Scrolling should be down by pointing and dragging the content (conceptually, just like an iPad).
Not at all! You explicitly do NOT drag the content - which by definition is putting a finger on the content and pulling it in a direction. You drag on an external piece of plastic or glass. It is completely removed and totally abstracted.
Also, why should Apple need to do anything just because the Surface could be a success?
This is not what I said. My point is that Apple should act if Surface market share increases. Meanwhile, why selling two devices (iPhone, MacPad) per person when he can sell three (iPhone, iPad, Mac)? Tim Cook just tries to continue doing it while he can. Late but not too late.
Surface offers something different that some users might want. If Apple made a hybrid, Surface would be dead (it it isn't already).
Let's face it:
User experience of an iPad + keyboard is far from optimal.
User experience of a laptop with touch screen could be better than without it.
I imagine the best approach today would be a shared filesystem and both iOS and OSX user interfaces on a single device. When keyboard & mouse/trackpad are attached, the OSX UI runs. When unattached, switch to iOS UI. Let's call it iOSX.
Microsoft is losing money, losing ground and has no clear future in mobile. You are considering a hybrid, but yet you didn't buy one. And even then the sales show us that people are not hyped about ramshackled laptops. Even with all the deceptive advertising and paid for reviews Microsoft does.
Haven't bought one because Apple still doesn't sell it.
Not at all! You explicitly do NOT drag the content - which by definition is putting a finger on the content and pulling it in a direction. You drag on an external piece of plastic or glass. It is completely removed and totally abstracted.
The difference is whether I am putting a finger or a stylus on the glass screen. We seem to differ on whether that's a major or minor difference.
The difference is whether I am putting a finger or a stylus on the glass screen. We seem to differ on whether that's a major or minor difference.
What? No! You don't operate a MacBook by putting a stylus on the screen!
You operate a MacBook by controlling a little arrow on the screen. THAT ARROW is a proxy through which you remote-control everything. Whether you control it via a mouse, an external trackpad, or a stylus doesn't change the fact that everything is channeled through the cursor.
Operating a tablet is completely different.
Incidentally, after all this discussion, only now are you suggesting that the "touch" laptop not be a touch laptop at all, but stylus-controlled? So not a Surface, but like the ModBooks and Windows tablets that existed for years and didn't sell until Apple worked out why they sucked?
THAT is the best of a laptop that should go hybrid?
If you think the Surface Pro is really solving a problem you're having, then you spend your money on it.
The vast majority of "Apple should do this or that" or even "Apple needs to…" advice is given by people who wouldn't buy the product, either way. It's just a hypothetical exercise.
I have my doubts whether the Surface Pro is really fixing problems actual people are actually having. Continued sales will show.
What? No! You don't operate a MacBook by putting a stylus on the screen!
...
You may not operate your Mac by touching a stylus to the screen, but those of us with Wacom Cintiq monitors do.
The Apple Graphical User Interface relies on the user pointing, pressing, dragging, etc. The big difference between iPad and Mac is that the default interface with the iPad is your finger on the screen, and the default with the Mac is your finger on a trackpad.
Neither OS is limited to these models. The Mac interface even allows the use of a legacy mouse. Cintiq monitors allow you to touch the screen, bypassing the trackpad.
Exactly. If you think it's great then buy it and support your words with money = time you've spent working.
Thanks for the life instruction.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spheric
Of course it is.
If you think the Surface Pro is really solving a problem you're having, then you spend your money on it.
The vast majority of "Apple should do this or that" or even "Apple needs to…" advice is given by people who wouldn't buy the product, either way. It's just a hypothetical exercise.
I have my doubts whether the Surface Pro is really fixing problems actual people are actually having. Continued sales will show.
Wow, such a binary view of life, since you don't agree with me, I must be a MS supporter, how incredibly overly simplistic, and completely misunderstanding the concept still, or perhaps you don't understand Surface. What I said is nothing like that, but that's not important, it's not something you agree with, so obviously I'm anti-Apple, therefore, pro-MS? Is that it? But, hey, wait, we were supposed to be done with this conversation based on a few posts ago, remember, but had to throw a few more jibes my way? Cool, I see. Thanks for completely misunderstanding and completely misrepresenting what I said, but whatever gives your illogical argument some merit, right?
