The HP Touchsmart PC
Checking out the HP Touchmark PC demo on YouTube. Watch it and then let’s discuss it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scs7DZhQ72E&hl=en&fs=1]
The question on everybody’s lips is, why didn’t Apple do this? Your first hint: look at the way the guy is standing. Few people use their PCs in that position.
I tried emulating the feeling a little, by making stupid gestures in front of my laptop. I’m pretty fit, but it did get annoying after a while. Having a touch-screen at 90 degrees, half a meter in front of you, is inelegant.
The reason the keyboard + mouse combo work so well is because it’s actually within perfect and comfortable reach by the human body. You sit, your arms bend, and you use. Like the picture below, which is the ideal typing position, as taken from Yale’s Ergonomics website. Vs. the Touchscreen, where you would sit, extend your arms and use.
The perfect touch-screen would actually be similar to an architect’s table, like on the picture below. Note that Jeff Han, godly inventor of all things multi-touch-screens, also has a similar set-up.
Why doesn’t Apple do something like this? My guess is three-fold.
- The market is still pretty small (designers, etc.?).
- It’s not really that amazing an innovation—as an average user, can you really do that much more with a touch-screen, vs. a keyboard + mouse?
- And where are the manufacturing economies of scope? I made this point before, when I noted how many overlaps there on the component level for different Apple-products: a big e.g. the 13″ screen, which is now used by 3 product-lines. If Apple did this for one product-line, it would probably want to translate it to the other ones as well… but how would that work?
What do you think? Will we be seeing an Apple touch-PC (note: I say PC, not iPhone XL, which is more probable), and, if so, in what format? Also state if you’re thinking as a consumer or as a prosumer!
Vincent
P.S. don’t forget to answer our poll !!!
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Tags: Design, display, ergonomics, manufacturing, multi-touch, touch, touch screen
Apple, Consumer electronics, Economics, Entertainment, HP, Software, Supply Chain, Technology, innovation, media, mobile
Just imagine how clean will be the screen three days after you started using it: all kinds of finger spots. No, never for me.
I assume that, due to the equally dirt-attracting, yet immensely popular iPhone, that this argument is not first and foremost in people’s minds anymore. But a valid point.
I disagree with the second of your three points.
“It’s not really that amazing an innovation—as an average user, can you really do that much more with a touch-screen, vs. a keyboard + mouse?”
Watching the average users around me go through the process of ‘learning the keyboard/mouse’ i think an interface which removes the need for the keyboard and mouse will greatly be welcomed by average users.
People who are already proficient at using the keyboard/mouse often forget that there is a process to go through. Ones you have gone through it you forget that it was hard. You forget that you were making mistakes that were annoying and sometimes even costly: “Finally done, now how do i save this file? Del for deliver?”
Maybe you went through the learning process as a child; a period of time when you didn’t really have anything better to do, so it was just a fun pass time. Or in college during programming courses; in this case learning the keyboard/mouse is what i like to call on-the-path. The computer is designated tool of your craft, to master your craft you master the tool.
But what if you have to do work that is on a different path such as legal work. Now the computer is a necessary evil rather than the default tool of your trade. You start learning just enough about computers to get your real work done. Since you never actually master it, you end up hitting the same barriers every day and the computer becomes this thing with a keyboard/mouse that you really hate but are stuck with.
You prefer to write your notes on a sheet of paper but unfortunately it must eventually go into the computer, there is that pesky keyboard/mouse again. If only there were some kind of computer that just worked like a piece of paper in a notebook.
The market is not designers, the market is
1) everybody who currently uses computers except for programmers, plus
2) every kid and adult who has not yet gone through the process of learning the keyboard/mouse.
That’s a very powerful argument, Daniell, and one I can’t argue against without carrying out user-testing. Thanks!
I still think it would be a better touchscreen computer if it was shaped like an architect-table though!
As an average user I wonder how those who are not fully able bodied will be able to use a touchscreen.
Just imagine having to lean up and forward to the screen if you have a problem.
Far easier to let a mouse do the movements