Apple no longer Think different?
When everyone is using the same boring product, it’s time to Think different, again.
On touch vs keyboard/mouse input
It is quite obvious to us by now that some operations in computer are easier to be executed by using touch (think pinch to zoom, dragging objects), while some are easier using mouse/keyboard (think typing, highlighting texts). Another way of characterizing such differences is through the content consumption vs content production viewpoint. Content production is clearly much more easily handled using keyboard/mouse.
Besides that, regardless of the purpose of usage, long hours of touch-based usage will be tiring for anyone. So if one can divide some of the touch operations to keyboard/mouse operations then it will be less exhausting.
But the current situation of operating systems in our computing devices is that either it is entirely touch-based (iOS/Android) or entirely built for keyboard/mouse (Windows/OS X).
This presents a problem: how to blend these two so that one is allowed to perform all the touch operations in the former type of OS, while perform the typing/clicking operations in the latter type of OS, in ONE SINGLE DEVICE?
One way is to combine the two OS’s in one device, like what Apple is doing with its latest operating system OS X Lion. However it can be seen as only a half-baked solution, due to the fact that the touch part of the operations is still executed through a track pad, while strictly speaking a touch operation is only truly utilized if one directly touches the screen. There is still a cursor that acts as a pointing agent.
On the other hand, one can change the OS so as to use a mouse (and a keyboard) on a tablet device.
(To be continued….)