You may not operate your Mac by touching a stylus to the screen, but those of us with Wacom Cintiq monitors do.
The Apple Graphical User Interface relies on the user pointing, pressing, dragging, etc. The big difference between iPad and Mac is that the default interface with the iPad is your finger on the screen, and the default with the Mac is your finger on a trackpad.
Neither OS is limited to these models. The Mac interface even allows the use of a legacy mouse. Cintiq monitors allow you to touch the screen, bypassing the trackpad.
Both OSen ARE limited BY these models! That is why they exist!
They can both be expanded to work with a stylus, but the way these work only APPEARS similar — it is fundamentally different. The Cintiq pen, for example, differentiates clearly between cursor positioning and "clicking", which iOS has no way of doing. You cannot Click-and-drag to move things on iOS without switching operation modes (such as within GoodReader).
You may THINK that you are directly manipulating content on the screen of your Cintiq, but your stylus is actually just controlling a cursor, with all its single-pointer limitations. You are not bypassing the interface model.
Quote:
Originally Posted by williamlondon
Thanks for the life instruction.
Wow, such a binary view of life, since you don't agree with me, I must be a MS supporter, how incredibly overly simplistic, and completely misunderstanding the concept still, or perhaps you don't understand Surface. What I said is nothing like that, but that's not important, it's not something you agree with, so obviously I'm anti-Apple, therefore, pro-MS?
The irony here is that I said nothing of the sort.
I said that if the Surface solved a real problem you were having, you'd probably be using one.
I don't do the fanboy crap, and I'm not interested in denigrating anybody by making them out to be one. I find paid shills and trolls annoying, but for the record, I don't consider you either. I apologise if I gave that impression, although it seems to me a bit like a hair-trigger went off on your side (unsurprising, considering the tone of some of the commenters on this board).
Both OSen ARE limited BY these models! That is why they exist!
They can both be expanded to work with a stylus, but the way these work only APPEARS similar — it is fundamentally different. The Cintiq pen, for example, differentiates clearly between cursor positioning and "clicking", which iOS has no way of doing. You cannot Click-and-drag to move things on iOS without switching operation modes (such as within GoodReader).
You may THINK that you are directly manipulating content on the screen of your Cintiq, but your stylus is actually just controlling a cursor, with all its single-pointer limitations.
If you want to talk "concepts" then you are talking about how people look at things. Different people have different ways of looking at things.
For instance, my view is that on both the Mac and iPad, I interact by choosing a location on the screen and clicking/dragging.
With the iPad, I can simply touch that location with my finger.
With the Mac, the screen is not touch sensitive, so I need to use a "proxy" finger. That would be the cursor. I move the cursor around on the screen to indicate where I mean to touch, and then I "click" in order to indicate that I "touched" that location.
The iPad does add Multi-Touch to the interface. I can pinch, zoom, and use multi finger gestures. As it turns out, I can do the same thing on my Mac with an Apple trackpad.
In my mind, touch screens, touch pads, mice, trackballs, etc., are just different ways of pointing and clicking. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same.
Obviously, they are all different implementations. If you care about the implementation, they are all different, if you care about the goal (indicating a location and a call to action) then they are conceptually the same.
Imagine that I was operating my iPad with my big toe. Some people would consider this conceptually the same as operating with my finger, some people would think it's conceptually very different because toes are not fingers.
Whether or not the Mac and iPad interfaces are "Conceptually" the same, is something that is dependent on your point of view.
If you want to talk "concepts" then you are talking about how people look at things. Different people have different ways of looking at things.
For instance, my view is that on both the Mac and iPad, I interact by choosing a location on the screen and clicking/dragging.
With the iPad, I can simply touch that location with my finger.
With the Mac, the screen is not touch sensitive, so I need to use a "proxy" finger. That would be the cursor. I move the cursor around on the screen to indicate where I mean to touch, and then I "click" in order to indicate that I "touched" that location.
