Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)(anishathalye.com) |
Turning a MacBook into a touchscreen with $1 of hardware (2018)(anishathalye.com) |
I then wonder how much recalibration I would have to do when one of them broke and I was poking directly at the screen.
I'm not sure, but bare in mind that the iPad is almost as large of a market as the Mac at this point, and the iPhone has long surpassed Mac revenue. Touching your computer is a very popular sentiment among the grimy-handed public.
-Steve Jobs, 2010
https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-touch-screen-mac-...
— Steve Jobs, 2007
(8 years before the introduction of the Apple Pencil)
I have briefly used one of the old PDAs with Windows Mobile and a stylus, and i have an ipad with an apple pencil.
They are two completely different experiences.
A stylus is clunky, particularly if you consider styluses as they were back in the day: pieces of dumb plastic with a specific shape to fit in the PDA itself, to be used on dumb resistive touch screens.
the apple pencil (as well as other modern styluses) are completely different, and work on capacitive touch screens.
So... we're talking about more than one blunder here.
Re: the stylus sub-thread, I've actually used cheap Android resistive+stylus phones and a Compaq Palm Pilot clone and .. yes, they were really bad compared to modern phone interfaces. The stylus has a niche market for artists, who need a high quality pressure sensitive version.
(edit: attempting to find the original citation for "gorilla arm" takes me to the Jargon File and the early 1980s. Along the way I found the delightful existence of a UX researcher with the name Sebastian Boring, though)
The Surface devices are a bit of an exception. For the tablets it works great. The convertibles that were a laptop with a screen that can turn into a tablet (or just be attached in reverse, so you have a very heavy but powerful tablet) were also great presentation laptops. Though apparently that niche was too small to support the exotic hardware. I don't quite get the appeal of the current surface laptops. But the ones I see in the wild are almost all the tablet surface devices.
It shouldn't be the only way to interact, but as an option, it's awesome.
Touchscreen computers have failed for a reason.
Then again... so did "transparent" UI, which Apple just exhumed.
(Longtime Apple user.)
The answer is to make them fold flat so you're just looking at the screen with the keyboard facing away from you (and, ideally, disabled by a switch in the hinge so when you put it down you don't zkjltohtrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrolkmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Then, of course, it becomes annoying and inconvenient to use in a different way, but at least you get really really good at replacing the little flexi PCB ribbon that connects the screen through the hinge.
Such usages pretty much want a very flexible device though --- I'll often use mine fully flat on a lap desk and will rotate it in various ways depending on what I'm doing, and will then further mix in using my Kindle Scribe and Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ (which use the same stylus tech as the GB12/GB3Pro360).
Sometimes I'll add my MacBook into the mix by way of a Wacom One display, but I have a 1st gen unit, so no touch, so every so often I'll find myself dragging at it to scroll or tapping a control with my left hand to no effect.
I'd like to try Apple Sidecar on an iPad (which arguably is Apple's touch interface), but can't justify the expense, esp. for yet another stylus (I couldn't easily count how many I own, and carry a spare Lamy Wacom EMR in my sling bag), esp. a stylus which only works on one device.
Still waiting on Apple to make a replacement for the Newton --- the smallest size iPad which supports the Apple Pencil is close, but I need something daylight viewable, hence the Kindle Scribe (which I'm going to be replacing w/ the KS Colorsoft presently).
I don't get the draw - we already optimize for keyboard commands to avoid living our fingers over to a touchpad. Why would I want to start clicking on my screen?
If you're using your computer for tasks (rather than entertainment) and you're not a visual designer, I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new MBP line later this year.
You can try it on an iPad with Magic Keyboard attached, it's very good to be able to do precision through the trackpad and then casually move large things on the screen with your fingers.
Trackpad is nice for a device you can lay flat on a table or keep on one hand while sitting on the sofa, not too much when the device has a keyboard permanently attached to it and it cannot fold. I know I have a thinkpad like that and I never use the touchscreen.
However, like on Windows, I suspect macOS would increase the tap target size on lots of the touchable elements. Even if I don't use the touchscreen, I would still have to pay the touch target real estate tax in my applications.
