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

anishathalye.com

201–210 of 244 posts

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

#201
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with touchscreen laptops is you have to reach over the keyboard and trackpad to actually touch the screen to make it work, and that's physically uncomfortable and kind of inconvenient. The answer is to make them fold flat so you're just looking at the screen with the keyboard facing away from you (and, ideally, disabled by a switch in the hinge so when you put it down you don't zkjltohtrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

It's not uncomfortable and inconvenient. There are many times when it's much more convenient to reach for the screen than to reach for the mouse or touchpad and carefully move the cursor. Touching the screen directly is much more natural for the occasional interaction. For prolonged use, nothing beats the mouse (and yet laptops still come with a touchpad and sometimes a clitmouse).

Carefully move the cursor? Come on. It is a subconcious action. How do you think people play fps games? Do you even use a mouse yourself or maybe have some physical disability that impairs you?

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally pointless, because the trackpad is already a touch device... and you use it to manipulate a precise cursor that doesn't block your view of what you're working on.

Except that the trackpad has to be used to get the cursor all the way over to the control --- it's often faster to just reach out and touch, and if using a stylus, then the cursor goes right back to where the other hand was working as soon as one lowers it back into hover range.

I can move my cursor across my entire screen without lifting my wrist with the trackpad. It is vastly easier than tapping at a screen.

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

#203
post #31
post #16

I wouldn't want a touchscreen MBP even if it was free, anyone else feel similar? I don't get the draw - we already optimize for keyboard commands to avoid living our fingers over to a touchpad. Why would I want to start clicking on my screen? If you're using your computer for tasks (rather than entertainment) and you're not a visual designer, I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new…

It just feels ancient and weird now that I can tap every screen I own, except my Mac. I don't want to replace the Mac's keyboard & mouse with a touchscreen, I would simply like it to support touch. (This also made me realize the impending obsolescence of the Studio Monitor XDR: no touch support .)

Why though? What compels you to even want that?

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

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you want a touchscreen on a laptop isn't so that you can use it for "an extended period of time" but rather so that you can use it to do the few things that are painful with a touchpad, like drag and drop.

That is painful for you on a touchpad?

Are you asking about my sensitivity to pain here or disagreeing that this is easier with a touchscreen?

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They'll say it sucks ass, and they'll be right. And yet my wife will disagree hard with you, as all her fingerprints on my laptop screen will attest to. She always defaults to trying to swipe the screen instead of going to the mouse. > Touchscreen computers have failed for a reason. The only people who think touch screens have failed are people who actually use computers, and we are a tiny minority of the populatio…

Your wife actually swipes at a non touch screen thinking it is a touch screen?

Some people actually do do that, yes. It's a force of habit especially if they have another touch screen computer.

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

#206
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just feels ancient and weird now that I can tap every screen I own, except my Mac. I don't want to replace the Mac's keyboard & mouse with a touchscreen, I would simply like it to support touch. (This also made me realize the impending obsolescence of the Studio Monitor XDR: no touch support .)

Why though? What compels you to even want that?

My iPad is mounted next to my Macs. I use it as a media player, checking deliveries, personal messages when I'm on my work laptop, and such. All of that is done via touch. When I need to flip over to my Mac to do the same thing, I have to use a 40 year old interface (a mouse).

It's not hard. I don't think we need to make everything touch-size on Mac. Small icons & buttons are perfectly fine in a production environment, and they're considered to be accessible. Just let us touch the screen.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s no contradiction here. Jobs’ point was about the MAIN input method. A touchscreen that requires a stylus as main input method still is a terrible idea. The Apple Pencil is meant for alternative and creative input, something you can’t do well with your fingers.

Please, leave that reddit-esque “iSheep”-type of comment out of here.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Who wants a stylus? You have to get ’em and put ’em away, and you lose ’em. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with—born with ten of them. We’re going to use our fingers.” — Steve Jobs, 2007 (8 years before the introduction of the Apple Pencil)

And here we are, and the Pencil STILL doesn't work on the defectively oversized trackpads on Apple laptops. So... we're talking about more than one blunder here.

Calling Apple’s trackpad defective and/oversized has got to be one of the most tone-deaf and uninformed things I’ve seen this year.

Please.

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your wife actually swipes at a non touch screen thinking it is a touch screen?

Some people actually do do that, yes. It's a force of habit especially if they have another touch screen computer.

[flagged]

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the trackpad has to be used to get the cursor all the way over to the control --- it's often faster to just reach out and touch, and if using a stylus, then the cursor goes right back to where the other hand was working as soon as one lowers it back into hover range.

I can move my cursor across my entire screen without lifting my wrist with the trackpad. It is vastly easier than tapping at a screen.

And requires a LOT less effort too. There simply is no real benefit to a touchscreen on a laptop. It’s ridiculous. It’s the phablet of laptops. Insane.
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