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coldtea 10y ago
>I don't get how it can be unbearable in 10 minutes on a laptop. It's not going to be much further away from you than a tablet would be, and people love them their iPads. If the experience was -that- bad, nobody would be buying iPad Pros. It's about the orientation, not the touch screen itself. A tablet you normally hold horizontally or at an angle when you use it. Now, if it was a detachable screen, like the Surface, that could work, but a laptop screen you have vertical to the keyboard.
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> It's about the orientation, not the touch screen itself. A tablet you normally hold horizontally or at an angle when you use it. I get that it might not be for everyone, but a LOT of keyboard cases have been sold to iPad and iPad Pro users (and many of these cases prop up the iPad screen vertically). And keep in mind that iOS pretty much necessitates use of the touch screen more than Windows 8/10 does. So there must be a LOT of people who would be OK with that mode of use. With respect to the Surface, I use it with the keyboard attached 99% of the time so it's pretty much vertical all the time. It's not even remotely uncomfortable or tiring in normal use.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >I get that it might not be for everyone, but a LOT of keyboard cases have been sold to iPad and iPad Pro users (and many of these cases prop up the iPad screen vertically). Yes, but those are for writing -- ie. using the iPad laptop style. Not for doing work e.g. graphics, etc with the iPad vertically held.
    - slantyyz 10y ago
      >> Yes, but those are for writing -- ie. using the iPad laptop style. Not for doing work e.g. graphics, etc with the iPad vertically held. You aren't really suggesting that writing is not work, are you? And why would Schiller make a point of mentioning the touch bar integration with Office and iWork?
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >You aren't really suggesting that writing is not work, are you? No, I wrote "E.g. graphics" as a parenthetical expression to give an example of the kind of work they dont use those cases for. That is, what I wrote amounts to: "Yes, but those [cases] are for writing -- ie. using the iPad laptop style. [They are not using the cases] for doing work [like graphics] with the iPad vertically held". >And why would Schiller make a point of mentioning the touch bar integration with Office and iWork? Because Schiller made this point about a laptop, and even more so a laptop with a flat horizontal strip. Whereas what I said is that it's tedious for people to do that (touch interaction) on a vertical screen. In Schiller's example there's Office and iWork but no vertical touch screen -- just the strip, and the regular screen you handle with the mouse/trackpad (that is, without having your hands in the air to touch the screen).
        slantyyz 10y ago
        Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but in my use of touch on a vertically oriented screen, it hasn't been negative at all. There's something to be said about being able to use two fingers to directly manipulate a window's contents to zoom an image or vector diagram in an app to get to the precise size versus futzing around with control + or control - using the app's preset increments.
Anasufovic 10y ago
Yeah, I feel as if people try to hate touch screens because Apple doesn't think its right. Even though iPad users with keyboards use the interface. It requires a transition period but it becomes second nature after a while. One of the important things for me with something like the surface is when you finally dock it to use a full setup you don't lose any capability. What happens when you do this with the new mbp? Is a new apple keyboard in the works? I was considering getting the new mbp this time around thinking this was going to be an enhanced media button bar. But now I'm definitely back on the sidelines

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> If they had "offered a touch screen instead", the users would have to hold their hand horizontally which would get tiring in about 5 minutes and unbearable after 10. This is complete nonsense. I used to think this when I used a MacBook full time. I still do but buying a touchscreen PC has worked wonderfully and I never hover my hand long enough to do anything tiring. It's great for doing quick touches or scrolling / zooming in with precision. You wouldn't want to use it for everything because that's not its use case (this isn't a dedicated tablet this is a computer with a touch screen).

coldtea 10y ago
>This is complete nonsense. I used to think this when I used a MacBook full time. I still do but buying a touchscreen PC has worked wonderfully and I never hover my hand long enough to do anything tiring. I never hover my hand period, so that's one better. Not that hot about touching the screen either... >It's great for doing quick touches or scrolling / zooming in with precision. With my hands on the keyboard and my thumbs close to the touchpad, I don't see the appeal of suddenly raising my hands to the screen, especially for general things like zooming, scrolling. It could make sense to manipulate something like an object directly, but to raise hands just for zooming or scrolling?
- slantyyz 10y ago
  >> With my hands on the keyboard and my thumbs close to the touchpad, I don't see the appeal of suddenly raising my hands to the screen, especially for general things like zooming, scrolling. It could make sense to manipulate something like an object directly, but to raise hands just for zooming or scrolling? I think I figured it out. You're spoiled by the quality of the Apple touchpads. A few minutes with a crappy Windows touchpad and you'll be wishing you could touch the screen. FWIW, I hate all touchpads. I just hate Apple touchpads the least.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >I think I figured it out. You're spoiled by the quality of the Apple touchpads. A few minutes with a crappy Windows touchpad and you'll be wishing you could touch the screen. Hmm, you might be on to something here. I'm so used to the Mac trackpads, than I almost never use a mouse with them (except for heavy illustrator/photoshop stuff), whereas with my Windows laptops I always use a mouse. >FWIW, I hate all touchpads. I just hate Apple touchpads the least. I hate the IBM's/Lenovo's red-nipple thing with the same passion!

Eldandan 10y ago

These professionals in several industries paid handsomely for the Adaptive keys on the 2nd generation Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. So much so that Lenovo had to remove adaptive keys for the next iterations.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
Eh. In the days when the animals talked, there were keyboards with generic function keys in a top row, with enough space around them for a plastic template sheet labeling the keys with functions for specific software. Some templates came pre-printed for specific packages, some were blanks for pencil-your-own. Rarely used, but at least those thingies were cheap and did not remove real keys.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Such things were even part of marketing features, lots of old calculators had them. HP calculators even had dedicated modules paired with custom .... stickers (or overlays) to adapt "like" the touchbar.
- tylermorten 10y ago
  Your comment made me miss my Intellivision for some reason :(
coldtea 10y ago
>These professionals in several industries paid handsomely for the Adaptive keys on the 2nd generation Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. So much so that Lenovo had to remove adaptive keys for the next iterations. Things are not the same just because they are instances of the same concept. Lenovo's implementation was black and white, did not have controls such as slide, sweep, multitouch gestures, etc, and was just a novelty from a single Wintel vendor with not much third-party app support or OS support. Apple's implementation adds deep OS support, will have software vendors onboard (judging from the adoption of older features Apple puts into its hardware/OS, it wont be more than a year when most apps people use will support this, from Photoshop which does already, to the Apple Pro/iLife apps (of course), to Pixelmator, Premiere, and tons of others. It also has color, multitouch/gestures, etc, which increase the utility much more, along with higher definition (for thumbnails and such which it also does). Also Lenovo's other than that didn't sell much to the creatives market, where such a feature would be appreciated more (if it was done properly of course). Macbook Pro's already sell very well to creatives. It's the same old story really: more thought out, more integrated, and more supported implementation beats "first to market this general idea" every time.