Comment by jonpaul | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonpaul | Hacker News Reader

I feel like one of the few who sees the emperor with no clothes.

Let me first start by stating that I do believe that touchscreen devices will continue to revolutionize industries, as they already have. But, why in God's name are Microsoft and Apple trying to shoehorn the touch-screen onto the desktop?

Mac OS X Lion is probably the last OS X version that we'll see. With each version it's gotten closer and closer to behaving like iOS. It seems that Microsoft is doing the same with Windows 8. Think about this, the human-device interface with touchscreen devices and desktop is different. The whole paradigm is different. With touch, you have your finger. The other, you have mouse/keyboard. The user interfaces that cater to one don't cater to other very well. Why force it?

I believe mobile is the future. But, I'm not sure this is the best evolution for desktop interfaces.

TL;DR: Metro UI looks nice, but merging touchscreen UI with desktop UI is a mistake... a la same Windows 8 for all devices.

EDIT: Please share your thoughts.

Have you ever experienced coworkers discussing something in front of the computer and touching the monitor screen time and again to point out things? It is not the most popular use case, but it does show that touching a screen to interact with a desktop is a natural inclination. Even with a desktop.

I don't agree that it's a natural inclination for working. For talking to someone else, okay, but touching the monitor for actually doing work is a fast route to gorilla arm.

I don't think Microsoft is merging both UIs at all. I think MS wants to pretend that Metro is something you'll use with keyboard and mouse, but I bet you won't, and they know that.

My thinking is that MS wants to sell you a hybrid tablet device. By day, you have it docked, and you spend most of your time in Desktop with mouse and keyboard. When it's going home time, you pull it out the dock, and it becomes a touchscreen tablet where you spend most of your time in Metro.

Have you actually used a touch screen on a Desktop? I'm not being snarky here; I genuinely believe that you should actively try to use a touch screen with a Win8 desktop before deciding one way or the other. I do it every day, and while it is not great for everything, there are some places where it is really nice.

For example, I love having a touch monitor when I'm reading a long Word document. Why hold a mouse and use the scroll wheel as I read a 35 page spec when I can sit there casually and flip through the document as I read? Or, if I have two hands on they keyboard typing and need to switch to another window, it can be nice to just tap the screen, rather than grab the mouse, navigate to the correct place on the screen and then click the button. Touch isn't perfect for everything, and I use the mouse plenty, but it's nice to have both. The key for me, however, was that I initially had to force myself to use the touch screen - I just wasn't used to it. Once I got in the habit of using it, however, I've found it has it's place and can be nice.

That would make sense on laptops and other small devices, but not so much if you're sitting 2-3 ft away from 2-3 large screens. Which is not uncommon for programmers and designers these days.

Right now, from where I'm sitting, I can't touch my desktop monitor without leaning forward uncomfortably. Even if large touchscreens become cheaper over the next few years, my arms aren't going to get any longer, and my field of vision isn't going to get any wider (larger monitor = sit further away). In this situation, touch isn't simply imperfect, it's physiologically impossible. It'll be even more impossible if your "screen" is a 50" plasma TV on the opposite wall.

So it seems that @jonpaul does have a point.

The other practical problem I see: fingerprints. I never touch my laptop screen because I'm looking at it all day and even at full brightness you can see previous fingerprints.

Haha, you're right. I have dry skin, so I make heavy use of hand cream... which doesn't play nicely with touchscreens at all. The smudges are especially annoying on glossy screens.

I'm not sure how Apple is trying to shoehorn touchscreens in Lion. They have made a very clear distinction between OSX and iOS, and instead added more gestures to the touchpads instead of trying to make a Mac with a touch screen.

I agree though, that trying to mix both is a mistake (one that's been tried for 10 years without much success).

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