Two primary use cases. Sitting on the train with the laptop in my actual lap it was often more convenient to reach for the screen instead of the trackpad, especially when I had someone sitting next to me on the right and I didn't want to stab them in their ribcage with my elbow so I could reach the trackpad. Second use case was often scrolling while reading, for some reason (phone-scrolling-indoctrination I guess) it felt natural to scroll using finger on screen.
The screen was never my primary pointing device but it was always an option. I think it was annoying a handful of times during the two years I had it, you point at something on the screen and end up clicking something.
Which skin colours? The image below that has a lot of colours that I'd associate with darker skin colours, and they're not included in the triggering zone. I'd be interested to see some data on hoe well it works with someone who has dark skin
> Filter for skin colors and binary threshold
Skin has an extremely broad range of colors that are also lighting dependent. I'd have gone with background subtraction.
We also had algorithms to detect finger shape to detect location of the pointer and when you were touching the screen. I saw way too many videos of fingers touching screens back then, so it's funny to see similar video clips here.
I can also definitely see this kind of thing being used in things budget outdoor displays, specially if the UI is made to accommodate the lack of accuracy, and the camera is positioned on the side (since these displays are usually vertical).
This looks like a neat option for retrofitting, and I suspect it'd work for some non-screen glass applications too. A combined IR/visible light solution would be interesting too, since I suspect those are complimentary (IR touch has issues with radiant light, while this wouldn't; this would have issues with low/no light, while IR wouldn't).
I love Mac since I started using it in 2020, but boy this hardware is fragile. I am scared that I will be held accountable for fixing a broken screen of my work MBP
But I did love my Toshiba Satellite. It was like writing on paper!
Down with capacitive screens and long live Active Digitizers!
Some brands offer coating you can DIY yourself (eg ProofTech OLEOPEL) but these seem mostly designed for phone screens. I don’t know whether they’d be as effective on laptop screens
I do carefully clean the nosepads with soapy water, however.
At that time, I was quite interested in adversarial examples and ML security.
Scrolling/controlling checkboxes and switches feels GREAT. Depends entirely what you're using it for.
Apple has apparently being going to put a touchscreen in a laptop every year since the iPad came out, and it's never materialized.
I also think Apple knows that their laptops doesn't need touch. It's a gimmick and adds nothing to the usability, but raises the cost.
(This also made me realize the impending obsolescence of the Studio Monitor XDR: no touch support.)
Something no one seems to address is that it makes no sense to have touch on the laptop screen, because you honestly don't use it much, at least in a professional setting. You'll always dock your laptop anyway, either for comfort, or legal compliance (or both). My 27" monitor doesn't have touch, that's what I use 99% of the time, the laptop screen is a small auxiliary screen on the side. Why I reach out and touch it? That's also why the touch bar made no sense, it was on a keyboard that I almost never use.
I don’t want a touchscreen MBP, but as long as touching the screen is an optional interaction and everything else is the same, I see no reason to reject it if it was free. I can just not touch the screen.
> we already optimize for keyboard commands to avoid living our fingers over to a touchpad.
“We” is a much smaller percentage of people than you’re likely thinking of. We’re outliers, not the norm. Yes, even amongst professionals.
Use a Surface Pro some time. If you are just casually browsing or reading a website. I find it much nicer to just tap on a link or swipe to scroll.
(Also I can immediately test touch features of the apps I develope)
Copy text in terminal
Mac: command+c
Linux/windows: ctrl+shift+c (unless you want to cripple proper ctrl+c functionality in which case you can (maybe) activate it from a UI menu)
The command key on Mac is somewhat magical and engages in all sorts of productivity and finger efficiency related context switching so that you can do more with less physical movement.
I’m genuinely curious who you think does it better
A touch screen is incredibly useful when you're not currently already holding your mouse. It's easier to switch from keyboard to touch than from keyboard to mouse.
The only way touch on MacBooks can make a shred of sense is if it’s a non-default option in the configurator, much like the current nanotexture matte option.
I think the reason I started doing it on the iPad is that the keyboard focus is sometimes inconsistent, so clicking or tab-tab-tab-enter is slower and less reliable vs. just touching the screen. Definitely feel the gorilla arm though.
With my left hand, I poke the required bits of my corporate training modules. With my right hand, I rest my fingers behind the right side of my display and quickly click the "next" button. I get through training in record time.
