A Multi-Touch iPhone OS Layer On Top of Mac OS X?

[guzhogi]

Interesting, but not entirely a good idea IMO. It would be too confusing with all the different interfaces. I don't have to keep switching in between the two interfaces to do various tasks.

As cool as the iPhone OS is, it's not a full OS. I would need multiple accounts, multitasking, a file system, and a whole lot of other stuff. If Apple decides to go with the iPhone OS and replace Mac OS X with it, they'll have to add all those features. If Apple did add those, I'd take a look, but Apple will have their work cut out for them.

WHile I understand adding multitouch to OS X will be hard, it's a good thing to add. As multitouch catches on, more and more people will want it on an OS level. Hey, Apple has $40 billion in cash, right? We should make them work for their money!

 

[guzhogi]

2) Most people hate computers, even Macs, because they are too complex. Even Macs. It's in Apple's interest to make computers easier to use and support. It's what the average consumer wants. To those of you who think Apple should be loyal to you, sorry. Apple is a business. It's loyalty is only to its shareholders. Long time Mac users mean squat to Apple. Accept it or go over to Linux or Windows.

Make something foolproof & someone will make a better fool.

While making things as easy as possible is a good thing, I don't really want it at the expense of usability. Many organizations need to have computers set up a certain way so they can manage what the users have & can/can't do. As long as there's a way to administrate the OS to do what you need/want to do (not just what Apple wants you to do), I'll be happy. I know, Apple makes the computers & OS, so you don't have to give me the whole "Apple doesn't have to do anything it doesn't want to," rant.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Interesting, but not entirely a good idea IMO. It would be too confusing with all the different interfaces. I don't have to keep switching in between the two interfaces to do various tasks.

As cool as the iPhone OS is, it's not a full OS. I would need multiple accounts, multitasking, a file system, and a whole lot of other stuff. If Apple decides to go with the iPhone OS and replace Mac OS X with it, they'll have to add all those features. If Apple did add those, I'd take a look, but Apple will have their work cut out for them.

WHile I understand adding multitouch to OS X will be hard, it's a good thing to add. As multitouch catches on, more and more people will want it on an OS level. Hey, Apple has $40 billion in cash, right? We should make them work for their money!

Make something foolproof & someone will make a better fool.

While making things as easy as possible is a good thing, I don't really want it at the expense of usability. Many organizations need to have computers set up a certain way so they can manage what the users have & can/can't do. As long as there's a way to administrate the OS to do what you need/want to do (not just what Apple wants you to do), I'll be happy. I know, Apple makes the computers & OS, so you don't have to give me the whole "Apple doesn't have to do anything it doesn't want to," rant.

If you ask me, both of you are looking at this the wrong way.

First off, the iPhone OS is an OS, it is obviously capable of multitasking, but at the same time, doing so on a battery-powered device guarantees greater battery drain. At over a year old, I still get three days of standby time on my iPhone and usually a day and a half with normal usage. Considering most of the comments I've read in the past that claims their non-Apple smart phone has to be plugged in by noon of the first day under normal use, I think blocking multitasking is a smart idea.

Then comes the thought that adding multitouch to OS X will be difficult; where did that come from? Apple has had multitouch on their notebook computers for years and has even included it on their new Magic Mouse. Obviously there's no difficulty adding it, what I'm seeing is that they're making it more ubiquitous so that desktop users have access to it as well.

Guzhogi, what makes you think you're going to lose usability by adding a layer of the iPhone GUI on top of the Mac desktop? By no means is that a logical deduction--merely an emotional one. (No, I am not Spock!) A simplified I/O that makes the computer easier to use and permits an external device to become an integrated part of the desktop experience means that overall computing can be quicker and easier.

What you seem to be unaware of is that there is already software out that allows an administrator to remotely control permissions and software accesses to both Windows and OS X machines in the same network; by no means would adding the iPhone I/O layer to the Apple GUI change that ability. On the other hand, if the Mac users in the environment start demonstrating enhanced productivity, you might want to prepare to accept more Macs into the environment.

I see progress where you seem to think we should stagnate. Maybe I'm wrong about your perceptions, but I think you'll be surprised at how much things will change over this next decade.

Ok, so both posts I responded to were by the same person. Sorry.

 

[KingYaba]

A Touch Dashboard for OS X isn't too far fetched.

There are those on this forum (my self included) who are quite neurotic about finger prints mucking up our screens. While that sounds like a cool idea I'd hate to be wiping my monitor every day. But I guess if it's a glass screen for desktops it wouldn't matter all too much.

