Touch Will Change Everything

Michael Arrington wrote about the wrongness of the HP Touchsmart machines.

He’s correct.

I’ve gotten to the point with my PC usage where I no longer just Do This Do This Do This — I’ve begun to ask, Why the hell do I have to Do This?

Since the introduction of the iPhone, it’s been easier for me to see that the current desktop paradigm — mouse, monitor just about parallel to my face — is absolutely backward and counter-productive. In fact, using a mouse feels like something out of the 19th-century to me.

Arrington thinks a drawing-table-like slanted machine is the future.

Here’s a screensnap from a TV series called Star Cops, envisioning such a computer:

Arrington’s absolutely wrong about that.

I’ve owned a drawing table in my life. I’ve done drafting with T-square, triangles, as well as paste-ups and freehand artwork.

So I don’t know what world Arrington and some people reside in, but I live in one where this happens:

And this:

All because of this:

So wait. You’re going to have this fragile touch-sensitive screen inclined on a desktop? One that, say, a cat could leap up on, perhaps mis-shoot, and shred with its claws?

I don’t think so.

And let’s not forget this: some people run moving screensavers. That’s cat bait!

What’s the solution?

Apple: It Had It.

The touchscreen will be on adjustable arm, the guts in the base, and the screen can be raised out of Cat’s Way when not in use.

Back to the future, baby.

That’s hardware.

For software, you can look forward to the stupid vertical-scroll UI disappearing. We will scroll horizontally, like moving from photo to photo on an iPhone.

This will be a boon to web design, where designers finally have something resembling a page that can actually be designed.

Part of that design will include whitespace margins, so we can expand the page to magnify it without screwing up the text flow and design layout. As in that Editis video:

Also, I will look forward to the end of dialog boxes!

Everything will be a virtual object. If I want to place a photo in a blog, I won’t have an idiotic File Selector dialog. I’ll have the blog entry interface on one side of my screen, my batch of photos on the other side, and I’ll just drag and drop a photo in.

This is just a glimpse of what’s coming.

That day cannot come soon enough for me.

I’ll thoroughly sick of the way I have to Do This right now.