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Touch Laptops

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Re: Touch Laptops

#71

Post by untog »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #6

Can't see it working with a 15" laptop, which is my preferred size. But if it gets to the point where all laptops have touch screens then I won't complain - it might work well with some UIs (like XBMC). I'm just not willing to pay extra for it.

These trends are causing me to reconsider my computing setup. Right now I have a 13" Macbook Air with an external screen, which to my mind is the best of both worlds- portability when I need it, a large monitor when I'm sat down to do some serious work.

But I'm wondering if my minimal processing requirements (I'm doing web development) mean that I could buy an Asus Transformer tablet (complete with keyboard) and install Ubuntu on it. It would make the portable even more portable, but retain a good workstation setup when I'm sat at my desk.

Re: Touch Laptops

#72

Post by potatolicious »

octotoad wrote: post #39

This got me thinking about the whole Windows ARM port and x86 compatibility. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but, why the hell didn't Microsoft make use of .NET for cross-platform compatibility? Have developers write applications in C# or any other language supported by the CLR and let .NET work out the x86/ARM differences. I'm sure there are valid technical and possibly political reasons this didn't happen, but…

> "but, why the hell didn't Microsoft make use of .NET for cross-platform compatibility?"

But they did. .NET is the platform of choice when it comes to Win8/ARM development. Any standards-compliant .NET code (more on this later) will with very little work build on ARM.

> "Have developers write applications in C# or any other language supported by the CLR and let .NET work out the x86/ARM differences."

This is exactly what's happening, though with a few caveats.

Note that all of this is from about a week of playing with the Win8/Windows Store SDK, so it may not be entirely accurate or complete.

The main problem with developing for the Windows Store (and, consequently, Windows RT) is that it badly fragments .NET. Very basic classes (like System.Collections.Hashtable) are not available for inexplicable reasons, even though they are in full-fledged .NET.

So sure, theoretically if you wrote your app in C# it will still build - unless you were calling parts of the API that are for some unknown reason unavailable in WinRT. Lots of the API has disappeared, and many, many parts of the System namespace have been replaced with equivalent-but-not-quite classes in the Windows namespace. All of this is very confusing and creates a huge fragmentation problem that will make even the most hardcore Android developer blush.

So yeah, conceptually MS is right there with you, but execution-wise that remains to be seen.

Re: Touch Laptops

#73

Post by stan_rogers »

aluhut wrote: post #4

With win8 I thought for the first time about using a touchscreen for work or at home and my conclusion was: Don't want to do it. Maybe I'm to old or something but It just don't feel right fingering around on my monitor. Even if it would be flat and part of my desk (which would also be horrible because I eat, drink and smoke at my desk at home). I want to have my head up, look straight and don't have the screen right…

It makes sense when you're working directly on a screen. I've had the opportunity to use the Wacom Cintiq in its various models over the years (and would love to actually afford one of my own), and for graphics and photo retouching, it's the most natural way to work. It's a lot like working at a drawing board or an easel (depending on the tilt angle you use). Not so much if what you're doing is keyboard-centric, though.

Re: Touch Laptops

#74

Post by ChuckMcM »

jerrya wrote: post #11

Jeff Atwood writes, The screen bounces when you touch it and for me this just brings up all the reasons I don't want a touchscreen except on a tablet. There is gorilla arms, screen bounces, and screen smudges. Jeez, I hate when people touch my screens. But I am wondering if a reasonable or even better solution is an appropriate touchpad or even Android or iPad touchpad app. Right now there are two (maybe three) touch…

Interesting take on it. One of the setups I use has a Mimo touch monitor [1] which is attached via USB. Putting the tool bar for my CAD program on that monitor sized up, gives me a screen with all of the tools available, and I can use the entire space on my 'main' screen for drawing. My version isn't multi-touch which would be useful for doing view projections.

I realized that sort of the 'ideal' setup here is a keyboard, and then behind the keyboard a really wide and not too tall multi-touch display, and then vertically in front of me 1, 2, or 3 IPS high density displays. That would move the richer expression of touch gestures to a place that was halfway between my keyboard and my screens.

