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I once owned a Dell laptop that used a strip of touch-sensitive regions for volume and media control. In practice they were completely useless, because without
by rcthompson 10y ago
I once owned a Dell laptop that used a strip of touch-sensitive regions for volume and media control. In practice they were completely useless, because without looking, it just felt like one continuous bar with nothing differentiating the buttons, so the lack of any tactile feedback made it impossible to use those "buttons" without looking at them. In my 4 years of owning that laptop, I was never able to build any muscle memory for hitting those buttons. I'm worried that the same will be true of this magic toolbar.
- kirkdouglas 10y agoI guess it was Dell Studio.
- rcthompson 10y agoI believe it was an XPS 13.
- heywire 10y agoAs someone who spends most my workday in Visual Studio, I can relate. I would have a real tough time breaking that muscle memory.
- draw_down 10y agoSomething tells me Apple knows a bit more about how to build a touch interface than Dell does.
- khedoros1 10y agoIf the core issues are that there's no tactile feedback and that button locations can shift depending on context, then Apple made the same mistakes that Dell did. The problem is that no matter how well-designed it is, a keyboard used for touch-typing is the wrong place for a smooth, capacitive sensor.
- ceterum_censeo 10y agoBoth haptic feedback and pressure sensitivity are within Apple's capabilities. This could actually be an improvement (imagine feeling a virtual volume slider scroll with dampened resistance).
- rcthompson 10y agoI agree that an actual volume slider would be useful, but I still doubt that there's a good way to present a row of buttons on a smooth flat surface in such a way that they can be touch-typed. Haptic feedback doesn't let you manipulate a typical phone app UI without looking at it.
- khedoros1 10y agoI'm not a fan of haptics when physical keys are an option. I believe that Apple can make a nice demo with vibrating indications of when the user's on a key, then detection of when they push down on it. What I don't believe is that it will be a better experience than feeling the edges of the keys and the actual descent and tap when depressing the key. This seems like increased complication without any real gain. It's more sleek than usable, kind of like the touchpads with virtual buttons, rather than physical separate ones.
- chillacy 10y agoJust wanted to point out that that's exactly what people said about software keyboards on phones vs hardware keys (and some still do, but most phones are now all software). It turns out that a big innovation in the first iphone was dynamically adjusting the touch boundaries of the keys + smarter autocorrect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-9UggQV9BM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-9UggQV9BM Or as Steve put it once "Your thumbs will learn"
- batiudrami 10y agoI don't think anyone would argue that a touch screen is better to type on than a physical keyboard though. It's just a sensible compromise given the size and weight limitations of an iPhone. Harder to justify on a (relatively big and heavy) laptop, but we'll see.
- wodenokoto 10y agoI'm with you on this one. Everybody complained about the lack of haptic feel on the original iPhone keyboard, and look at what kind of interface we are all typing on today.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- subsection1h 10y agoYou touch type on an iPhone?
- stcredzero 10y agoIn practice they were completely useless, because without looking, it just felt like one continuous bar with nothing differentiating the buttons With Escape at the extreme left top, it should be possible to differentiate that stop by feel. I'll have to try it when it gets into the store. In the meantime, I'm still very happy with my 2012 MBP.
- rcthompson 10y agoWell, that covers one of the 14 keys on that row, 2 if you also count the other end. I don't see any possible solution for the other 12.
- colemickens 10y ago? There is no escape key?
- boardwaalk 10y agoThey probably mean the virtual one, which, if Apple is smart, will always be in the top left, so you'll know where it is in relation to tilde/backquote f.e.
- colemickens 10y agoI took the GP comment to mean "the physical Esc key will help you get your bearings without looking at the KB" but I might have mis-interpreted the comment.
- oxplot 10y agoI haven't seen anyone working on a screen+touch surface that can be be programmed to change physical texture per pixel such that you can for instance raise the pixels forming the border of an onscreen button allowing the user to feel it without having to look at the screen.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y agoIt's been done. I recall a company made a screen that could vary the amount of friction a finger experienced.
- hundchenkatze 10y agoTanvas does this. I recently used one of their devices, it was a pretty cool experience. https://tanvas.co/about/ https://tanvas.co/about/