What would you use a multiple touch Tablet for?
Although I’m not in a position to comment, the recent Tablet PC buzz is around the potential multiple touch capabilities of the upcoming Dell Tablet PC. If indeed that functionality comes to market, nobody can deny it’s something that no other Tablet PC offers today. Note that I’m calling it “multiple touch”; that’s for a reason of clarification. Most folks hear “multi-touch” thinking it means that the PC can sense and use multiple touch points, but that’s not the case. When I hear “multi-touch”, I think of a device that has both passive and active capabilities, i.e.: you can touch it with your finger or you an use an RF pen. That’s just the way I think about it; doesn’t mean it’s right. ;)
In any case, I was having lunch with John Hill from ALLTP just yesterday and something came up in conversation regarding ink-friendly apps. John and I were pretty much in agreement that there are far too few applications written and designed for inking. There’s a few standouts that are (OneNote, TEO and such come to mind), but by and large, most apps aren’t designed for effective use with a pen. What about touch? There’s even fewer of those.So that gets me thinking about the anticipated multiple-touch capabilities of the Dell Tablet. It’s an innovation to be sure and I’m not bashing it in any way. But what’s the value of a function if it doesn’t solve a problem? How will it enhance the user experience? In what way will you use it and how often? Is it “gimmicky” or does it really provide a better way to do things than currently available solutions?Believe me, I love to see innovation, especially in the Tablet PC space. And I’m not trying to be critical of Dell here at all. I’m simply trying to foster some conversation and thought. Put another way: I believe that Tablet PCs are a niche market partially because there aren’t enough apps that use ink in a way that provides extra value over apps that don’t. There are other reasons of course, but let’s face it: if people don’t see enough value in a solution, it’s likely not a solution they’ll buy or use. I’d hate to see that happen on the touch side too.Another viewpoint: your thoughts, wants, needs and requirements here could be read by developers that bring your idea to life. So have at, put some thought into it and share your thoughts! Do you want to see two fingered zooming in your browser on a Tablet PC? Is stretching out photos going to keep you happy? Or can you think of even better applications of multiple touch that we haven’t even thought of yet?
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Kevin,
Call it multi-touch or multiple touch as you like (and your distinction makes sense) but Apple has defined multi-touch as multiple input on the screen, and that horse has left the barn.
True, but that’s not the central point here. ;)
I want a great active digitizer for inking with the stylus and touch so I can get by if I lose the stylus. Plus, for some things, like lauching the web browser to see my default home page, seems to me that touch should be good enough and there should not be a reason to pull the stylus out of the garage. Maybe I should change the name of this post to “call my lazy.”
I love using the touch on my FUJI P1510D but I want active digitizer too….
I would use it as a keyboard…
Like a musical keyboard.
Or more specifically I guess – XY midi controller with multiple points of input… Run it through reason and it would sound quite positively sexual.
A continuum (by Haken I think?) does a similar thing – but it’s like $8000 for a full length one. And it supports only one point of contact. Sounds amazing though.
THIS is a potentially cool point to start for a similar device, but that would allow some chords etc.
Would be nicer if Dell didn’t limit it to 5 points – or maybe i’ve got that wrong and the guy only randomly demonstrated 5. I’m not sure.
I also think multiple touch has good potential for web browsing by means of finger gestures. Like on apple pads for laptops – the two fingers down or across do random things (I don’t know what though :) I don’t use an apple)…
Like two points of contact moving left parallel to each other (think – flick two fingers across the screen to the left) takes you back a page, and the opposite direction does forwards… One point dragged to select a bunch of text, tap another point to bring up a right click contextual menu which lets you copy or whatever.
Maybe many points simultaneously could do a polygon select? But I dunno something like that actually does sound kind of ganky and stupid to me even.