The iPad does add Multi-Touch to the interface. I can pinch, zoom, and use multi finger gestures. As it turns out, I can do the same thing on my Mac with an Apple trackpad.
In my mind, touch screens, touch pads, mice, trackballs, etc., are just different ways of pointing and clicking. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same.
Obviously, they are all different implementations. If you care about the implementation, they are all different, if you care about the goal (indicating a location and a call to action) then they are conceptually the same.
For somebody who's spent a considerable part of his life thinking about interfaces and teaching them to hapless users, and watching where they stumble and falter, that is pretty much the equivalent of saying, "in my mind, travelling and TV, YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia, etc., are just different ways of exploring the world. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same."
Obviously, they are all different implementations.
If you don't care about implementation, then I might gently suggest that you haven't the faintest clue what we're talking about, or WHY we're even talking about it.
For somebody who's spent a considerable part of his life thinking about interfaces and teaching them to hapless users, and watching where they stumble and falter, that is pretty much the equivalent of saying, "in my mind, travelling and TV, YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia, etc., are just different ways of exploring the world. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same."
Obviously, they are all different implementations.
If you don't care about implementation, then I might gently suggest that you haven't the faintest clue what we're talking about, or WHY we're even talking about it.
I do care about implementations. There are good implementations of point and click and there are bad implementations.
The fundamental difference between touchscreen and non-touchscreen is the level of indirection between the focus of action (i.e. the cursor) and what you do to change it.
With a touchscreen or Cintiq, there is a direct correspondence between what you touch and the focus of attention (i.e. the cursor).
With a Wacom tablet, there is a level of indirection. You have a rectangular tablet, and there is a one to one correspondence between points on the tablet and the screen. Touch the upper left corner of the tablet, and the cursor jumps to the upper left of the screen.
Mice add yet another level of indirection because there is no one to one correspondence. Movement is relative. There is no fixed correspondence between points on the mousepad and points on the screen.
All of these share the common element in that they are ways of indicating a spot on the screen and providing a "click" input. All of them differ in the mechanics of implementation.
All are available for the Mac. Whether or not they are "conceptually" different depends on your point of view. They all serve the same function.
You could argue that multi-touch is conceptually different because it moves us from the one-point-at-a-time paradigm to multiple points. With Multi-touch the Mac is moving away from menu commands and keyboard shortcuts to Multi-touch gestures. On the Mac I can now pinch to zoom. I can swipe with multiple fingers to switch programs, etc.
The iPad isn't a new paradigm, it's just a different emphasis. Where the Mac offers the choice of menu commands or multi-touch, the iPad offers only multi-touch.
Where the Mac always has a menu bar, even when most functionality is offered by tool palettes, the iPad has dropped the standard menu bar, and emphasized too palettes (although many iPad programs still offer a menubar).
Modern Mac programs don't have a Save command. There is no concept of an "unsaved" file. The iPad works the same way, but has fewer legacy programs that still use a "save" command.
The standard Mac menubar has a legacy "Quit" command. You don't need it. OS-X notices when you aren't using a program and will automatically quit out of it for you. When you next enter the program it restarts where you left off, so it doesn't matter whether or not the OS killed the program when you weren't looking. The iPad adapts this same behavior; no Quit command, and programs reopen where you last left off.
Yes. On the Mac you move the cursor and then click. On the iPad, the cursor is your fingertip, you move your finger and then click (tap). We clearly disagree on whether or not this is a major or minor "conceptual" difference.
To be fair, one could have a very different mental picture of how these machines work. In which case they may be "conceptually" very different.
The problem with arguing whether two interfaces are "conceptually" different is that you are arguing that they are thought about in different ways. Not everyone has the same mental model of how these things work.
6.8 out of 7.1 Billion people need none of these and 4 of the 5 are equivalent requiring buggy whips and manual transmissions on a modern car (Yeah, I have a need to maintain a diesel engine... can you emulate that in this Tesla?)
And most of those 6.8 billion can count to 5.
Still living on dad's allowance? It's ok, you will grow up.
