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Why Did Touch Take 4 Decades to Catch On?
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 17, 2008 03:54 PM
from the perhaps-no-one-knew-of-the-happy-ending dept.
from the perhaps-no-one-knew-of-the-happy-ending dept.
theodp writes "You probably saw media coverage of Bill Gates showing off touch-screen technology to his CEO play group last week. With the introduction of the iPhone and iPod Touch, touch (and multi-touch) technology — which folks like Ray Ozzie enjoyed as undergrads way back in the early '70s — has finally gone mainstream. The only question is: Why did it take four decades for its overnight success? Some suggest the expiration of significant patents filed during '70s and '80s may have had something to do with it — anything else?"
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For the same reason as the Wiimote. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is for the same reason that command pipes/stdin/stdout will always be more useful in unix-like OSes than they will in Windows. Because they essentially come with the system and 90% of the programs are setup to use them. Same as why REXX was so much more successful on the Amiga than it will be on any other OS. If the Wiimote had been an option item, then the software wouldn't have been there and the Wii would have probably been a flop.
Re:For the same reason as the Wiimote. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:For the same reason as the Wiimote. (Score:5, Insightful)
it's now that the cost of embedded devices, of touch screen and the relative power of embedded devices allow to build a useful gui.
tablet pc, while had touch screens, also had a keyboard and a mouse available, and most of the interaction was via those device, as those pc where targeted to the pc market where the programs are somewhat tailored to having a keyboard, so tablets didn't have enough added value to justify the increased cost. also those pc were sporting a p3 800mhz, not exactly a power monster, for the age.
Parent
Clumsy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Read Apple's user interface guidelines for developing applications and web applications for the iPhone. Touch screen interfaces truly require (to overuse the phrase once again) a new interface paradigm.
Multitouch trackpads, on the other hand, simply overlay gestures on top of existing mechanisms. A two-finger tap is a "right click". A two-finger scrolling gesture translates easily into "scroll wheel" input. All events which existing systems and software understand.
A "pinch", however, is a new type of input that has no translation. As such, software has to be reprogramed to understand that type of event, and then perform the appropriate behavior.
Parent
KFC. Mucky, not clumsy. (Score:4, Funny)
Now you know why. this lower caps random characters are here merely to get around /.'s lame lameness filter that doesn't understand i used all the caps above to look like yelling because that is what anybody would be doing with a high priced bleeding edge touch screen and an umfriend with greasy kfc. what fools these admin mortals be.
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Re:Clumsy... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For the same reason as the Wiimote. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's partly true.
I have a Compaq Concerto [findarticles.com], one of the first touch-screen notebooks. I bought mine in 1994, but they were available for a couple of years before that.
The touch-sensing hardware is good enough, but the cpu (486/25) struggles under the load and the computer feels unresponsive.
The big problem though is software. MS introduced Windows for Pen Computing for this computer, and it sucks badly. It was never really updated either. Unfortunately, that was also when the Windows monopoly started to bite, so there was no other player to pick up the touch computing slack, and the concept withered until now.
I'd say the monopoly was the biggest problem.
Parent
Re:For the same reason as the Wiimote. (Score:5, Insightful)
Palms didn't do handwriting recognition, they did custom glyph recognition. You had to adapt to the device, rather than the other way round, which makes recognition a far simpler problem. So Windows was in fact infinitely better at handwriting recognition, because Palms didn't even bother to try.
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Because haptics is important. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My DVD recorder's remote has so many buttons! For example, there are 3 keys to go to on-screen menus:
* Top Menu - where you can choose what to watch from the programs recorded on the internal HD;
* Home Menu - goes to the player's menu where you can go to the "top menu" or change player settings;
* Menu - goes to the DVD menu, if there's a DVD in the player.
I know this remote control is awfully designed and coul
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also the added complexity of navigating the customized menu of the DVD player itself, particularly those DVD's with multiple menu pages (for complete collections).
Doing something as simple as switching from watching Sky News to watching a DVD will involve:
1. Switch DVD player on.
2. Place DVD in DVD player.
3. Wait for copyright notic
Re:Because haptics is important. (Score:4, Interesting)
Its not touch screen, just a Logitech Harmony 670.
The thing that this line of remotes does differently is that you don't control devices, you control actions. My housemate doesn't have to remember to switch to "Video-2" to watch cable tv, or "Component-1" to watch a DVD, the remote knows all that and hides it all behind the simple activity options.
