Hey Pauric - "...but it would seem more natural to keep multi point hand input to the horizontal plane, I would guess it gets tiring if forced to bend the wrist up to the vertical screen to input"
I think this is a good point in context to their specific solution. First off, I am not their target user nor the best person to speak for the masses :) But, my main point I guess is that it is an inconsistent model and it seems they are doing everything they can to shoehorn multi-touch in anywhere they can... and that this is a mediocre step to me. Also, I don't think the horizontal plane is necessarily better for touch input (even though I should be biased with Surface:). Horizontal, diagonal, and vertical planes can all be useful for touch input I believe. However, your response actually changes my mind to ask, is a laptop the best device to shoehorn multi-touch into? Probably not as long as we have OS's optimized for keyboard + mouse. It seems inconsistent with the iPhone is my biggest itch I suppose. They didn't take just a regular mobile phone and just make the screen touch sensitive, they removed almost all physical UI (keypad, keyboard, lock, etc.) and turned into a direct "touch-screen" experience... a great leap in 'natural' user experience for the masses! Then, they take a normal laptop with a very legacy interaction model (i.e. keyboard, trackpad, and fold-over display etc.) and simply add multi-touch to the trackpad? An indirect experience and shortcut. An better equivalent solution could be to take a tablet PC with a pivoting display and allow it to become a keyboard-less flat display you could set at any angle, then add a direct multi-touch screen. However, this isn't necessarily a winner either because the OS/software isn't optimized for it. (i.e. Lenovo Thinkpad x61 Multi-touch notebook) My 2 cents... Thoughts? ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
