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Overview
The Windows 8 Glossary
For decades the cynical observer could be forgiven for viewing Microsoft as a giant copying machine. The inspiration for just about every major Microsoft initiative can be traced back to a successful predecessor: Windows (Macintosh), Internet Explorer (Netscape), Bing (Google), Zune (iPod).
But in late 2012 Microsoft broke from the pack. It made a billion-dollar gamble that personal computing is taking a new direction. The gamble was Windows 8, and the direction is touch.
Using a series of fluid, light finger taps and swipes across the screen on a PC running Windows 8, you can open programs, flip between them, navigate, adjust settings and split the screen between apps, among other functions. It's fresh, efficient and joyous to use—all on a touch-screen tablet.
But this, of course, is not some special touch-screen edition of Windows. This is the Windows. It's the operating system that Microsoft expects us to run on our tens of millions of everyday PCs. For screens that do not respond to touch, Microsoft has built in mouse and keyboard equivalents for each tap and swipe. Yet these methods are second-class citizens, meant to be a crutch during these transitional times—the phase after which, Microsoft bets, touch will finally have come to all computers.
At first, you might think, “Touch has been incredibly successful on our phones, tablets, airport kiosks and cash machines. Why not on our computers?”
I'll tell you why not: because of “gorilla arm.”
There are three big differences between these handy touch screens and a PC's screen: angle, distance and time interval.
The screen of a phone or tablet is generally more or less horizontal. The screen of a desktop (or a laptop on a desk), however, is more or less vertical.
Phone, tablet and kiosk screens, furthermore, are usually close to your body. But desktop and laptop screens are usually a couple of feet away from you. You have to reach out to touch them. And then there's the interval issue: you don't sit there all day using a phone, tablet or airport kiosk, as you do with a PC.
Finally, you're not just tapping big, finger-friendly icons. You're trying to make tiny, precise movements on the glass, on a vertical surface, at arm's length.
When Windows 7 came out, offering a touch mode for the first time, I spent a few weeks living with a couple of touch-screen PCs. It was a miserable experience. Part of the problem was that the targets—buttons, scroll bars and menus that were originally designed for a tiny arrow cursor—were too small for fat human fingers.
The other problem was the tingling ache that came from extending my right arm to manipulate that screen for hours, an affliction that has earned the nickname of gorilla arm. Some experts say gorilla arm is what killed touch computing during its first wave in the early 1980s.
(Another problem is finger grease. You can clean a phone's screen by wiping it on your jeans, but that's not as convenient with a 32-inch monitor.)
Now, half of Windows 8 addresses half of the touch-screen PC problems: Windows 8 is actually two operating systems in one. The beautiful, fluid front end is ideal for touch; only the underlying Windows desktop has the too-small-targets problem.
The angle and distance of PC screens are tougher nuts to crack. Microsoft is betting that Windows 8 will be so attractive that we won't mind touching our PC screens, at least until the PC concept fades away entirely. Yet although PC sales have slowed, they won't be zero any time soon.
My belief is that touch screens make sense on mobile computers but not on stationary ones. Microsoft is making a gigantic bet that I'm wrong.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
Decoding Windows 8: ScientificAmerican.com/jan2013/pogue
This article was originally published with the title The Trouble with Touch Screens.
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34 Comments
Add CommentWhat's wrong with touch screen for desktops is not the "touch" it's the "screen". Everything about computers has been improving at an exponential rate except the monitor. It appears that we are moving towards obsolescence of the desktop concept as laptops become more powerful, but that is not what should happen. What the desktop needs is to be a screen that is about 4 feet wide by about 3 feet tall, Hi Def, and angled like a drafting table. You could have everything you are working on today open and visible at once and all in easy reach of your fingers. And you could also have room for many small windows running, maybe a slide show of your kids pictures, a video monitor of your home while you're at work and other great apps. Microsoft's forte has never been to figure out how to do something right, their strength is that they just dive in and start doing something. This "strategy" of course is sometimes laughable, often infuriating, yet apparently successful. So I will paraphrase what people say who don't like Howard Stern but listen to him anyway: I can't wait to see what they try next.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMicrosoft knows that businesses will always be using desktops. It isn't as if Windows 8 doesn't allow the regular mouse interface with standard Windows features. Nor will Windows 9.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMicrosoft knows that businesses will always be using desktops. It isn't as if Windows 8 doesn't allow the regular mouse interface with standard Windows features. Nor will Windows 9.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, it's not about taking over, this is another input option that can be used sometimes. Think about this, many businesses now buy their computer users laptops. They know their employees would like tablets also. Convertible laptops where you either remove or flip the keyboard behind are an obvious choice. They already have a version of Office running on them, don't underestimate the power of Office. Touch can be used sometimes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have a point that desktop monitors don't need to be touchscreen, but consider that as prices drop on panels and tablets that they may become mirrored alternate input devices. By mirrored I mean that the screen of the tablet could display a copy of the desktop and you click that, not your actual monitor. Same goes for your TV. You could have it so you switch to a mirrored view of the TV to interact with that as an app, then swap that out to do something else on your tablet. We go from Windows to Mirrors.