 

[cumanzor]

no one's really asking you to.

arn

Ha, ok..... but you to accept the reality that computers are not only used for email and web browsing. The bigger part of the market use their computers for work, as he mentioned; CAD, programming, extended typing.... a keyboard and a mouse are still more suitable for these activities than a touch screen.

For an "internet/entertainment appliance", sure I'd love one. Is it going to replace our current parading? Not this decade.

 

[Mcgargle]

This is the WRONG way to do it.

That's one way to look at it, and it's valid. But it's also valid to say that the computer in question is poorly designed.

(It's also valid to say that anybody who thinks you can determine "right way" and "wrong way" by counting key presses and mouse clicks is a frigging loon, but that's neither here nor there.)

Let's start at the beginning. Let's say I have a Gmail account, and I want to send somebody an email. First, I have to be aware that Gmail is my email provider. That sounds nitpicky, but think about it this way: If I want to make a telephone call, I don't have to consciously remember that Telco Inc. (or whatever) is my telephone service provider. Regardless of who I send my bill to, the phone works precisely the same way.

So first, I have to be all "email = Gmail" in my head. Then I have to remember that Gmail's Web site address is "gmail.com." Not a hard thing to do, for sure, but it's a step.

Then I have to completely jump tracks and be all, "email = Gmail = gmail.com = Web site." (Assume I'm not using Mail or Mailplane or some other dedicated application; I'm using your example for this.) Once I get to this step, I have to make the connection that "Web site = Safari." Except it's not that simple, because maybe it's not Safari I should be looking for. Maybe it's Firefox or whatever. So it's really "Web site = Web browser = browser of choice," which for sake of argument we'll say is Safari.

Okay. Now I've gone through the thought process that takes me from "I want to send an email" to "let me click this icon that's totally unrelated in every way to email, because that's what's necessary to get me to the email-sending screen."

But wait! I'm not done! I mean, unless I've gone out of my way to configure my browser-of-choice to show me Gmail automatically when it opens (which is an option, of course), I have to get to Gmail somehow. How do I do that? Do I type in "gmail.com" in the little boxy thing? Do I type "gmail" or "gmail.com" or "google mail" in the other little boxy thing? Or did I preconfigure my browser to have a Gmail … um …*thingy. Bookmark, shortcut, whatever it's called in this particular browser.

Whichever one of those I choose, I'm finally at Gmail, and I can finally hit the "compose mail" thingy.

None of these things is difficult. But of all those discrete steps, precisely zero are related in any way to "send," "mail," the identity of the person to whom you want to send the mail, or the content of the mail you intend to send. It's all very over-the-river-and-through-the-woods, when all I want to see Grandma.

Again, compare it to a telephone. In the old days, it was "find or remember number, find phone, dial number." You had to have the number, and you had to have access to a phone, but it was still fewer discrete steps. Today it's more often "remove phone from pocket, locate friend's name in list." That's two fewer steps: You don't have to deal with phone numbers directly, and you don't have to go out of your way to locate and negotiate for the use of a telephone. Unless you've lost yours, obviously, but whatever.

My point: When you want to make a phone call, every action you perform that's not talking on the phone to your friend is a wasted action. Maybe a necessary one, but wasted nonetheless, because you're not doing what you intend to do. You're preparing to do what you intend to do. We should minimize those preparation-type steps.

If you want to send an email, every action that's not "type the email" is a wasted action, and should be minimized.

It's arguably true to say that you use your computer "right" and your wife uses it "wrong," if your criteria for right-and-wrong revolve around counting the clicks or whatever. But it's far more correct to say that both your computer and hers suck, and should be improved to have fewer preparatory steps. The iPhone/iPad model is a good one here; if you want to send (or read) mail, you touch the "mail" icon, and you're there.

Microsoft did one particular thing very, very right back in the day, and it's kind of a shame it didn't work out: They put an icon on the screen that said "Internet." (Admittedly it said "Internet Explorer," but at least they were on the right track.) You want the Internet? Touch the "Internet" icon. That was good. Unfortunately we're still living in an era where people are aware that such things as Web browsers exist, and have (god help us) preferences about them. We haven't gotten away from that nonsense yet, but give us a few years. We'll get there.

 

[guet]

As cool as the iPhone OS is, it's not a full OS. I would need multiple accounts, multitasking, a file system, and a whole lot of other stuff. If Apple decides to go with the iPhone OS and replace Mac OS X with it, they'll have to add all those features. If Apple did add those, I'd take a look, but Apple will have their work cut out for them.

