Tenth Grade Tech Trends

I just mentioned I have a Nexus 7. Same complaints mostly. Though the touch is more responsive in the 7, doesn't really alleviate my complaints. (I never complained about latency on the Sanza because it's a sub $100 device and can't be expected to have decent capacitive touch hardware. Which is part of the reason it should use buttons, there was no reason to make it a device driven by touch.)

That and I haven't seen very many "gestures" in the android apps I use. Though I've heard a lot of hype about them.

>Touch beats pens, keyboards, and mice in the respect that you don't have to carry around a bunch of peripherals. Nearly everybody has fingers and spent the first couple years of their lives learning to use them.

Yes, yes it does. Which is why it was probably a smart idea to force developers to assume only a touch screen for most applications, it stops them from requiring a stylus for stuff that doesn't need it. At the same time, using a tablet with just your fingers is really painful, and theres no way I'm the only person who holds this opinion.

And theres a reason tablet keyboards are so small, and usually clamp onto the device they're built for, it's because nobody is going to lug around a full sized 104 key desktop keyboard. And pens are small, they fit in your pocket easily. Together they probably fix enough of the weaknesses touch has as an interface to make a tablet usable as more than a toy.

when I say touch should be a "fallback" interface, that might imply it shouldn't receive regular use. I really mean something closer to "default". A good example might be GIMP. (Or any other image editor, like photoshop.) People who are serious about drawing digitally usually buy a drawing tablet, or in decades past some sort of light pen. But because drawing tablets work like any other pointing device from the operating systems perspective, users who prefer a drawing tablet can use one without locking out users who only have an optical mouse, and vice versa.

A capacitive touch stylus is compatible with touch screens, meaning that for applications that don't require extreme delicacy, pens and touch can co-exist without carrying around any large peripherals. Users who don't want to buy any fancy add-ons are happy, users who can't stand smudging their screen and cleaning it with a glasses cloth are happy too.

People are different, and in my experience, some brainy people like twitter and other link finding services, to find things to READ. We watch instructional videos or download all the awesome lectures that universities have posted. We use facebook, but end up posting links to news stories and even longer things like wikipedia articles and actual papers and prose. We like Reddit and even stackexchange. We love wikipedia.

We're a minority. Way more people like to take photos of each other and send them to each other. They like to share photos of the cat, babies, etc. They share inspirational poetry.

Even more people just want videophone of some kind, or something like twitter, but sans too much linking. More photos. t.co for everything.

I know someone who got internet mainly for consuming porn and maybe some video games. He's an adult, has a college degree, and works with people who wish kids would read more, or be more interested in school, or basically be more like the brainy kids. He didn't go to college because he loved knowledge. He went to get a middle class job, and because his parents went to college.

Personally, I was the first to go to college in my family, and went to a good one. I'm a big nerd. My brother and I taught ourselves to program computers. (He's smarter than me, too.) I liked to read. I still mostly read online. I've put up a few left-wing websites, have an almost obligatory anger toward the boss (comes from growing up working class), and still buy books.

I just accept that people are different. Some people are into reading, and others aren't. Some people like to think about things, and others are more about looking at people. Some people go with the flow, and others don't.