I believe this paradox will be resolved in one of two ways...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. High resolution screens will negate the need for large unwieldy desktop screens and allow more mobility of the monitor.
2. THE solution will likely be to replace the desktop PC with a full featured tablet using a bluetooth keyboard (and mouse) and acting as the main system with a large external monitor attached. This would allow the most flexibility and portability in this emerging world. Apps like office would be cloud based whether that be a public service or one privately served by the IT department.
The tablet could be the touch input device next to the keyboard like external touch pads have been used in the past.
People want both and both will prevail.
I agree, but software advancements are a way to to justify hardware upgrades. Think about what you needed when a 64bit systems came out - upgrade to x64 architecture; every game generation recommends next generation of GPU; every now and then they convince us that we need one CPU core more than we had. I do need at least 16 cores for 3D art, but how to got MS office users to buy 50 GFLOPS computers for MS Excel tables. The answer was HTML5, because flash was compiled code and could run on 486. Now, how do push user to get new monitor? We made them bigger, we convinced users that they need DVI and then HDMI... and LED backlight is so much better, and we all got them. Then somebody said: Let's convince users to upgrade to a mouse-crippled OS and push them to buy touch-screen monitor... or a tablet. If you get the w8 tablet, then you will need Windows PC to stay in sync.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a very good point. A typical desktop or laptop is very badly arranged ergonomically - the keyboard is at your finger tips but the screen isn't in the same place and you need to keep looking from one place to another, refocus and find your place again each time. Tablets work so well because you only need to look at what you are doing and see the results immediately. So as you suggest the ideal pc is a kind of giant tablet you work on like a traditional book or writing paper. Touch is the future and Microsoft have done the right thing by producing an interface which works on all forms of device - mobile, tablet and pc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen Edison developed motion pictures, I don't think he meant them to take the place of still photographs. I think that nowadays there is a lack of foresight, a following of the market domination to our own detriment. Let me give another example to express my thoughts. I remember the days when word-processing machines came in to take the place of typewriters in the workplace, and it was a wonderful development. Different, but wonderful. Within the following decade, personal computers took over, dumbing down all the facility and creative usefulness of the various word-processing programs, which quickly died because they could not adapt fast enough to the PC technology. No program to date has yet equaled the best of those long-gone programs, in terms of use in an office (complex formatting during typing without looking at the screen). Later, Word and WordPerfect took over, further dumbing down, and requiring the individual to look at a screen, and offering only relatively simplistic formatting. My point is that different uses have different needs. We keep trashing technologies for new ones, rather than maintaining the variety. Had the mouse not been invented, we could not work in PhotoShop. But it slowed worker production in document creation needlessly. Can we work in PhotoShop with our fingers? Holy heck, no.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should not run like sheep to the next invention, we should not all be sold on one company's product. For another example, film photography provided higher resolution than is practical with digital photography, so my grandmother's photos from 1918 are a more informative and secure record than are mine.
Or you need to learn how to type.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only time I only looked away from the monitor while typing this, was when my kid grabbed my face to make me look at what was happening on Sesame Street.
what a screen 4 ft x 3 ft easy to touch , not at any angle
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis isn't the future. It's already happening, right now. I just completed a Kickstarter to fund the development of just such a thing where you use your iPad as a touchscreen input device for your desktop/laptop. http://kck.st/RIWgN4 Eliminates gorilla arm (while maintaining proper sight/touch ergonomics), moves finger grease to your iPad and solves target size by providing custom touch interfaces for the applications you work with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are starting with video and photo applications, but I see this being a solution for everything from 3D modeling to gmail. With gestures providing the no-look interaction of a touch-typist.
This is the interaction model I believe Windows 8 (and all of its apps) will need to move in. The keyboard gets relegated to typing, mouse for precise point and click and the touchscreen for everything else. Done right it's faster than the mouse but more flexible than a keyboard and it's myriad of 'shortcuts.'
Microsoft continually fails to consider the user. Right now, I am typing. A need will continue to produce lengthy documents - - business proposals, contracts, legal proceedings, creative and research writing. Trying to type on a touch-screen other than sending a tweet is torture. I doubt that I could ever complete a novel on a touchscreen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWritten language is one of the core components of human's expression of sentience. The progression to illiteracy in the form of txts, tweets, and less than 140 character messages is contributing to the dumbing down of our culture. It would be curious if one thousand years for now, Microsoft is cited as responsible for the devolution into idiocy of the human race.