I think to some extent – some of those functions double up on how a wacom style tablet works (where the pen can do right click etc) but I don’t think it’s entirely superfluous. Maybe even I can circle something with one hand to snip it out – while my finger is still on the page draw a C to copy it. Or maybe a string of characters to copy then save to a particular file/location or something. This is still a little difficult, and I think the most seamless integration of it will come from combinations of consecutive points just from the one hand, while the example just suggested really lends itself to the human use of two. Which is a little silly because unless the item is placed on a table – you need your other hand to hold it.
But I do completely agree that it needs some *very* clever applications to make it sell. Apple will probably work out a few. I’ve got my doubts about many of the others.
I think one of the problems is that an interface which leverages something like this starts to become increasingly different from what is normal and what is expected. And as such, I think it’s unlikely that many “button” type interfaces would fully utilise the potential of a multitouch device because they would need to support
We are seeing the collision of two worlds here, I think: the traditional (and not just about ancient!) stay-in-one-place desktop mouse-based GUI and take-along compurers that simply need a brand new interface that is suited to their screen size and to the needs of mobility.
I think, of course, Apple will get it right first.
Surprisingly, it might be Intel’s MIDs that do it next (or at least come close).
MS still has to show it is SERIOUS about what it began with UMPC.
As for Linuxes such as Ubuntu, et al, I have no idea. But Asus might have quite a few!
Damn typo! “not just” = “NOW just”
Kevin is no doubt ROTFLHAO after I pointed out some of his. Fiend.
Dell needs to take a page from Apple and stop outsourcing it’s operating system.
DellOS and DellOS Tablet Edition only needs ONE killer app.
Like someone said, I also would use it as a keyboard!
In something like this:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/MeetTheCanovoDualTouchScreenTabletNotebook.aspx
For me, this is the perfect Tablet PC. A real digital notebook.
Well, I know that it’s blasphemy around these parts, but I’ll say it.
The TabletPC/Origami touch screen setup SUCKS. It sucks less with an active digitizer, but in the end, it still sucks.
Why?
1) Right-clicking. You either need a button (not available on every stylus,) or a time-delay action.
2) Middle-clicking. Umm… not without a second button.
3) Erasing. Okay, this one’s clever, but impossible to replicate with a passive digitizer.
Multitouch can fix a lot of these problems, just based on finger-counts and the like.
Tap with one finger, and it’s a click. Hold with that finger, and tap with a second, it’s a middle-click. Hold and tap with TWO, and that’s a right-click. (Swap those around at will.) Detect a wide enough contact patch, like a swipe of the thumb? That’s an erase action.
Also, single-touch passive digitizers are notoriously inaccurate, even when they’re calibrated properly. This isn’t perfectly solved by multitouch, but the hardware to process multitouch usually has enough input to determine pressure trends from single-finger input. That alone could be used to provide a lot more error correction, and as a result, improved overall accuracy.
Of course, pinch-zoom, finger-scaled sliders, and kinetic scrolling aren’t bad ideas, either, nor is a Dock-like onscreen keyboard. (I say “Dock-like” because the keys raise and enlarge as you pass over them on the iPhone, much like how icons grab additional attention in the OS X Dock.)
Overall, the TabletPC interface needs to be a major UI overhaul, while capable of still running Windows apps.
It also needs to get rid of the menus. I would love to see a return of the TC1x00 series from Compaq with multitouch all the way past the edge of the screen, so that I could summon the Start Menu, app menus, and so on as needed. Imagine OneNote without all the typical Windows UI crap. Just a page with tabs on two edges, and nothing else until you truly need it. Need a menu? Touch the menu button off the edge. Start Menu? Task Manager? Separate edge buttons. You don’t need multitouch for this, but since different people grip a tablet differently, you’d want the added security of a truly deliberate button press. Multitouch, plus an out-of-the-way UI, would make for a killer TabletPC.
Chris K.: not blasphemy at all. In fact, I agree with your general premise on the UI. We have two great tools (ink and touch) that are under-developed, under-appreciated and therefore, under-used. Appreciate the honest thoughts!