3 ms·

Ask HN: Will we ever see a touch device that supports hover?

6 points by artursapek 15y ago

In my opinion, a screen that could "see" your finger hovering over it would help bridge the gap many see in the touch experience. What are the chances we'll ever see such a thing?

makecheck 15y ago
It seems unlikely to me. For one thing, even on a desktop system mouse-over detection requires CPU usage and therefore power. Doing this continuously on a battery-operated system seems like a big waste of power for little potential gain. Also, even with software to judge whether or not a touch is "intentional" I still accidentally touch things. Hovers seem to offer even more ways to be input unintentionally.
- skykooler 15y ago
  As far as I know, some BlackBerry phones do have this. The screen rests on a physical button. A touch to the screen activates hover; a press (registered by the button) activates a click.
  - randall 15y ago
    IMO it feels really unnatural. People who touch screens are used to touching to activate, not touching to hover. I don't typically touch to hover, so touching to hover feels like a totally unnecessary second step added every time I want to interact with my device.
- artursapek 15y ago
  Good points.
glimcat 15y ago
It's been done repeatedly, e.g. by Wilson at ACM 2004. It just hasn't passed the complex multidimensional optimization problem which is the process of actually pushing such technologies to market. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.3647&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95....
lukeholder 15y ago
See the verge's latest Microsoft tour or their interface labs. Kinects behind lcds with full hover.
- artursapek 15y ago
  Well that was cool. Their background music is horrible though
a_a_r_o_n 15y ago
It's the wrong question, trying to fit an appropriate interaction from the WIMP as an inappropriate interaction to WWCH (Whatever We Call Handheld). The problem is you're looking at your finger like a mouse cursor, and a mouse cursor is always touching the screen, if you will. The equivalent result could be had easily, with no change or advance in hardware, by introducing a trace mode (choose a better marketing term). Tap a pattern, and a cursor appears on the screen. Now when you drag your finger on the screen the cursor moves around. Other tap patterns can adjust the granularity of cursor movement. If the cursor lingers over an area that has some interaction associated with it, it can now also have a hover effect.
dholowiski 15y ago
I used to work for a company that manufactured touch devices. One line of our devices did support hover (it's probably 5 years old now) but we disabled it in software because it was too confusing of an end-user experience. This was a camera based solution but I'm sure it's the same for capacitive screens. From my actual experience, I don't think 'normal' users would 'get' hover.

6 points by artursapek 15y ago

In my opinion, a screen that could "see" your finger hovering over it would help bridge the gap many see in the touch experience. What are the chances we'll ever see such a thing?

makecheck 15y ago

It seems unlikely to me. For one thing, even on a desktop system mouse-over detection requires CPU usage and therefore power. Doing this continuously on a battery-operated system seems like a big waste of power for little potential gain. Also, even with software to judge whether or not a touch is "intentional" I still accidentally touch things. Hovers seem to offer even more ways to be input unintentionally.

skykooler 15y ago
As far as I know, some BlackBerry phones do have this. The screen rests on a physical button. A touch to the screen activates hover; a press (registered by the button) activates a click.
- randall 15y ago
  IMO it feels really unnatural. People who touch screens are used to touching to activate, not touching to hover. I don't typically touch to hover, so touching to hover feels like a totally unnecessary second step added every time I want to interact with my device.
artursapek 15y ago
Good points.

glimcat 15y ago

It's been done repeatedly, e.g. by Wilson at ACM 2004. It just hasn't passed the complex multidimensional optimization problem which is the process of actually pushing such technologies to market. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.3647&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95....

lukeholder 15y ago

See the verge's latest Microsoft tour or their interface labs. Kinects behind lcds with full hover.

artursapek 15y ago
Well that was cool. Their background music is horrible though

a_a_r_o_n 15y ago

It's the wrong question, trying to fit an appropriate interaction from the WIMP as an inappropriate interaction to WWCH (Whatever We Call Handheld). The problem is you're looking at your finger like a mouse cursor, and a mouse cursor is always touching the screen, if you will. The equivalent result could be had easily, with no change or advance in hardware, by introducing a trace mode (choose a better marketing term). Tap a pattern, and a cursor appears on the screen. Now when you drag your finger on the screen the cursor moves around. Other tap patterns can adjust the granularity of cursor movement. If the cursor lingers over an area that has some interaction associated with it, it can now also have a hover effect.

dholowiski 15y ago

I used to work for a company that manufactured touch devices. One line of our devices did support hover (it's probably 5 years old now) but we disabled it in software because it was too confusing of an end-user experience. This was a camera based solution but I'm sure it's the same for capacitive screens. From my actual experience, I don't think 'normal' users would 'get' hover.