People will always need large, vertical displays for many applications. The cure for touchscreen "gorilla arm" is simple - I've been trying to find someone to sell it to me for years: One or two cameras on the monitor track your finger movements while your hands are on the desk in front of the screen, and showing an image of your fingers overlaid on an image of a keyboard/mouse pad on the screen. Wala! No keyboard, no mouse, and no gorilla arm!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe size and type of hand/keyboard image could be easily customized by the user. It could be a transparent outline format, or anything else. The tracking software would only need to be able to follow limited human finger movements which should not be any big deal these days.
A single hand image could be customized by the user to finally transcend the intentionally inefficient QWERTY legacy; finger movements in three dimensions or combinations of finger movements could be defined as representing not only letters but shift, cap, ctrl, alt, backspace, etc..
The keyboard could be anything the user can imagine - a piano, harp, oboe, 10-level synthesizer, whatever, with different movements custom matched by the user to volume, pressure, attack, sustain, etc. Where is it and where has it been all our lives?
It is difficult for me to understand just why someone would write such an article, while knowing fullwell that the use of the touch screen features of Windows 8 is optional. The OS can be used just fine without the "touch". It amazes me that Scientific American would even accept the use of a full page devoted to a totally lame arguement. How come the author never mentions that OS X has had touch capabilities for quite some time? He must be an Apple fan, there's no other explanation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMicrosoft's "Metro" apps do need one fix. They should not go full screeen with no apparent way to close or minimize them. Home users typically epect a PC to operate easily enough without reading anything and they will find themselves stuck if they get to such a screen. I would like to see the app pop out of full-screen mode with the press of the "escape" key.
David, as a retired IT guy I wish to commend you on your insightful article about Win 8 and touch screen computers. In addition to the 'gorilla arm' problem there are issues for those of us who work with non-Western alphabets. I taught Sanskrit part-time for >30 years and do not see how I could use a touch screen very easily for typing India's Devanaagarii (देवनागरी) alphabet. Win 8 and MS Office 13 are a good match for my purposes in foreign language translation; my track ball and KB will remain too. Thanks for your article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlthough I agree with the author on the subject of Gorilla Arm, I think he's over-reaching with this critique of Windows 8. I use it all the time (in the form of Server 2012) and I love it, and I don't have any touch-screen computers. Every time Microsoft comes out with big changes in their OS design, there is whining and kvetching. This guy is whining and kvetching. I think Server 2012 is great and I don't care if there are a lot of features related to touch-screen (in the background) that I'm not using. The mouse/keyboard functionality in Server 2012 isn't a "second-class citizen" as this guy claims. They are just different, as they were when Windows 95 replaced Windows 3.1. Some people just fear change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see that Sci Am has reached a new low - publishing Pogue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTouchscreens are not going anywhere but up. Maybe desktops will continue to have mice and keyboards - but they will add touch.
I need my keyboard and monitor. Anybody who works with words and equations knows this. So, let's use both where appropriate and quite the debate. BTW, Win 8? don't bother and stick with Win 7.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you. The writer is an Apple fan. The tip off is in his "copy machine" slam. I have a Mac and love my Mac but the Mac fanatics who say Mac is "more intuitive" are just plain delusional. "Intuitive" gets down to what you know. Mac-addicts know Mac better and feel comfortable slamming MS. As for why SA published this... they've got to fill their pages with something, is my guess.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was at Red Robin and they were using iPads to manage seating. That's a kind of simple input/complex output situation where touch is useful. Also for people who don't want a computer so much as a lightweight portable tv set. For interactive, read/write activities...clamshell or desktop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, the touch screen fanboys still out in force, I see? Doesn't matter that the vast majority of those who have adopted Windows 8 run it exactly as though it was Windows 7, abandoning just about every added feature or 'improvement', and that replacement Start Menus are being downloaded by the ton. Doesn't matter that the biggest selling accessory for nearly all the major tablets is a keyboard (detachable or otherwise). No matter that millions of greasy fingers and broken nails will result inevitably in displays becoming increasingly obscured and illegible and the replacement rate of devices growing even further. And how far away can the first major viral outbreak from shared screens be when the Norovirus that has blighted the UK over Christmas can be transmitted by the merest touch?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo. my friends, touchscreen is heading for the dustbin of history, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and if they are not more careful Microsoft will be joining them there, about which, as a Windows user since W3, I'm really not sure how I should feel.
Meanwhile, if you're a manufacturer of desktop computers, mice, or keyboards, stock up! The counter-revolution won't be too long in coming and you're about to make a killing!
