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It looks like Apple is trying to find an alternative to touchscreens just because Steve Jobs once said they're bad. For me, touchscreens are perfectly useful o

It looks like Apple is trying to find an alternative to touchscreens just because Steve Jobs once said they're bad. For me, touchscreens are perfectly useful on laptops, since directly tapping something is much quicker than moving my hand to the trackpad, locating the cursor, moving it around and finally clicking something.

guitarbill 10y ago
I love tablets but hate touch screens on laptops. More often than not, it doesn't work that well (edit: although last time I tried a touch laptop is now 1.5 years ago). And, oh god, the smudging. It frustrates me that almost every Windows laptop with a nice screen is now touch. I assume you can turn it off, but you do pay more for a touch screen. This just reenforces my (outdated?) notion that it's a consumer, not professional device.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> It frustrates me that almost every Windows laptop with a nice screen is now touch. As someone who's just started researching to buy my next laptop, I don't find that to be very true at all unless you're only looking at ultrabooks. One of my almost-gotta-haves is a touch screen, and for any models with an HQ/HK level processor plus a discrete GPU, there only seem to be a handful of models with touch screens (and when they are there they are usually optional) at the highest end configurations.
- blauditore 10y ago
  I was a bit afraid of smudges too, but it's really not an issue. Under normal conditions, they're not visible while the screen is on. And when it gets too dirty, a touchscreen is much easier and safer to clean than a standard one. As a power user, you probably use the keyboard most of the time and occasionaly a single mouse operation (like moving focus somewhere). For that, it's quite intuitive to tap.
intoverflow2 10y ago
Think it's more a case that a Surface-like MacBook Pro would completely cannibalise the iPad Pro and Cook is more fond of the iPad Pro than the Mac line. The touchbar as a design decision makes a lot more sense when the brief is "Add touch to the Macbook Pro line... but under no circumstances step on the toes of the iPad Pro"
- nailer 10y ago
  > Think it's more a case that a Surface-like MacBook Pro would completely cannibalise the iPad Pro and Cook is more fond of the iPad Pro than the Mac line. I think it's more that retrofitting touch to a desktop OS - any desktop OS - is painful. Microsoft started it with Windows 8 and it's nearly - but not completely - done years later with Windows 10. I suspect Apple has probably started retrofitting OS X privately, but released the touch bar as an interim solution.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  As far as I can tell, Apple has never been afraid of cannibalization within their product lines - I've always admired them for that.
  - intoverflow2 10y ago
    Yeah just this time iPad Pro was the one supposed to be doing the cannibalising but it never materialised
- rahoulb 10y ago
  I've used my iPad as a remote display into OS X (now macOS) and it's painful. The OS would need an interaction overhaul to make it work with touch - the hit targets are all the wrong size and a lot of behaviour relies on hovering over something. Couple that with the fact that the screen is at the wrong angle (I find it makes my arm ache just using an iPad with a keyboard and having to reach over to touch the screen) and I think Apple aren't too far wrong. However, as someone who likes drawing, the way the Surface Studio folds down to an angle that is better for touch and pen does look pretty good to me.

guitarbill 10y ago

I love tablets but hate touch screens on laptops. More often than not, it doesn't work that well (edit: although last time I tried a touch laptop is now 1.5 years ago). And, oh god, the smudging. It frustrates me that almost every Windows laptop with a nice screen is now touch. I assume you can turn it off, but you do pay more for a touch screen. This just reenforces my (outdated?) notion that it's a consumer, not professional device.

slantyyz 10y ago
>> It frustrates me that almost every Windows laptop with a nice screen is now touch. As someone who's just started researching to buy my next laptop, I don't find that to be very true at all unless you're only looking at ultrabooks. One of my almost-gotta-haves is a touch screen, and for any models with an HQ/HK level processor plus a discrete GPU, there only seem to be a handful of models with touch screens (and when they are there they are usually optional) at the highest end configurations.
blauditore 10y ago
I was a bit afraid of smudges too, but it's really not an issue. Under normal conditions, they're not visible while the screen is on. And when it gets too dirty, a touchscreen is much easier and safer to clean than a standard one. As a power user, you probably use the keyboard most of the time and occasionaly a single mouse operation (like moving focus somewhere). For that, it's quite intuitive to tap.

intoverflow2 10y ago

Think it's more a case that a Surface-like MacBook Pro would completely cannibalise the iPad Pro and Cook is more fond of the iPad Pro than the Mac line. The touchbar as a design decision makes a lot more sense when the brief is "Add touch to the Macbook Pro line... but under no circumstances step on the toes of the iPad Pro"

nailer 10y ago
> Think it's more a case that a Surface-like MacBook Pro would completely cannibalise the iPad Pro and Cook is more fond of the iPad Pro than the Mac line. I think it's more that retrofitting touch to a desktop OS - any desktop OS - is painful. Microsoft started it with Windows 8 and it's nearly - but not completely - done years later with Windows 10. I suspect Apple has probably started retrofitting OS X privately, but released the touch bar as an interim solution.
slantyyz 10y ago
As far as I can tell, Apple has never been afraid of cannibalization within their product lines - I've always admired them for that.
- intoverflow2 10y ago
  Yeah just this time iPad Pro was the one supposed to be doing the cannibalising but it never materialised
rahoulb 10y ago
I've used my iPad as a remote display into OS X (now macOS) and it's painful. The OS would need an interaction overhaul to make it work with touch - the hit targets are all the wrong size and a lot of behaviour relies on hovering over something. Couple that with the fact that the screen is at the wrong angle (I find it makes my arm ache just using an iPad with a keyboard and having to reach over to touch the screen) and I think Apple aren't too far wrong. However, as someone who likes drawing, the way the Surface Studio folds down to an angle that is better for touch and pen does look pretty good to me.