also seen input devices that replicate VTR jog/shuttle wheels and edit control buttons for video editing.
Exactly. Touchscreen PCs are an ergonomic nightmare. Having to lift my entire arm for every little mouse move. No thanks. And I am one of the people who might suffer less, as I used to keep my laptop on a high table and use it standing up. Touching the screen might have been close to acceptable in those conditions, but still.
Mark me down as another person who does not understand the excitement over “touch-screen” monitors. I like only having to move my thumb on the ball of the mouse and never having to move my wrist at all. When I imagine touch screens, I think of those guys in Zion Air-traffic control in the Matrix movies. Do you realize how tiresome it would get to point and poke a screen all day?
Touchscreen technology will find its niche uses, just as it has worked successfully for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
But the best way for physical interactivity is to have it flat on the desktop, but that isn’t the ideal orientation for viewing. Also, the ‘give’ of pressing a physical key or button on a keyboard or mouse is often a tactile necessity, it has a psychological feel of satisfaction that a touchscreen doesn’t re-create.
There are places and situations where a touchscreen will work better than the current alternative, so the technology will develop. But I can’t imagine it will replace a keyboard.
Philips prototyped (and displayed at the 2006 CES) a thing along these exact lines called the Entertaible. Here’s one tiny article about it, Google shows a bunch more.
I now have a nice, bright, wide flat-screen monitor that sits about 2.5’ in front of me. I like it. But it’s clear that reaching out to touch it with my hand would be a nuisance.
So I sure hope that after these touch-screen monitors show up, someone comes up with some sort of electronic pointing device, by which I can “touch” a chosen part of the screen with minimal hand movement. If someone does, I predict they’ll sell well.
I’ve played with some of these touchscreen monitors, both the Surface (coffee table) and display (HP TouchSmart) kinds. In both cases, the technology would be really slick for certain kinds of applications (as a supplement to, rather than replacement for, mouse and keyboard).
Except…they don’t work for me (or anyone else I’ve seen using them). I’m lucky if the screen records two out of three of my touches. Even playing solitaire on them is an exercise in frustration (tap…nothing…tap…nothing…tap…highlights them immediately unhighlights because it counted two taps…tap…nothing…)
Until they can start accurately detecting and tracing touches, they’re just a novelty. (Note that stylus-based tablet-PCs seem to work fine, so the technology is achievable).
Does anyone remember Fred Armisen on SNL’s election special parodying CNN’s “Magic Wall” from its election coverage? It’s in this video segment at the 5:20 mark. From Google searches, I believe the CNN “Magic Wall” was a product of Perceptive Pixel. I don’t know what technology SNL used (or if they just faked it), but if real touch screens are as smooth and natural as what Fred Armisen used, then I’m looking forward to it.
Touch screens on computers is like PiP (Picture in Picture) on TVs 15 years ago. It’s 95% “Gee-Wiz” factor. It looks really cool in ads and in showrooms, but in reality, its practically useless. Except for handheld devices, where you simply don’t have enough space for a display and keyboard, a touch screen is superfluous. And even with handhelds its better described as a necessary compromise, not as a futuristic advantage.
The problem is that, at its core, touch screen input is totally counter-intuitive, and not just in terms of current problems like having to reach out to your screen. Display technology and input devices are inherently different and, more importantly, inherently separate. Besides obvious things like your hands getting in the way, of much greater importance is that, regardless of the design, all input devices function, wait for it…
Without having to be looked at!!
A mouse, a keyboard, a stylus, a flight sim yoke/joystick, anything, the most fundamental factor involved in using any of them is using them via touch only. And its not a necessary, specialized learned skill i.e. like touch-typing, but rather a universally human behavior, i.e. like hand/eye coordination. And that’s the rub. Because touch screens have absolutely zero tactile feedback, you must look at them. All the time.
They will never, ever, be anything more than a niche device. Even in the 24[sup]th[/sup] century, I chuckle at the notion of controlling a massive starship hurtling thru space with what is essentially a keypad for a microwave oven!
They are working on ones with touch feedback. Remember there was a time when no one needed a computer mouse. Think of the scene in Minority Report how they can manuplate the movie with their hands
NBC says I cant watch it cause I dont live in the states , off to see if youtube has it
Declan
I would argue there was a time when they didn’t have a mouse because it wasn’t invented yet, but they sorely needed one.
I can’t imagine a more absurd and exhausting way to organise your files than waving your arms around like a maniac, while standing up.