You could just learn how to type...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"My belief is that touch screens make sense on mobile computers but not on stationary ones."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis sums up the issue well. A mouse and keyboard remain the most effective means for interacting with computing devices. Many programs, including most productivity software, are significantly impaired without the use of such hardware. A touch screen is often only useful for portable devices where a mouse and keyboard are impractical.
Gesture recognition is the key, the means being keyboard, touchscreen, pad, mouse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe input devices are evolving so "touch" becomes virtual, Leapmotion being the best example.
Leapmotion looks very promising, it will negate the need for a touchscreen on the desktop and will allow older PCs to embrace the W8 Metro user interface.
The mouse should always be an option. Touch is great but the are people with disabilities that CANNOT lift there arms to touch the screen. The mouse allows for very small moves of the fingers and wrist to be amplified across a screen of any size with the precision of a pen. Killing the mouse is short sited and stupid. Long live the mouse.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMicrosoft's only bet is that to get their OS into more devices, it can't be built around the mouse/keyboard interface.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis does not mean they think the old usage models are dead. It only reflects that they know where the growth is and that they understand that the shackles of the mouse/keyboard assumption are an obstacle to penetrating that growing market.
Eye control technology will be next,no need to touch,no reaching.The systems may become so sensitive that it can read your mind by sensing the minute variations of the lenses of your eye.Eventually the monitor will be replaced by glasses and or contacts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI see this a lot in americans, I like to call it the McDonalds way, You had to have the same restaurant an the same hamburger in New Orleans, Los Angeles and Italy, I like more to have a hamburger in Los Angeles, Cajun food in New Orleans and Pasta in Italy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI use the analogy of the steer controls, the controls at a bike, a motorcyle, a car and a truck are different, why? because the needs are different, you could put a steering wheel of a truck in a bike but that will not be convenient, you could put the steering of a bike in a car but again it will not be convenient, why we had to have the same interface in all the computers?
It's like thinking the users are dumb and can not adapt.
We can design and use the best interface for a phone a desktop computer and a wall, also for finger, stylus, mouse, keyboard, gamepad, etc. Also different programs have different needs I don't think that a tablet it's a good place for a CAD or to type 30 pages of text in one take or for controlling the network traffic of a big city to name a few.
The T.V., the phone, the tablet, the kiosk, the laptop, the desktop, the server, and the server farm all have a place in the infrastructure, and I don't see disappear none, I see adding more, the car, the refrigerator and who knows what's next.
Let's have a interface that it's optimal for every place and need.
Yes I know it's a lot more work for the developers (I am one), but as user in the end I think would be better.
Your points are all valid, but still I have to strongly disagree. I have been using a new touch screen laptop for about a month and now I dread using non touch screen. I have gotten used to it and can click the tiniest buttons even on programs not designed for touch. I still need the mouse for things like photoshop and real gaming but even on regular desktop interface I think the touch option offers convenience that greatly exceeds any drawbacks. and keep in mind that even on touch screen you usually still have the option to plug in a mouse to a USB. Its not all or nothing. Touch screen technology is getting cheap and advanced enough that there is no reason not to include it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI quite agree that on anything bigger than a tablet, the screen shouldn't be the main keyboard.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how about instead, if the keyboard was a touch screen, especially if it was sensetive to pressing rather than just touching? Then you could redesign it in a pattern of your own liking, rather than the virtally non-pattern we have today. You could carry a special flash drive that fits a special socket, in any compatible computers, to temporarily re-program the screen/keyboard. (Some people say you could more easily store your personal format online. But that would require using a QWERTY keyboard to activate your format, and assumes QWERTY remains the standard, instead of a new standard perhaps evolving.)
Perhaps eventually the screen could give tactile feedback by "touching you back" with a small, adjustable, electric shock that feel about like conventional "snap action", when the signal is sent.
There are a lot of better designs for keyboards than one intended for the shortcomings of early mechanical typewriters. This is one area that has made very little progress since the first keyboards. Contact me at danrob@efn.org if you want to know more, especially about the format I'd use.
Johnay, typing is more efficient when one does not need to look either at the keys or at the screen. Again, the new technology is a regression from more to less efficient.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEventually, I don't see this as an issue. There could be separate, smaller touch screens that are flat on the desk (or hell, even embedded in it) this would have GUI controls (but nothing like a full keyboard) germane to the task/program at hand and the ability to access the launcher. The program itself would occupy the majority of a touch sensitive display that would be used more sparingly and either voice entry or a physical keyboard could easily make up the difference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.leapmotion.com . Done. Check it out. Actually touching the screen is over. Windows 8 will overcome the touch hurdle. But the downside will remain in that it looks like AOL's interface from 1996. (http://josephdarnell.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/aolmetro11.jpg?w=914)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTouchscreens will not go away we will just put a second screen on our desktop. Think keyboard/screen/mousepad.
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