Parent
Re:Because haptics is important. (Score:5, Informative)
It's incredible how much easier my life has become as a result. Even though I'm intimately aware of the ins and outs of my entertainment system, it's still tedious to have to set the right input on the TV (receiver outputs HDMI, component, and S-video for different functions [S-video is required for the on-screen display of my CD changer and receiver]), then on the receiver [even though my H/K receiver supports input naming, so I don't actually need to know what Video3 is], and then dicking around with Comcast's remote.
Now, after about an hour doing the initial software install, setup, and then some personal customizations, I just press "watch DVD" and it turns on any components that aren't already on (leaving the others alone), sets all the right inputs (and the proper video mode and aspect ratio on my TV). I replaced 6 remotes in my entertainment room.
Then I realized that I could control just about anything with an RF receiver (my iMac, my MacBook Pro, my MythTV box in the spare room, the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and even, with a little modification, a special switch I built to control the lights in my saltwater aquarium (so that the blue glow doesn't distract during a nighttime movie session).
The learning function ensures that anything using z-wave iR can be programmed, with logical operation names that even my parents can use when they visit. Guests don't have to ask how to get to the DVR or how to get the sound to work when watching TV.
With this puff-piece ad coming to a close, I will say that I think the higher-end Harmony remotes are overrated, and that the lower models are generally more than sufficient for almost anyone, including geeks (just make sure to check the remote's limit as to number of devices before purchase).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps some braile-based feed
All the bits of the puzzle have to come together (Score:5, Insightful)
Most technologies take a while to become mainstream. NAND flash was invented in 1988 and took almost 20 years to become mainstream. Linux was started in 1991?? and is almost mainstream.
I think it's mostly a matter of design. (Score:4, Interesting)
Take the iPhone. When you use it, you're not just using your fingers - you're also using the hand holding the item, keeping it in place and even moving it a little to assist in accuracy. Physically it is better suited to touch than a laptop, which up until recently were thick and heavy. Also, laptops generally have a mandatory keyboard getting in the way. Worse, the keyboard/mouse combo is more convenient for the GUI OS in place. The iPhone on the other hand completely reinvented the GUI to support touch. Other new technologies like the touch table are doing much the same thing, albeit in different ways.
Parent
Not just patents (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it was just a matter of patents expiring, it was most likely because the technology was finally ready for it. In the past most touchscreen-equipped systems I've seen seemed to be pretty weak in every area except the touchscreen, these days the machines equipped with touchscreens are powerful enough to actually take advantage of the touchscreen capabilities.
That said, I'm still waiting for a tablet mac with multitouch tech and a built-in wacom tablet (like the Cintiq) so that I can use my hands to drag stuff around on my desktop and the stylus for actually drawing stuff.
/Mikael
Jeff Han and YouTube (Score:3, Informative)
YouTube Link (1.9+m views) (2003)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp-y3ZNaCqs [youtube.com]
TED Talk
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65 [ted.com]
while Jeff didnt invent multitouch, he certainly brought it to the attention of a lot of people with a good demo and a few teaser apps (maps) to show what could be done
MS, Apple and chums have a lot to thank him for as far as raising public awareness of different UI and OS possibilities, using a mouse/qwerty keyboard should not be a fundamental of interacting with computers
it didn't. touch never caught on. (Score:5, Informative)
a lot of you are reading this and thinking of non multi touch products that are getting some sales; however they use the fundamental tech that makes multi touch work. multi touch was about figuring out the shape and pressure of the fingers being applied, in addition to distinguishing multiple fingers. this eliminates the "palm brush" problem that plagued early touch pads.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1039254,00.asp [extremetech.com]
http://fingerfans.dreamhosters.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=842 [dreamhosters.com]
it took a long time for people to figure out what happened; in the end one of the delaware professors listed his profession as 'apple engineer' on a public political contribution and the mystery of the jobs touchstream "nuclear option" was solved.
the reason it's caught on "just now" is that it's actually brand new technology. hopefully someone someday will undo that damage that apple has done to the multitouch industry by buring it under NDA's and patents. in the meantime, they have usurped microsoft for title of tech company most damaging to progress. let's see how long they can hold the crown.
Re:it didn't. touch never caught on. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:it didn't. touch never caught on. (Score:5, Insightful)
All kinds of bank machines and kiosks have had touch screens for years. It's not the touch screens that caught on. It's everything else that caught up -- and got cheap enough for consumer goods.
Parent
Re:it didn't. touch never caught on. (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk all you want about old keyboards but don't imply that they evolved into the iPhone.