Like Jeff that opened me up to the notion of a 'hybrid' interaction model. Prior to that experience with the 'all-in-one' style machines was just frustrating. The conflict between wanting the large monitor set back, and then having to reach out and touch it was a challenge.

Amazingly far from 25 x 80 characters on a green (or amber) screen :-)

[1] http://www.mimomonitors.com/

Re: Touch Laptops

#75

Post by ceejayoz »

antoko wrote: post #63

Ok I know this is nitpicking but... I'm not sure I would want a 13.3" tablet on my lap or in my hands. There must be a reason the standard letter page size is 8½ × 11", right? The diagonal on the standard letter is 13.9". The evidence Jeff cites completely undermines his point. I'll just assume it must have been a really long time since he actually held a piece of paper.

Plus "letter-size" paper wasn't the standard until the 1980s, and most of the world uses an actual standard, A4.

> The American Forest and Paper Association argues that the dimension originates from the days of manual paper making, and that the 11-inch length of the page is about a quarter of "the average maximum stretch of an experienced vatman's arms". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_(paper_size)

Re: Touch Laptops

#76

Post by SEMW »

hayksaakian wrote: post #55

Sorry, but that just reads like a sales pitch / marketing copy for windows 8.

Atwood is an admitted fan of Microsoft products, so yeah, this is written from that perspective. Blogs aren't encyclopedias - they don't have to be NPOV to be worth reading.

If you don't want to read opinion posts written by people who are partial towards one platform or another, you're going to cut yourself off from an awful lot of potentially interesting writing. (E.g. Jeff Atwood & Ed Bott, John Gruber & MG Siegler, Jon Corbet & Bruce Byfield, to pick two fans each respectively of Microsoft, Apple, and Linux).

(Of course, the worst thing is to only read blogs from people whose biases you share, under the delusion that they're the only objective ones...)

Re: Touch Laptops

#77

Post by stcredzero »

sliverstorm wrote: post #38
stcredzero wrote: post #22

> And Intel's long neglected Atom line, thanks to years of institutional crippling to avoid cannibalizing Pentium sales, is poorly positioned to compete with ARM today. Apple was ready to have new products that cannibalized the old ones. If Intel had the same courage, they'd be in a far better position today.

Apple cannibalized old products because the successor was mostly the same, but better. The argument around Intel is that success in the Atom line would hasten a repositioning of the microprocessor market that would inherently weaken Intel's position, so they are attempting to stall that repositioning as long as possible.

That is my point, except Apple's new products are also a repositioning in some important cases: iOS vs OS X being the most significant.

Re: Touch Laptops

#78

Post by codeulike »

octotoad wrote: post #39

This got me thinking about the whole Windows ARM port and x86 compatibility. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but, why the hell didn't Microsoft make use of .NET for cross-platform compatibility? Have developers write applications in C# or any other language supported by the CLR and let .NET work out the x86/ARM differences. I'm sure there are valid technical and possibly political reasons this didn't happen, but…

I think Windows 8 Metro apps can be written in either a .NET subset or using HTML5/javascript, right?

Re: Touch Laptops

#79

Post by eru »

antoko wrote: post #63

Ok I know this is nitpicking but... I'm not sure I would want a 13.3" tablet on my lap or in my hands. There must be a reason the standard letter page size is 8½ × 11", right? The diagonal on the standard letter is 13.9". The evidence Jeff cites completely undermines his point. I'll just assume it must have been a really long time since he actually held a piece of paper.

Also paper has different standard sizes in the rest of the world.

Re: Touch Laptops

#80

Post by rhplus »

The Lenovo Yoga 13 is an unsung hero of the Windows 8 wave. I tried it at a Best Buy as was very impressed with the build quality, specs and price. The story that's not being told though is that it's sold out everywhere and the order time on Lenovo.com is 4 weeks!

http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/ideapad/yoga/yoga-1...

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