• multiple accounts - already there, but hidden
• multitasking - already there
• a file system - already there, but again hidden
• a whole lot of other stuff - really, what like?

All these things you mention are part of OS X, and therefore part of (as noted above), or trivial to add to, Mobile OS X. What Mobile OS X has which OS X doesn't is a UI layer which scales well down to very small screens, and is appropriately sized/designed for touch interaction (i.e. buttons and widgets are not as small as some on OS X). That's not to say touch would completely replace a keyboard or pointing devices (though it could do away with a mouse easily enough).

I think it's interesting just how close to a full general purpose computer something like an iPhone/iPad is, given all the things they've removed from the UI. Given the direction they're going in with the iPad, I suspect Apple see Mobile OS X as the foundation for a new version of OS X, one without a Finder, menu bars, windows etc. but which is still just as functional as OS X, but in different ways. So for example to access data in Mobile OS X you'd open an app which can act on it, rather than try to find a file in the Finder, and apps take over the entire screen at once, and yet can be quickly swapped between (though I do prefer what Palm have done with Web OS here).

It's an interesting time to be watching OS development, as the mobile space is starting to inform desktop interfaces as well, allowing space for experimentation that just wouldn't be accepted by the majority of desktop users, but the changes you see on the iPhone may well come back to the desktop sooner than we think - Mobile OS X certainly seems to be the focus of Apple's efforts at the moment.

 

[WilliamLondon]

What exactly is this "easier computing paradigm?" As it is, I can control my computer with 4-5 inches of mouse movement of from the 3 inch touchpad. I'm trying to grasp how touching all over a 13-27 inch surface is "easier." Big buttons doesn't mean easier.

Touch does make it easier. IBM did a lot of research in this area for their touch screen devices (POS systems), and the accuracy of touch (and speed) is much greater when the input device is your finger.

 

[cmaier]

Touch does make it easier. IBM did a lot of research in this area for their touch screen devices (POS systems), and the accuracy of touch (and speed) is much greater when the input device is your finger.

There's a huge difference between touching an icon to ring up a Big Mac and the sorts of tasks people with their computers.

 

[Cougarcat]

I could see Apple making a MacBook that had a screen that would wrap around to the back and snap into place, which would cause the iPhone OS to launch. Sort of like a Macbook and iPad all in one.

 

[globalhemp]

AKA "Kiosk"

Using FrontRow to make a slick and easy user interface is great.

Doing the same for Mac OS X? Well, that's what is otherwise known as a Kiosk.

Mac OS X -- Kiosk mode.

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2002/tn2062.html

 

[WilliamLondon]

There's a huge difference between touching an icon to ring up a Big Mac and the sorts of tasks people with their computers.

I think McDonald's systems are simple ECRs (electronic cash registers) from Panasonic, nothing like a top of the line touch-based POS system than can handle more than a BigMac order. That said, many of our interactions with the computer are not any more complex than what is required to input a Big Mac order.

The point is that you interact with the system, and when the OS and applications are written to take advantage of the touch interface, it's quite efficient as a system and the users prefer it and are more accurate and quick with their input. It's not for everything, and don't assume that's what I meant, but for some (many, most?) interactions we have with a computer, touch does the job better than other input devices, and certainly better than the traditional ones.

 

[diabolic]

It's not for everything, and don't assume that's what I meant, but for some (many, most?) interactions we have with a computer, touch does the job better than other input devices, and certainly better than the traditional ones.

I'd even argue that the tasks that require any more precision would only apply to a minority of potential computer users.

 

[cmaier]

I think McDonald's systems are simple ECRs (electronic cash registers) from Panasonic, nothing like a top of the line touch-based POS system than can handle more than a BigMac order. That said, many of our interactions with the computer are not any more complex than what is required to input a Big Mac order.

I don't know about you, but that's certainly not the case for me.

 

[WilliamLondon]

I don't know about you, but that's certainly not the case for me.

Thank you for proving my point - I said, it's not for everyone, though I would argue that without a good (and ubiquitous) touch interface OS which clever UI designers and software developers can exploit (now available on the iPad), even your position that "it's not for me" is weak. Let's see what they can do with it. I can't wait to see what the future holds with this touch paradigm.

 

[manhattanboy]

I think McDonald's systems are simple ECRs

The point is that you interact with the system, and when the OS and applications are written to take advantage of the touch interface, it's quite efficient as a system and the users prefer it and are more accurate and quick with their input.