Comments
Not at all! You explicitly do NOT drag the content - which by definition is putting a finger on the content and pulling it in a direction. You drag on an external piece of plastic or glass. It is completely removed and totally abstracted.
Also, why should Apple need to do anything just because the Surface could be a success?
This is not what I said. My point is that Apple should act if Surface market share increases. Meanwhile, why selling two devices (iPhone, MacPad) per person when he can sell three (iPhone, iPad, Mac)? Tim Cook just tries to continue doing it while he can. Late but not too late.
Surface offers something different that some users might want. If Apple made a hybrid, Surface would be dead (it it isn't already).
Let's face it:
User experience of an iPad + keyboard is far from optimal.
User experience of a laptop with touch screen could be better than without it.
I imagine the best approach today would be a shared filesystem and both iOS and OSX user interfaces on a single device. When keyboard & mouse/trackpad are attached, the OSX UI runs. When unattached, switch to iOS UI. Let's call it iOSX.
iOSX for Apple MacPad.
(and ask top dollar for it)
Microsoft is losing money, losing ground and has no clear future in mobile. You are considering a hybrid, but yet you didn't buy one. And even then the sales show us that people are not hyped about ramshackled laptops. Even with all the deceptive advertising and paid for reviews Microsoft does.
Haven't bought one because Apple still doesn't sell it.
williamlondon: do you own and use Surface machines?
Now why you'd have to take the conversation to this level and accuse me of such blasphemy?!
Because if the Concept were convincing enough that Apple should be doing it, you'd already be using it.
Not at all! You explicitly do NOT drag the content - which by definition is putting a finger on the content and pulling it in a direction. You drag on an external piece of plastic or glass. It is completely removed and totally abstracted.
The difference is whether I am putting a finger or a stylus on the glass screen. We seem to differ on whether that's a major or minor difference.
Because if the Concept were convincing enough that Apple should be doing it, you'd already be using it.
Is that how it works?
You operate a MacBook by controlling a little arrow on the screen. THAT ARROW is a proxy through which you remote-control everything. Whether you control it via a mouse, an external trackpad, or a stylus doesn't change the fact that everything is channeled through the cursor.
Operating a tablet is completely different.
Incidentally, after all this discussion, only now are you suggesting that the "touch" laptop not be a touch laptop at all, but stylus-controlled? So not a Surface, but like the ModBooks and Windows tablets that existed for years and didn't sell until Apple worked out why they sucked?
THAT is the best of a laptop that should go hybrid?
Is that how it works?
Of course it is.
If you think the Surface Pro is really solving a problem you're having, then you spend your money on it.
The vast majority of "Apple should do this or that" or even "Apple needs to…" advice is given by people who wouldn't buy the product, either way. It's just a hypothetical exercise.
I have my doubts whether the Surface Pro is really fixing problems actual people are actually having. Continued sales will show.
What? No! You don't operate a MacBook by putting a stylus on the screen!
...
You may not operate your Mac by touching a stylus to the screen, but those of us with Wacom Cintiq monitors do.
The Apple Graphical User Interface relies on the user pointing, pressing, dragging, etc. The big difference between iPad and Mac is that the default interface with the iPad is your finger on the screen, and the default with the Mac is your finger on a trackpad.
Neither OS is limited to these models. The Mac interface even allows the use of a legacy mouse. Cintiq monitors allow you to touch the screen, bypassing the trackpad.
Exactly. If you think it's great then buy it and support your words with money = time you've spent working.
Thanks for the life instruction.
Of course it is.
If you think the Surface Pro is really solving a problem you're having, then you spend your money on it.
The vast majority of "Apple should do this or that" or even "Apple needs to…" advice is given by people who wouldn't buy the product, either way. It's just a hypothetical exercise.
I have my doubts whether the Surface Pro is really fixing problems actual people are actually having. Continued sales will show.
Wow, such a binary view of life, since you don't agree with me, I must be a MS supporter, how incredibly overly simplistic, and completely misunderstanding the concept still, or perhaps you don't understand Surface. What I said is nothing like that, but that's not important, it's not something you agree with, so obviously I'm anti-Apple, therefore, pro-MS? Is that it? But, hey, wait, we were supposed to be done with this conversation based on a few posts ago, remember, but had to throw a few more jibes my way? Cool, I see. Thanks for completely misunderstanding and completely misrepresenting what I said, but whatever gives your illogical argument some merit, right?
