'Gorilla Arm' Will Keep Touch Screens From Taking Over 610
Hugh Pickens writes "With Windows 8, Microsoft has made a billion-dollar gamble that personal computing is taking a new direction and that new direction is touch, says David Pogue. It's efficient on a touchscreen tablet. But Microsoft expects us to run Windows 8 on our tens of millions of everyday PCs. Although touch has been incredibly successful on our phones, tablets, airport kiosks and cash machines, Pogue says touch will never take over on PCs. The reason? Gorilla Arms. There are three big differences between tablet screens and a PC's screen: angle, distance and time interval. The problem is 'the tingling ache that [comes] from extending my right arm to manipulate that screen for hours, an affliction that has earned the nickname of gorilla arm.' Some experts say gorilla arm is what killed touch computing during its first wave in the early 1980s but Microsoft is betting that Windows 8 will be so attractive that we won't mind touching our PC screens, at least until the PC concept fades away entirely. 'My belief is that touch screens make sense on mobile computers but not on stationary ones,' concludes Pogue. 'Microsoft is making a gigantic bet that I'm wrong.'"
Re:It's just addative, not a replacement (Score:3, Interesting)
This!
I've been using Windows 8 on a touch enabled ultrabook and I LOVE it. I regularly stretch my arm to my regular desktop monitor and remember that it does not have touch. Of course I do not use only touch. I use keyboard and trackpad but some operations (specifically scrolling and zooming in the browser) are so much easier with touch than they are with the trackpad. Sometimes I even start and close apps with touch. I am not even talking about metro apps (which are mostly useless at this point). I am talking about regular Windows. After using it for a while I am sure touch is here to stay at least in the ultrabook and laptop form factor.
Re:Article is pure postulation. (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 8 — Disappointing Usability for Both Novice and Power Users [nngroup.com]
Does Microsoft make bad versions deliberately? (Score:5, Interesting)
A company that has a virtual monopoly can make money by deliberately abusing its customers. That's especially true when a product is complicated and customers don't have the time to become technically knowledgeable.
Many people who buy a Windows computer now will want to buy Windows 9 when it is released because Windows 8 is so weird. That tends to double sales, because customers don't pay an upgrade price, Microsoft requires them to pay for an entirely new operating system, even though there have been few changes between versions. Also, Microsoft has established multiple prices. Customers who bought Windows 7 because they didn't like Windows Vista paid far more per copy than computer manufacturers.
It seems that abuse is deliberate Microsoft company policy. Yes, Microsoft management is incompetent, but also knowingly destructive. For example, a court case established that a Microsoft manager had said before Windows Vista was released that it was not ready to be released. Knowing that, Vista was released anyway.
Microsoft has been alternating bad and good versions of operating systems since the days of DOS. For example, DOS version 3.0 had serious bugs. DOS version 3.1 fixed the bugs. Customers who owned DOS 3 were required to pay the full retail price for DOS 3.1, even though there were few changes.
Re:Windows 8 Is Failing on It's Own (Score:5, Interesting)
So run that shit in a virtual machine. FFS, the real operating system doesn't have to be compromised by decades old libraries and executables that are full of exploits.
Re:Windows 8 Is Failing on It's Own (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Does Microsoft make bad versions deliberately? (Score:4, Interesting)
Heh, the irony being that what they should have taken from "users spend 95% of their time with one maximised app" was "we don't do a good enough job of supporting lots of windows of lots of different sizes". Mac users for example are perfectly happy with windows spread all over the place, and I can identify a few things (even in windows 7) that are the reason:
1) Less crufty window border stuff everywhere –maximising a window in windows is a good way of getting rid of all the extra padding they add around windows when they're not maximised.
2) Menu bar at the top, always –meaning that again, tons of screen real estate isn't taken up by duplicated menu bars if you have loads of windows open, and meaning that for those that do use the menus, that mousing to them is easier.
3) The "zoom" button making windows as big as they need to be, rather than simply full screening them, encouraging users to think "what can I get next to this".
Re:Does Microsoft make bad versions deliberately? (Score:1, Interesting)
+1 .NET apps run on Surface RT. They chose not to, not for technical reasons, but to "start from scratch" about controlling the ability for 3rd party developers to sell applications and getting a cut (like *pple does).
More supporting evidence that it's about the app store is the fact that Microsoft could have easily made
It is for this reason, that I've abandoned .NET technology. RT was the perfect case for it and MS fucked me over. So I say "fuck you Microsoft." .NET biggest draw was the ability to run on multiple platforms without recompiling and MS just shit all over that concept. Yeah, I'm a little pissed off...
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Does Microsoft make bad versions deliberately? (Score:5, Interesting)
To Microsoft, Win8 isn't broken. It's just a difficult step on the path from to 'Closed Windows'
Re:Windows 8 Is Failing on It's Own (Score:3, Interesting)
Two observations: 1, W8 won't fly. 2, "gorilla arm" is something wimps and pussies fear. Know anyone in home construction? They not only have their arms in front of them eight hours a day, but those arms are holding heavy tools.
It isn't the physical discomfort, it's the inconvinience. Moving your hand from the mouse to the keyboard is bad enough, but reaching past the keyboard to the screen (which your arm now partly blocks) is worse. It's a really,k really stupid concept for a PC. If a device has a mouse and keyboard, it doesn't need a touch screen at all. What kind of idiots does MS employ, anyway??