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Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

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Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#151

Post by MaXtreeM »

wildrhythms wrote: post #92

"We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible." -Steve Jobs, 2010 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-...

I have never owned a touchscreen laptop and I agree with most of the criticism in comments here against it. But after just briefly using one from my father I have to say there is some thing in our brain that makes it kinda more satisfying, if that is the right word, to touch on things that appear on a screen. Even as a power user being used to just using keyboard most of the time, after 10 minutes with a touchscreen my mind prefers to touch on screen instead of touchpad.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#152

Post by 72deluxe »

9dev wrote: post #38
thesuitonym wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs are definitely not optimized for keyboard commands. If you feel the software you use is keyboard optimized, odds are it's not really Mac software.

Huh? Of all the wonky shit about my Mac, the flawless keyboard navigation is really none of that

I had been using Windows my entire life and using a Mac in 2009? was awful. How do I get to the menu bar? Ctrl-F2. They keep changing the behaviour of the menu so that cursor keys don't wrap at the bottom of a menu so you have to know which direction you want to go to get to a menu item - make your choice! Up or down!

How do I get to the dock so that I can open the Applications menu? Ctrl-F3. left left left left left up. Then the popup menu doesn't respond to any letters.

All of this contrasted with Windows which had Alt + key for the menu. I learned it from Windows 3.11 for incredible speed:

- Alt space - show the window menu

- Alt space x - maximize

- Alt space n - minimize

- Alt space r - restore

- Windows key - start menu

- Windows key > P > right cursor > N - notepad (the right cursor = accessories)

This was broken in later start menus. The modern start menu is absolutely useless and takes forever. Up until XP this worked fine.

- (with Quicklaunch): Windows + N (number) - launch that item. Eg. Windows + 3 will launch the third item across. No idea if they broke this in Windows 11.

Under Windows 98 all of these were lightning fast. Explorer behaved as you'd expect too.

None of this was possible on the Mac and using it was very very very slow with a mouse to wave around the screen.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#153

Post by 72deluxe »

paxys wrote: post #66
9dev wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Of all the wonky shit about my Mac, the flawless keyboard navigation is really none of that

Specific applications sure, but the base OS interface is unusable without a trackpad.

This is true for the most part, unless you adjust keyboard settings in System Settings to let all UI elements be focusable with the keyboard (for tabbing between UI elements). I think it used to be under "keyboard" but they might have moved it in the recent Control Center reshuffle.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#154

Post by 72deluxe »

a96 wrote: post #135
sitharus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find missing from macOS keyboard navigation? I've been using macs since the 90s so I'm quite used to it, so I'd love to know what I've been missing out on.

The absolute first thing that's needed: Maximize window.

Annoyingly it doesn't even maximize properly. You have to use alt-click for sensible behaviour.

They also decided about 10? years ago to make it behave as a "fullscreen" button which was really useless to me on a Mac Pro with 2 screens, where it would only ever "zoom" to one screen and then make the other screen display the desktop wallpaper - not the actual desktop - the wallpaper.

Useless.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#155

Post by Zarel »

a96 wrote: post #135
sitharus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find missing from macOS keyboard navigation? I've been using macs since the 90s so I'm quite used to it, so I'd love to know what I've been missing out on.

The absolute first thing that's needed: Maximize window.

Ctrl+Fn+F?

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#156

Post by cosmic_cheese »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #134
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Display of shortcuts in menus is the responsibility of the app developer (especially in the case of use of foreign UI toolkits). If you don’t see them it’s because its dev dropped the ball and the Mac version is an afterthought.

I think its more about priorities. I expect touch related features to be a bit rough on Linux and I expect the same for keyboard focused things on Mac.

Skipping keyboard shortcut indicators in menus feels a bit like leaving the back seat out of a four-door sedan, but maybe that’s just me.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#157

Post by fennecbutt »

overfeed wrote: post #137
zuhsetaqi wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Steve Jobs said that, he was talking about a stylus as a main or even only input device. And he is still right about it. The Apple Pencil for the iPad never was a main input device but an alternative.

That wasn't the only time Jobs trashed a category Apple didn't currently have annon-sale model for, but was actively developing; he also slurred 6-inch Android phones as "Hummers", and mocked the 7-inch Android tablets as "too small" a little while before Apple launched its iPad Mini.

Exactly, but watch people leap into to defend how brilliant he supposedly was.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#158

Post by Ylpertnodi »

MaXtreeM wrote: post #151
wildrhythms wrote: post #92

"We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible." -Steve Jobs, 2010 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-...

I have never owned a touchscreen laptop and I agree with most of the criticism in comments here against it. But after just briefly using one from my father I have to say there is some thing in our brain that makes it kinda more satisfying, if that is the right word, to touch on things that appear on a screen. Even as a power user being used to just using keyboard most of the time, after 10 minutes with a touchscreen…

...wait until you see Munority Report.

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#159

Post by pjc50 »

wildrhythms wrote: post #92

"We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible." -Steve Jobs, 2010 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-...

The original "gorilla arm" UX research is much older. However, Microsoft surface was something of a niche hit, and spawned a number of clones. PC laptops with touchscreens are quite prevalent even if they're not in the full-hinge form factor. They work a lot better if you can lay the screen flat or at a low angle in your lap.

Re: the stylus sub-thread, I've actually used cheap Android resistive+stylus phones and a Compaq Palm Pilot clone and .. yes, they were really bad compared to modern phone interfaces. The stylus has a niche market for artists, who need a high quality pressure sensitive version.

(edit: attempting to find the original citation for "gorilla arm" takes me to the Jargon File and the early 1980s. Along the way I found the delightful existence of a UX researcher with the name Sebastian Boring, though)

Re: Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)

#160

Post by wongarsu »

pjc50 wrote: post #159
wildrhythms wrote: post #92

"We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. it doesn't work, it's ergonomically terrible." -Steve Jobs, 2010 https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-...

The original "gorilla arm" UX research is much older. However, Microsoft surface was something of a niche hit, and spawned a number of clones. PC laptops with touchscreens are quite prevalent even if they're not in the full-hinge form factor. They work a lot better if you can lay the screen flat or at a low angle in your lap. Re: the stylus sub-thread, I've actually used cheap Android resistive+stylus phones and a Co…

I've used two touchscreen laptops during the Windows 7 era, and I'd largely agree with Jobs. It's great for some niche cases, but sits unused 99% of the time. Of course that was before Windows 8 completely redesigned the UI to better support touch, but that also hasn't lead to an appreciable portion of Windows laptops selling with touchscreens.

The Surface devices are a bit of an exception. For the tablets it works great. The convertibles that were a laptop with a screen that can turn into a tablet (or just be attached in reverse, so you have a very heavy but powerful tablet) were also great presentation laptops. Though apparently that niche was too small to support the exotic hardware. I don't quite get the appeal of the current surface laptops. But the ones I see in the wild are almost all the tablet surface devices.

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