This is the only time I use the touchscreen on my (non-convertible) laptop. It seems like touchscreen is most useful when you have big enough targets spread out over the page. Most software I use isn't designed like that. Aiming for the restore button may result in hitting the close button...
To be fair, the point at which Microsoft rewrote their UI to be touch-friendly was Windows 8, inspired by Windows Phone (RIP).
Even better is that it's a separate clipboard from the ctrl+shift+C clipboard, so if you want, and you're careful, you can copy-paste two things independently from each other.
you get really good at hitting either the 4/5 while holding those down to take a pic/vid.
personally win+shift+s is too bunched together, less comfortable to hit.
Please, leave that reddit-esque “iSheep”-type of comment out of here.
It's not hard. I don't think we need to make everything touch-size on Mac. Small icons & buttons are perfectly fine in a production environment, and they're considered to be accessible. Just let us touch the screen.
…yeah, and?
Should we just drop mouse’s and keyboards now because they’re “old interfaces”?
C’mon, please. I’m not sure how old you are but you sound like you grew up with an iPad in your hand.
Two keys rather than one, but makes up for it by not being way off in some oddball part of the keyboard. You can one-hand it pretty easily, since there's an "option" right next to the arrow keys.
I’ve got a MagSafe nightstand and powerbank that both leave the port free. I do use Bluetooth for audio so I don’t actually ever use the USB-C port at all.
It looks like those leaks aren't too far off what I'm saying. Deadlines slipping by 1-2 years isn't way off especially for such a new/different product direction. And the rumor also said "could" which means even internally, it wasn't a strong claim.
> Based on current internal deliberations, the company could launch its first touch-screen Mac in 2025
Even if it didn't come to pass, just a few years ago is a more relevant leak than the every-year-since-the-iPad-released "rumors."
Apple's problems with touchscreen laptops are not mechanical; if Apple were to make a decent touchscreen laptop - say a 12" MacBook Air, it'd have a 360° hinge and cannibalize iPad sales, so they don't make that device to preserve the segmentation motivating people to buy both devices.
Mainly for stuff like quickly moving windows or highlighting.
But also I'm shocked Slay the Spire 2 on KDE is just working perfectly with the touch screen. Card games feel pretty natural with touch screens.
I don't know one person who has a touchscreen computer. It's a dumb way to work: not only impractical because your finger is too crude of a pointing device and your hand blocks your view of what you're trying to manipulate, but also uncomfortable to wave your arms around in front of you all day... pushing the lid of your laptop away to boot.
And yet my wife will disagree hard with you, as all her fingerprints on my laptop screen will attest to. She always defaults to trying to swipe the screen instead of going to the mouse.
> Touchscreen computers have failed for a reason.
The only people who think touch screens have failed are people who actually use computers, and we are a tiny minority of the population these days. The majority of people live on touchscreen devices already.
Many (including me) argue that Apple sells the best trackpads ever made, the size being a key attribute.
There's nothing like filling out a form (or comment) on a Web page to have it suddenly reload or back-page, deleting everything you entered.
I absolutely loathed non-Apple ones when I had to use them, the palm detection was completely useless and the cursor just swooshed around. I usually disabled the touchpad in the BIOS and just used the red nipple-mouse on Lenovos instead.
Please.
You must have some weirdly conductive palms or something.
What a world you live in.
When a manufacturer deliberately creates a perpetual pain in the ass with anti-consumer actions such as deleting the headphone jacks from media-centric devices, it should be no surprise that self-respecting consumers will condemn that move. If you find it surprising that people are annoyed by such actions, I don't know what to tell you.
Yes, by the way you come across whether you mean to or not.
I guess I’m not self respecting by your definition, in my wire-free existence.
How do I get to the dock so that I can open the Applications menu? Ctrl-F3. left left left left left up. Then the popup menu doesn't respond to any letters.
All of this contrasted with Windows which had Alt + key for the menu. I learned it from Windows 3.11 for incredible speed:
- Alt space - show the window menu
- Alt space x - maximize
- Alt space n - minimize
- Alt space r - restore
- Windows key - start menu
- Windows key > P > right cursor > N - notepad (the right cursor = accessories)
This was broken in later start menus. The modern start menu is absolutely useless and takes forever. Up until XP this worked fine.