You may not operate your Mac by touching a stylus to the screen, but those of us with Wacom Cintiq monitors do.
The Apple Graphical User Interface relies on the user pointing, pressing, dragging, etc. The big difference between iPad and Mac is that the default interface with the iPad is your finger on the screen, and the default with the Mac is your finger on a trackpad.
Neither OS is limited to these models. The Mac interface even allows the use of a legacy mouse. Cintiq monitors allow you to touch the screen, bypassing the trackpad.
Both OSen ARE limited BY these models! That is why they exist!
They can both be expanded to work with a stylus, but the way these work only APPEARS similar — it is fundamentally different. The Cintiq pen, for example, differentiates clearly between cursor positioning and "clicking", which iOS has no way of doing. You cannot Click-and-drag to move things on iOS without switching operation modes (such as within GoodReader).
You may THINK that you are directly manipulating content on the screen of your Cintiq, but your stylus is actually just controlling a cursor, with all its single-pointer limitations. You are not bypassing the interface model.
Thanks for the life instruction.
Wow, such a binary view of life, since you don't agree with me, I must be a MS supporter, how incredibly overly simplistic, and completely misunderstanding the concept still, or perhaps you don't understand Surface. What I said is nothing like that, but that's not important, it's not something you agree with, so obviously I'm anti-Apple, therefore, pro-MS?
The irony here is that I said nothing of the sort.
I said that if the Surface solved a real problem you were having, you'd probably be using one.
I don't do the fanboy crap, and I'm not interested in denigrating anybody by making them out to be one. I find paid shills and trolls annoying, but for the record, I don't consider you either. I apologise if I gave that impression, although it seems to me a bit like a hair-trigger went off on your side (unsurprising, considering the tone of some of the commenters on this board).
Both OSen ARE limited BY these models! That is why they exist!
They can both be expanded to work with a stylus, but the way these work only APPEARS similar — it is fundamentally different. The Cintiq pen, for example, differentiates clearly between cursor positioning and "clicking", which iOS has no way of doing. You cannot Click-and-drag to move things on iOS without switching operation modes (such as within GoodReader).
You may THINK that you are directly manipulating content on the screen of your Cintiq, but your stylus is actually just controlling a cursor, with all its single-pointer limitations.
If you want to talk "concepts" then you are talking about how people look at things. Different people have different ways of looking at things.
For instance, my view is that on both the Mac and iPad, I interact by choosing a location on the screen and clicking/dragging.
With the iPad, I can simply touch that location with my finger.
With the Mac, the screen is not touch sensitive, so I need to use a "proxy" finger. That would be the cursor. I move the cursor around on the screen to indicate where I mean to touch, and then I "click" in order to indicate that I "touched" that location.
The iPad does add Multi-Touch to the interface. I can pinch, zoom, and use multi finger gestures. As it turns out, I can do the same thing on my Mac with an Apple trackpad.
In my mind, touch screens, touch pads, mice, trackballs, etc., are just different ways of pointing and clicking. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same.
Obviously, they are all different implementations. If you care about the implementation, they are all different, if you care about the goal (indicating a location and a call to action) then they are conceptually the same.
Imagine that I was operating my iPad with my big toe. Some people would consider this conceptually the same as operating with my finger, some people would think it's conceptually very different because toes are not fingers.
Whether or not the Mac and iPad interfaces are "Conceptually" the same, is something that is dependent on your point of view.
If you want to talk "concepts" then you are talking about how people look at things. Different people have different ways of looking at things.
For instance, my view is that on both the Mac and iPad, I interact by choosing a location on the screen and clicking/dragging.
With the iPad, I can simply touch that location with my finger.
With the Mac, the screen is not touch sensitive, so I need to use a "proxy" finger. That would be the cursor. I move the cursor around on the screen to indicate where I mean to touch, and then I "click" in order to indicate that I "touched" that location.