Parent
Not effective (at least to date) (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, with any user interface people need a certain confidence in correspondence between what they do and what happens. When you push a button, you KNOW it got pressed. If you push a joystick left, you KNOW you're going left. That 'payoff' is like a contract between you and the machine that goes favorably. But if pressing the screen where you believe you need to press may or may not do what you want, that contract gets shaky. Especially since there's no click or motion to reinforce what you're doing. This, by the way, is why I think 'free space' VR controllers never caught on...at least until the WII.
Still, software can create cues to take the place of physicality and have 'grease' to avoid common miscues. Plus, having the screen be horizontal reduces the fatigue.
But in the end, as archaic as the keyboard seems compared to touch and speech, it really is an incredibly expressive and low-energy-requirement device.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much the worst thing that could happen is a "cornfield meet". But in signal territory that means both trains entered a block with red signals.
Re:Not effective (at least to date) (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. The iPhone interface is just so amazing. The other day I was in a big box store and we looked at the GPS units they had. The only thought I had about any of them are "these touch screens are so hard to use."
I realized that was because none of them supported multi-touch. To zoom in you had to go press a little software button, and it would zoom in one level. The levels are all arbitrary. Dragging the map was often relatively unresponsive, if you were even allowed to do it. Compared to the small amount of time I've messed with iPhones (I don't own one) it was just annoying. The interface on the iPhone is just so much better for the map.
It's the same thing at my local Borders. They've always had customer terminals around the store to look up books and such, as long as I've lived here. But a few years ago they replaced some with touch screen devices. Now I think they all are.
Before they just had a mouse and a keyboard. I could what I want in fast, and browse easily using the mouse.
Now they are touchscreen devices. Half the time they don't even seem to respond to my finger touch. I've never been able to decide if I'm touching too fast or slow, hard or soft. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The keyboard buttons (which are at least 1-1.5" on each side) are hard to hit with any accuracy. Sure my finger tip is smaller than the button, but I can't seem to press them accurately. Note that this isn't a calibration problem. Once I've figured out how off the individual machine is, it's still hard to hit the right button. The lack of any kind of tactile feedback (the auditory and visual feedback, if there, is often 100-200ms late and thus useless).
Basically, it's a pain to use. They took an easy interface everyone knew how to use, dumbed it down and made it far more useless, and spent a bunch of money in the process.
Yet I could type on the little tiny iPhone keyboard pretty well within seconds of trying. Clearly it was well written, with touch screens in mind. Compare that to the Borders system which, from what I can tell, is just a fancy website with the touchscreen operating as a mouse, distilling whatever you do into a standard mouse click. This removes all subtle differences that could be used to help figure out what you're trying to do.
This is with relatively powerful computers (1GHz plus). Imagine how well touch interfaces could have been done 15 years ago with a 25 to 100MHz processor. Thing how useful touch interfaces were 20+ years ago when most people only had character based displays and were using DOS.
I'd only now that we are getting the necessary precision, processing power, and experience to start making good (multi)touch interfaces.
Parent
Re:Not effective (at least to date) (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an important point. Touch screen interfaces are much less abstract than non-touch interfaces. You're actually physically manipulating real little "objects", rather than issuing commands. The problem with this is, the first time you try to drag something, or scroll or zoom, and the interface element you're working with doesn't follow your finger, you're sunk. The whole illusion is shattered, and the UI feels extremely awkward.
This requires a fair bit of graphics processing capability, certainly by the standards of portable devices.
Even the iPhone's hardware isn't quick enough to scroll e.g. complex web pages like this -- so what Apple did, rather cleverly, is, rather than slowing down scrolling (failing to track the finger) until the device catches up, the device simply keeps on smoothly scrolling, filling spaces it hasn't had a chance to draw yet with a checkerboard pattern, which provides a spacial reference.
There are other little things like this that make the device feel more responsive as well. For instance, if you try to scroll off the top of a web page (or other vertically scrollable view), the phone will let you -- the scroll will keep right on following your finger. Then, once you let go, the view will bounce back.
These kinds of tricks were not particularly obvious. Natural-feeling touch UI requires an entirely new vocabulary of UI behaviors, and that's just starting to emerge now.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember how exciting the touch screens seemed in the late 80s, but when using them reality set in - you quickly fatigue holding your arm up to touch a screen.
The term in the programming community for that was, IIRC, 'gorilla arm', from the way your arm felt when you tried to move it after a while. I suspect, though, that a significant part of this was due to technology -- a display was a large CRT, that had a depth roughly equivalent to the width of the screen, and there was a mindset that the display was something that sat out in front of you for you to look at. Aside from a number of 'table' video games, it took LCD displays to make displays something that y
Lightpens (Score:3, Interesting)
Problem is back then the screen technology was poor, low res and curved.
The simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason touch has become so popular lately is because it has only been recently that powerful chips have become small enough and that power (batteries) have become light enough that we can find use for this stuff right in our pockets--where a mouse/keyboard just isn't practical. (Unless you believe in thumb keyboards, but those are very cumbersome IMO.)
Greasy.. (Score:5, Funny)
I swear no one had AC in the 80's.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they're not; fingerprints are still an eyesore on monitors.
There are some appalling grotty screens around work - and they're not touch screens! Some people feel the urge to not just point at the screen, but tap it with their finger for emphasis. Plastic LCD screens aren't as abrasion-resistant as the CRT monitors that replaced them, so when they do clean the thing with whatever dust-laden rag was handy, they often leave a permanent scuff mark.
Look, b
have we forgotten... (Score:3, Insightful)
CHEAP LCDs (Score:5, Insightful)
... because it's a terrible interface (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to wave your arms around - which is very tiring (much more so than a couple of finger movements for a mouse). that means you can't keep it up for more than a couple of minutes. If you don't beleive me, just try holding your arm aoutstretched for any length of time.
Second, it takes up an enormouse amount of space. Your fingers don't have the dots-per-inch resolution of a mouse, so the interface area has to be bigger and therefore more expensive.
On a purely practical point, you also cover up the object you're addressing. Unless you have transparent fingers, you can't see all the detail of whatever's underneath. A basic and unresolvable design flaw.
Finally, there's the goo factor. Imagine all the smears, stains and gunge that will accumulate on the touch surface - both from your hands and everyone else who uses it. Apart from the obvious hygiene issues, the surface will get dirty. We know how annoying the occasional fingerprint is on a screen - now think what it'll be like when the screen is covered in grease and other smudges.
In summary, it never caught on. The only people who advocate it are those who've watched Minority Report a few too many times. It's not cool, it's not futuristic and hopefully is doomed to the junkheap of techno-history along with punch-cards and robo-vacuum cleaners.
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you don't have to wave your hands around in thin air to make this interface hands down (erm, ok, pun intended) the best thing since sliced bread. you can interact with all the items in your comput
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
See:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/BEC05CE1-D5EB-4E48-B46C-7385D5AADCFE.html [roughlydrafted.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In summary, it never caught on.
millions of iPhones/iTouches sold begs to differ about it never catching on.
One product (or, arguably, two) doesn't mean it has 'caught on".
In any case, I've only seen a few iPhones/iTouches since they were introduced - it might be common in the US, but I wouldn't say that is necessary true anywhere else particularly. Not that 'catching on' only in the US is anything to sneeze at, especially from a $ standpoint, but still. From what I've read, some people like it and some people hate it.
Correct answer: Mu (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch didn't "just catch on." It's been around forever and has been evolving steadily and is being used in more and more places. You're postulating that because the iPhone uses touch and Bill Gates did a demo that now, May 2008, it has "arrived"? Touch isn't just now "catching on," it's simply becoming more and more common as technology improves. The regular iPod has had a touch-sensitive wheel ever since the 2nd generation. Laptops have had trackpads for ages. PDAs have had touch-sensitive screens since, well, as long as they've been around. I've seen touchscreen kiosks and ordering screens (Arby's used to have them) The only thing I can say is that as touch technology improves in the same way that all technology improves--becoming cheaper and smaller, in addition to better--it's being offered in more devices where small and cheap matters--i.e., portables.
I had a touchscreen 17" CRT at home almost ten years ago, and while it was really neat--there's something really satisfying about actually pressing a link with your finger to 'click' on it--it was a pain (literally) to use for any extended amount of time. Touch works best when your arms can be at rest, which means your hands won't move much, which means a small device. Now, who wants to poke on a tiny screen on their desk, when they could instead use a mouse and keyboard to manipulate objects on a 20" screen? No one. So, where does that leave us? Where is touch useful? Ding ding ding! In tiny devices that are already in your hand. Or, to put it another way, it's not so much that touch is just now "catching on," it's that we're finally finding things that it's really good for. Like I said, a touchscreen is not a good replacement for a regular old mouse.
Multitouch is a nice new addition to touch technology, but you know what? I hardly ever use it on my iPhone. I rarely zoom in or out. I click and drag a lot, and double-tap to zoom in and out, but this is nothing that couldn't have been done on a mid-90s Palm.
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Multitouch is a nice new addition to touch technology, but you know what? I hardly ever use it on my iPhone. I rarely zoom in or out. I click and drag a lot, and double-tap to zoom in and out, but this is nothing that couldn't have been done on a mid-90s Palm.
