That would be dumb. For starters, it needs specific displays to work. Second, it's tedious. As I'm typing this message, I can move the pointer with a slight movement of my hand. Imagine if I had to use the computer with raised arms so I could point and click on the screen? Imagine doing that several hours a day?
the UI in Minority Report looked cool. But it was created for a movie. They wanted something flashy for the silver-screen, they didn't have to worry about actually USING that UI for a prolonged period. of time.
It might work for tablets and PDA's. But using that kind of UI on a big screen that is standing vertically in front of you? Madness!
When I said "exactly" I wasn't referring to the transparent and horizontal display or standing up hours on end... I was referring to the way the user interface functions: chording gestures that intuitively navigate through three dimensions from essentially a two-dimensional display.
I'm talking about seeing this on, say, an iMac. Now, your first reaction might be "but iMacs are stationary and upright." This is where I'd ask you, and others here who have approached this from the negative, to think forward...
People like to say "tablet PC"... but what images does a tablet PC conjure up? Usually a single-point touchscreen which doesn't allow the user to do things remotely close to what they can do with a multitouch UI. That's why I haven't chosen to use that term directly to refer to where Apple is headed in this case.
What images does an iMac conjure up? Well, several, because iMac has gone through several logical design evolutions: CRT and computer in one case > Luxo Jr.-style LCD lamp-Mac > RoundRect all-in-one iMac (23 years and round rectangles are STILL everywhere!)
Well, how about the next iMac? Well, some people may use the upright design in a multitouch. Others might not. Solution? Make the screen/computer removable from the swivel armature. Voila... iMac/TabletMac in one.
Also, don't get rid of the mouse or the keyboard... multiple options for input devices have been typical of computers for some time: joysticks, paddles, keyboard shortcuts for mouse operations, etc. This type of backward compatibility would be absolutely necessary... I'm certainly not talking about eliminating that.
Another thing that's interesting is the disparity between how engineers not working for Apple see things vs. how the general public sees things. I'll get a hundred replies as to what's wrong with the multitouch Mac idea or why it's not practical yet from the engineer set (not surprisingly, I've received no such complaints from Apple engineers with whom I've shared such ideas)...
But go to YouTube and look at the average user's observations about things like iPhone and they're fired up. The average consumer is thinking up all kinds of ways they can put such technology to use in their personal and professional lives. Granted, many of the techno-elite will thumb their noses (not unlike the way people thumbed their noses 30 years ago at the idea of a personal computer) at iPhone and other emerging technologies because they're analytically dissecting the design down to its individual features without understanding that form is a HUGE factor in industrial design and usability. Form is always downplayed in such forums.
Here's a simple example of a very technical use for a multitouch iMac: Say you have a patient in South Dakota who needs a critical operation and there are only a few surgeons in the world skilled enough to do the procedure. Also, this is a risky procedure, so diagnostic needs are critical. The solution might be something like a Mac Pro with a multitouch interface on a Cinema HD monitor. Diagnostic imaging may come from a portable MRI (which now exists) positioned right in the operating room, feeding data to the HD display. The surgeon then uses the interface to remotely control robotics that have jitter filters to buffer out unintentional tremors or slight wobbliness of the surgeons hands for precision movement... such robotic surgery systems are being tested now. This would take a risky procedure known by a few expert doctors and make it a minimally-invasive procedure available to many patients while (and this is KEY) adapting the interface to capitalize on the surgeon's knowledge, skills and techniques, not the other way around. There are huge benefits for the patients, the doctors (lower risk of malpractice) and the industry as a whole.
Granted, this example is more technically complicated and further down the road than the run of the mill multitouch UI that we'll see in homes in the next three years... but it's a demonstration that there are all kinds of professional and personal applications for this technology.
However, rather than taking Microsoft's approach of trying to shoehorn products into the public psyche, Apple starts with ideas like this and then focuses them sharply on customer needs and wants by gaining feedback from their "feeler" products (e.g. iPhone) as to what purposes they should shape such technologies around... instead of blindly throwing the gadget out there with the hope that people will incidentally find uses for it.
Various components of Leopard are very suitable for adapting users to a multitouch UI, e.g Time Machine, Spaces, Cover Flow, etc. in which they can more directly interact with their data, information, media, etc. rather than through an indirect, nonintuitive input device like a mouse or keyboard. The techno-elite may scoff at my criticism of the mouse and keyboard, but even nearly thirty years after it was first thrust into widespread use, there are many people who simply don't get it. I would submit to you that many more people have been intuitively using their hands to manipulate objects for hundreds of thousands of years to create and produce things in the real, physical world.
A system that melds with this intuitive knowledge is a lot more appealing in personal and professional computing to the majority for whom the computer is nothing more than a device that allows them to do things, create, be productive, entertain, imagine, and so on. For those of us for whom the computer is itself an object for which we produce things, the saliency of this point is often easily lost... That fact does not make philistines out of the computer illiterate. It is only incidental to the clumsy design of computers today that technical prowess has become something of an intellectual commodity that is lorded over those who don't understand.
But speaking also as a musician, I know many fellow musicians who think the same of technical proficiency with musical instruments... and attempt to protect their incidental skill by complaining about the nature of electronic instruments simplifying the technical requirements. Since when did it become law that only those with technical skill should be allowed artistic expression? Maybe some uncoordinated guy somewhere has an idea for a brilliant composition we may never hear simply because he's too daunted by the mechanical requirements of instrument playing.
This sort of intellectual commoditization is nonsense... The underlying fear that the simplicity of future technologies will put people out of jobs is unfounded... at least for those talented enough to continue developing their technical proficiency to stay ahead of the curve and stay in demand. Stan Winston didn't throw his arms up when puppeteering was replaced by CG. He just focused on developing greater skill and realism in CG than the next guy. Stan Winston's doing just fine.
I know I've gone considerably off the beaten path here but I feel it necessary to address these issues as they are essentially roadblocks to understanding that the real goal of technology should be to make the execution of the task many times simpler than the desired result. Technology that makes the task many times more complex than the desired result is utterly inefficient and horrendously unproductive.... not to mention patently unimaginative.
A jazz drummer I know once said, "Good drummers take a simple piece and make it look confusing and complex. Great drummers take an impossible piece and make it look ridiculously easy." This should be the goal of industrial design:
Bring out the great drummer in everyone.