- (with Quicklaunch): Windows + N (number) - launch that item. Eg. Windows + 3 will launch the third item across. No idea if they broke this in Windows 11.
Under Windows 98 all of these were lightning fast. Explorer behaved as you'd expect too.
None of this was possible on the Mac and using it was very very very slow with a mouse to wave around the screen.
MacOS is a different operating system with different paradigms; instead of a start menu, you'd use Spotlight search for the same effect, which can be invoked with CMD+Space.
I have been using macos for decades and use it daily at work so I understand it is different. I am just saying that the out-of-the-box functionality for keyboard usability is very poor compared to Windows (and Linux DEs which imitate Windows).
I end up using Rectangle on macos for moving windows and maximising them using keyboard shortcuts because else it's infuriating for window management to have to move from the keyboard to the mouse all the time. The usability under Tahoe for window edges etc. is even worse with a mouse than previous versions and a complete joke, so I am stuck on Sequoia.
As I discover every time I have a mouse fail, it is exceptionally difficult to use a modern Mac without a pointer device because at some point, it became quite difficult to get from (eg) the settings nav panel to the settings panel. I can CMD+SPACE to open spotlight, type 'Settings' to get to a settings panel, type 'Bluetooth' to open the bluetooth settings, and where I feel like I _should_ be able to `Tab` or `Enter` into the devices list, or have SOME way to navigate over there, the only way I've found to be able to is to plug in a physical mouse
Moreover, I occasionally encounter modals that won't let me tab to their action buttons, requiring a pointer device click to dismiss
And then there's the bonkers window manager which can't move focus directionally (e.g. Super + left) and so you have to fall back to Cmd + tab tab tab tab but even then there's no consistency about whether you're switching between app instances or windows instances within the same app...
It’s actually more intuitive to use a magic keyboard on the iPad than on the desktop OS.
I've been using macs since the 90s so I'm quite used to it, so I'd love to know what I've been missing out on.
- Window navigation within (rather than between) open programs. Mainly if one is on an external monitor, this is just a nightmare and I end up using expose and clicking the window instead.
- Window positioning (I installed 3rd party software called Rectangle for this last year so it’s kind of solved but if we’re talking about the vanilla experience this is a big one)
- Having to switch focus to the dock and navigate one by one through shortcuts to open them instead of the Super+Dock position shortcuts that Windows and KDE expose
The keyboard (physically) is also just very pleasant to type on.
They also decided about 10? years ago to make it behave as a "fullscreen" button which was really useless to me on a Mac Pro with 2 screens, where it would only ever "zoom" to one screen and then make the other screen display the desktop wallpaper - not the actual desktop - the wallpaper.
Useless.
do you have "Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard navigation" on? I thought it is on by default, but apparently it isn't. Without it "tab" only jumps between text fields and checkboxes.
There's also an "Accessibility > Keyboard > Full keyboard access", which gives more controls.
I appreciate the tip! I'm going to have to put that in an Ansible playbook
Command-` works for window switching as I expect, probably simply due to being used to it so I know exactly how It works.
Window positioning is an interesting one. I can't stand windows being positioned through tools, I stack them like you would with papers and shuffle through so the edge overlap is really important. Probably showing my age there!
And I never use the dock. Spotlight gets me everything I'd need from there.
I rarely use the Dock, it's somewhat eye candy I leave up, or add stacks for folders that I use, but typically for keyboard action I reach for spotlight (cmd+space). Now, spotlight occasionally shitting the bed, that's another issue...
Isn’t table cmd + ~
System settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Window > Fill. Default on my machine is fn+control+f, but you can also reassign that there of course (which AFAIK is something Windows doesn't let you do, by the way.)
> I end up using Rectangle on macos for moving windows and maximising them using keyboard shortcuts
I also used to use Rectangle, but by now the built-in window management shortcuts fulfil the same purpose out of the box (almost, that is; where Rectangle can move Windows onto the next screen, that is arguably where the built-in shortcuts fall flat, only being able to arrange on a single screen)
I never knew this existed!!!!
Thank you!