Multitouch works really nicely on laptops; scrolling by using two fingers together rather than one just feels so natural. In fact, it reminds me of how the scrollwheel felt like a big advance in practical HCI before it; "You mean I don't have to search for the scrollbar or the paging keys in order to move up and down? Lovely!"
For me, the probable next step forward is when we get better haptics integrated with touch. For example, though the iPhone is decidedly neat, it's tricky (by comparison with a normal
Heres why. (Score:4, Insightful)
This applies to the touch screen table tops and such. We had this technology for a while but its just now were the price to sell the product and the price to produce for the product is in reach of both huge corporations and smaller companies.
For the past thirty years most fast food stores were using the stander hierarchy register machine, green display, you pressed a keypad that added an item and it was top to bottom, very difficult to go back to the top of the list to modify a mistake. Now you go to Mcdonalds, they have touch screen displays, they display the image of the food(Big Mac), you press the items they want or do not want(lettuce, ketchup,mustard), and there is the order and if you need to correct a mistake you can easily click an item and fix the mistake.
Could they have had these type of registers earlier? Yeah, but they weren't cost effective till about 2000 when I believe they started to slowly replace the older registers with these registers.
The point is, the technology is there, its just a matter of making it cheap enough and affordable for companies and people to develop it and buy it.
The day I have a table the size of my kitchen table that can support six people playing an RTS, all through touch screens, none of that voice crap that ive seen on youtube, and were yelling off commands and tactics to each other against six other people in another room, will be the day I crap my pants.
Why has it caught on now? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as actual devices go, having sold both touch and classical variants on appliances, I can say that the more often someone uses a touch interface, the less inclined they are to continue using it. When someone's favorite model transitions to a 'touch' type interface, they can't return it for what they had been using fast enough. It's the hot new thing that nobody likes to use, but everyone thinks is real pretty.
Even Star Trek, the hands-down Sci-Fi 'King of Touch' acknowledged the technology's limitations. To quote Tom Paris: "I am tired of tapping panels. For once, I want controls that let me actually feel the ship I'm piloting."
Not enough computer power. (Score:3, Insightful)
Prior to current days, hardware just made better user interactions. A keyboard or a mouse do a lot of complicated things to feel right to the user, and yet output a simple qualified input to the computer system.
Today all of that complexity and even more is being placed into the UI at the expense of other activities, which until relatively recently was mostly CPU bound.
The last was the elegant creation of the idea to fire up everyone else. In this case the Iphone.
But just like the advancements in keyboards, mouse, trackpads, and game controllers we have only seen the beginning.
My hope is that this will also catch on with the tablet form factor, where somebody will wake up and realize the best place for the menu on a tablet is probably not the upper right hand corner, where a righty will obscure the screen. And that it probably deserves to exist or the right hand side for most items, and even look a lot more like the office ribbon, than the standard menu bar.
This is cool though, we are on the cusp of the next wave of UI. That that comes after the current mouse oriented menu and panel methods. It will be cool!
Gorilla Arm (Score:3, Informative)
They did (Score:5, Insightful)
Touch didn't catch on for personal monitors because it is inferior as an input device to a mouse. It works for kiosks or ATMs because people don't use them for long periods and are in a better posture for touch screens and because they are obviously much sturdier than mice. They've been used for PDAs for decades, so the "iPod Touch" is hardly an instance of "catching on". The original Palm had a touch screen as did the Newton. (Though ones designed for a stylus.)
twas a good question (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, the one place they made it HUGE was in restaurants, where hardly a place lacks one (half dozen) now. context is key - a place to enter orders without looking for a keyboard, a place to manage table occupancy, integrated with the credit card system to avoid an extra piece of hardware that could break - the new systems had it all and have had it for over ten years now.
People have fat fingers (Score:3, Informative)
The problem that many applications ran into is that people have fat fingers. A mouse is much more precise than a finger. Many people who looked at Touch technology just treated it like a mouse, which makes for a had interface. When people get exposed to a mouse/keyboard interface converted into touch, they repulsed by touch and never look back.
If you design an interface from the start to be touch based, you can get a very nice interface.
It takes more than a touch to be useful (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some applications where they provide the most functional user interface; Apple uses them to great advantage on their iPhone and iPod Touch. It allows rich user interaction on a pocket sized device; no room there for a keyboard or fancy set of buttons. They're not so useful on something like a laptop; there's a keyboard that's much more useful - and the software to make any kind of use of a laptop touch screen is yet to be developed.
Something tells me that history will repeat itself again. Someone will create a workable touch screen interface for general purpose computers, then a major software company will "borrow" the idea and popularize it. The innovators won't get a dime - or any recognition - but the technology will finally break through to the general public.