The iPad does add Multi-Touch to the interface. I can pinch, zoom, and use multi finger gestures. As it turns out, I can do the same thing on my Mac with an Apple trackpad.
In my mind, touch screens, touch pads, mice, trackballs, etc., are just different ways of pointing and clicking. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same.
Obviously, they are all different implementations. If you care about the implementation, they are all different, if you care about the goal (indicating a location and a call to action) then they are conceptually the same.
For somebody who's spent a considerable part of his life thinking about interfaces and teaching them to hapless users, and watching where they stumble and falter, that is pretty much the equivalent of saying, "in my mind, travelling and TV, YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia, etc., are just different ways of exploring the world. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same."
Obviously, they are all different implementations.
If you don't care about implementation, then I might gently suggest that you haven't the faintest clue what we're talking about, or WHY we're even talking about it.
For somebody who's spent a considerable part of his life thinking about interfaces and teaching them to hapless users, and watching where they stumble and falter, that is pretty much the equivalent of saying, "in my mind, travelling and TV, YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia, etc., are just different ways of exploring the world. To my mind, they are all "conceptually" the same."
Obviously, they are all different implementations.
If you don't care about implementation, then I might gently suggest that you haven't the faintest clue what we're talking about, or WHY we're even talking about it.
I do care about implementations. There are good implementations of point and click and there are bad implementations.
The fundamental difference between touchscreen and non-touchscreen is the level of indirection between the focus of action (i.e. the cursor) and what you do to change it.
With a touchscreen or Cintiq, there is a direct correspondence between what you touch and the focus of attention (i.e. the cursor).
With a Wacom tablet, there is a level of indirection. You have a rectangular tablet, and there is a one to one correspondence between points on the tablet and the screen. Touch the upper left corner of the tablet, and the cursor jumps to the upper left of the screen.
Mice add yet another level of indirection because there is no one to one correspondence. Movement is relative. There is no fixed correspondence between points on the mousepad and points on the screen.
All of these share the common element in that they are ways of indicating a spot on the screen and providing a "click" input. All of them differ in the mechanics of implementation.
All are available for the Mac. Whether or not they are "conceptually" different depends on your point of view. They all serve the same function.
You could argue that multi-touch is conceptually different because it moves us from the one-point-at-a-time paradigm to multiple points. With Multi-touch the Mac is moving away from menu commands and keyboard shortcuts to Multi-touch gestures. On the Mac I can now pinch to zoom. I can swipe with multiple fingers to switch programs, etc.
The iPad isn't a new paradigm, it's just a different emphasis. Where the Mac offers the choice of menu commands or multi-touch, the iPad offers only multi-touch.
Where the Mac always has a menu bar, even when most functionality is offered by tool palettes, the iPad has dropped the standard menu bar, and emphasized too palettes (although many iPad programs still offer a menubar).
Modern Mac programs don't have a Save command. There is no concept of an "unsaved" file. The iPad works the same way, but has fewer legacy programs that still use a "save" command.
The standard Mac menubar has a legacy "Quit" command. You don't need it. OS-X notices when you aren't using a program and will automatically quit out of it for you. When you next enter the program it restarts where you left off, so it doesn't matter whether or not the OS killed the program when you weren't looking. The iPad adapts this same behavior; no Quit command, and programs reopen where you last left off.
Yes. On the Mac you move the cursor and then click. On the iPad, the cursor is your fingertip, you move your finger and then click (tap). We clearly disagree on whether or not this is a major or minor "conceptual" difference.
To be fair, one could have a very different mental picture of how these machines work. In which case they may be "conceptually" very different.
The problem with arguing whether two interfaces are "conceptually" different is that you are arguing that they are thought about in different ways. Not everyone has the same mental model of how these things work.
6.8 out of 7.1 Billion people need none of these and 4 of the 5 are equivalent requiring buggy whips and manual transmissions on a modern car (Yeah, I have a need to maintain a diesel engine... can you emulate that in this Tesla?)
And most of those 6.8 billion can count to 5.
Still living on dad's allowance? It's ok, you will grow up.