Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
mashable.com
Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
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Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#2The article's title is "Microsoft Is Right About Touchscreen Computers", not the interrogative form as this post's title currently is. It should be corrected.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#3On the rare occasions when my five-year-old son gets his hands on my Macbook, he frequently tries to interact with it by tapping and swiping the screen. Growing up with tablets around, this is natural to him. I know that's just one anecdote, but it's enough to make me think that the OP is right that regular, non-tablet computers will commonly have touch screens.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#4I played with 3 Win8 touchscreen computers at a store the other day. The big 'all in one' one - from HP I think - was just not good. You might get used to it, but I didn't like it. The dragging - which you end up having to do a lot of - was pretty slow, and no amount of poking around in the system settings showed a way to change the responsiveness. Secondly, it doesn't seem that there's any sort of speed sensitivity - flicking an ipad screen fast or slow changes the speed of the scrolling; that didn't seem to be the case on the systems I used (nor on my win8 system here, but it's not touch).
The two touch-enabled laptops I tested were more responsive and a better experience, although the speed of scrolling issue was still there. I suspect hardcore geeks may not adapt to these for some time - they're very 'eye candy' focused, and reduce your ability to do things with keystrokes. For the crowd that still meticulously watches their hand move to the mouse, then moves the eyes back to the screen to watch the mouse move, slowly, up to a menu, then click, then wait, then select an option, when just hitting 'ctrl-s' would do the trick, I suspect they'll like touchscreens for more of their daily work. Me? For now it'll be a niche thing.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#5I went to the Microsoft Store to see if the Surface RT was worth picking up - I ended up being more impressed by the touchscreen Intel notebooks they had out running Windows 8.
I do think Microsoft is on to something with Touch and their new UI. Unfortunately, I felt that the touch interface was pretty useless on the old Windows 7 UI and MS Office.
I wonder how much confusion there will be with the move to Touch, and non-"Windows Modern UI"/Metro apps. It feels like Apple is moving OS X towards iOS and touch friendly, but they are doing it very gradually.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#6I think the reason Apple reversed the default trackpad two finger scroll direction is because they plan on releasing Macs with touchscreens in the near future.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#7On the rare occasions when my five-year-old son gets his hands on my Macbook, he frequently tries to interact with it by tapping and swiping the screen. Growing up with tablets around, this is natural to him. I know that's just one anecdote, but it's enough to make me think that the OP is right that regular, non-tablet computers will commonly have touch screens.
I think a lot of the people saying that Windows 8 is the most terrible mistake are forgetting precisely this. Dell has just released a series of laptop/tablet hybrids running win8, and also has Desktops with touchscreen.
I think Microsoft has done a great job by facilitating this transition(to "all computers with touchscreen") with win8. Now that a major Software has a touch-based paradigm, hardware vendors will have the courage to switch over as well.
Oh, I can't wait to see how the future will shape out!
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#8I played with 3 Win8 touchscreen computers at a store the other day. The big 'all in one' one - from HP I think - was just not good. You might get used to it, but I didn't like it. The dragging - which you end up having to do a lot of - was pretty slow, and no amount of poking around in the system settings showed a way to change the responsiveness. Secondly, it doesn't seem that there's any sort of speed sensitivity…
I've used Windows 8 on an Lenovo X220 Tablet and would have to say that in terms of touch-response, it's incredibly accurate and fast. It's most noticeable in the Maps app where I can zoom in and out really quickly.
And because so many of my devices are touchscreens now, it's really natural to want to touch the screen and do something when I don't want to use my mouse, trackpad, or trackpoint. It's so commonplace that I'm finding that I'm trying to touch the screen on my Macbook Air too.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#9I think Microsoft is, at least in concept, on to something.
Whether or not they're right is a matter of execution - not only on their part, but on the part of the OEMs who have a nasty habit of doing the most short-sighted things possible.
A general purpose tablet computer, with the right feature set, with the right price point, and most importantly, with the right user experience, can be huge. But of all the Win8 devices I've seen, none of them are close enough.
Re: Is Microsoft Right About Touchscreen Computers?
#10I played with 3 Win8 touchscreen computers at a store the other day. The big 'all in one' one - from HP I think - was just not good. You might get used to it, but I didn't like it. The dragging - which you end up having to do a lot of - was pretty slow, and no amount of poking around in the system settings showed a way to change the responsiveness. Secondly, it doesn't seem that there's any sort of speed sensitivity…
I've used Windows 8 on an Lenovo X220 Tablet and would have to say that in terms of touch-response, it's incredibly accurate and fast. It's most noticeable in the Maps app where I can zoom in and out really quickly. And because so many of my devices are touchscreens now, it's really natural to want to touch the screen and do something when I don't want to use my mouse, trackpad, or trackpoint. It's so commonplace tha…
I know exactly what you're talking about. After I started using my ASUS Transformer last year, I had to consciously train myself to not touch my laptop and desktop screens. That was painful enough that I'm firmly convinced that adding touchscreens is an important part of the future of traditional PCs.