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Are people here really suggesting we replace a mouse driven hover state on traditional computers with a touch driven tap and hold on touch screen devices? How d

by cwilson 17y ago

Are people here really suggesting we replace a mouse driven hover state on traditional computers with a touch driven tap and hold on touch screen devices? How does that make one lick of sense? What do you do while you're tapping and holding? Use another finger to navigate around your hover based controls? This is so counter intuitive I'm a bit baffled people are even suggesting it. Half of the brilliance of computing moving in the way of touch is that you start to interact with digital things the way you would handle actual physical objects. People have been training themselves to use a mouse to move a cursor around a screen for the past 25 years, which is really awkward when you think about it. With touch things work exactly how you expect them to. There have been dozens of studies with very young children who have had 0 experience with traditional computers who simply "get" touch devices, because its human nature. I believe Apple understands this and they are not going to spend significant time solving problems that do not need to be solved, especially when said problems really just need to be unsolved and forgotten.

mbreese 17y ago
I agree, there is a huge difference in a touch interface and a mouse/keyboard interface. I don't think that the answer is simply to simulate one with the other. There have been dozens of studies with very young children who have had 0 experience with traditional computers who simply "get" touch devices, because its human nature. Case in point: my 2 year old. He can use my iPhone with no problems. He can swipe the main screen left and right to find the icon he's looking for. Start the program, and be on his way. He can also start up iTunes on it, and play his music videos that I've loaded onto it. He also completely "gets" how to use the picture viewer. Now, if iTunes is playing my music and doesn't come up with the video screen, he's lost, but for the most part, it works well. The touch interface makes so much sense that he figured out how to get around in 2 minutes.
buster 17y ago
And how is a mouse pointer different to your finger pointing at something? You know, there are even Operating Systems where the mouse pointer is a hand which you use to point the virtual index finger at things. Now, i can use my real finger to point at things, it is indeed the same f*ing thing.

by cwilson 17y ago

mbreese 17y ago

I agree, there is a huge difference in a touch interface and a mouse/keyboard interface. I don't think that the answer is simply to simulate one with the other. There have been dozens of studies with very young children who have had 0 experience with traditional computers who simply "get" touch devices, because its human nature. Case in point: my 2 year old. He can use my iPhone with no problems. He can swipe the main screen left and right to find the icon he's looking for. Start the program, and be on his way. He can also start up iTunes on it, and play his music videos that I've loaded onto it. He also completely "gets" how to use the picture viewer. Now, if iTunes is playing my music and doesn't come up with the video screen, he's lost, but for the most part, it works well. The touch interface makes so much sense that he figured out how to get around in 2 minutes.

buster 17y ago

And how is a mouse pointer different to your finger pointing at something? You know, there are even Operating Systems where the mouse pointer is a hand which you use to point the virtual index finger at things. Now, i can use my real finger to point at things, it is indeed the same f*ing thing.