Well, when I order a sandwhich it's always special order because I do not like things they put on it.
AND it takes them a long time to page through all the options to fix that and then takes them even longer to input the coupon that I am using

 

[JAT]

It gets worse. Have you ever tried to help someone try to edit a file that they just saved? Perhaps a co-worker. So there you are, standing behind them watching them navigate Windows Explorer ... drilling down several folders and back up. Taking 3 minutes to find the file. When the RIGHT way to do this would be to go START>My Recent Documents.

If speed is your issue, then Win, D, Enter is the RIGHT way to get to your latest document. Keyboards have always been faster than mice, if the software allows it. Unfortunately, M$ left out using numbers for the system Recent Documents list, so it's too hard to get to the 5th most recent doc you just saved. That's called bad GUI.

I would love to see OSX add touch capability to screens. But not remove any keyboard/mouse functions. There are many times, esp since I've had an iPod Touch, that I would love to use my finger for certain actions that currently require a mouse. Not all mouse actions, just some, and not every time like on the Touch. Internet would be one. Moving windows another. And, of course, multitouch adds a dynamic that neither the keyboard or mouse can handle.

 

[petsounds]

I've been considering a somewhat similar idea: I predict that the next major revision of the iMac will use the iPhone/iPad OS. I believe Jobs sees the iPad as the opening salvo on computers, and the iMac is the next logical step, given the more casual consumer user base.

 

[iMacThere4Iam]

I've thought about this for a while and it seems pretty clear to me that the future of Mac OS X is the iPhone OS. I personally hope that if this is the case that perhaps aside from the general aesthetics of things that vast changes are made so that it doesn't require the use of a touchscreen computer as using one would obviously get physically tiring.

Agreed. Touchscreen computing on anything much larger than an iPad looks great on Star Trek, but try poking around on an HP TouchSmart display model. It gets old after about 30 seconds.

 

[kdarling]

Agreed. Touchscreen computing on anything much larger than an iPad looks great on Star Trek, but try poking around on an HP TouchSmart display model. It gets old after about 30 seconds.

Truth. I own two Touchsmarts and a dozen other enterprise touch computers (for development) around the house. The mouse and physical keyboard are still quite popular with them.

Just the other day my daughter and I were playing Bejeweled, and we did use the touchscreen to play it as a team. After I left, she went back to using the mouse... she said it was less tiring.

I used to develop casino gaming machines with touchscreens, but that only worked because we also built in a ledge to put your elbow on. Otherwise it'd be way too tiring.

Someone mentioned that kinetic scrolling was "natural". It's actually a poor substitute for a scrollbar when you want to move quickly to a spot, especially one far down a document. The iPhone sucks at reading large PDFs or long forum webpages.

As for Star Trek, who in their right mind uses a touch interface for navigation and weapons controls on a ship where you have to constantly hold onto those same control surfaces because the ship rocks back and forth so much under attack? Worst UI idea ever.

All that said, I'd love for Apple to make a really nice kitchen computer.

 

[Vulpinemac]

If speed is your issue, then Win, D, Enter is the RIGHT way to get to your latest document. Keyboards have always been faster than mice, if the software allows it. Unfortunately, M$ left out using numbers for the system Recent Documents list, so it's too hard to get to the 5th most recent doc you just saved. That's called bad GUI.

While those three keystrokes are definitely faster, they are by no means 'easier'; the user has to learn and memorize the pattern because it is certainly not 'instinctive.' On the other hand, pointing is instinctive; using hand gestures is instinctive; just watch people as they talk and try to describe something or give directions; it's pointing, gesturing and overall moving of the hands--not an object. Simply put, the mouse came out as a means to translate the movement of the hand into a readable input to the computer. You really can't say that a mouse is 'natural.'

Neither are keyboards more natural than mice--in fact, the opposite is true. Yes, they're faster--especially if you're a touch-typist--but not instinctive; not natural. Of course, if we didn't have mice to represent our hand gestures, we'd still be locked into a text-only interface, not a graphical one.

I would love to see OSX add touch capability to screens. But not remove any keyboard/mouse functions. There are many times, esp since I've had an iPod Touch, that I would love to use my finger for certain actions that currently require a mouse. Not all mouse actions, just some, and not every time like on the Touch. Internet would be one. Moving windows another. And, of course, multitouch adds a dynamic that neither the keyboard or mouse can handle.

And this is where you fail to understand the potentials. What's faster than typing? Talking. When the capability comes around to truly use voice input combined with gestures, as seen in Star Trek: TNG and elsewhere, the keyboard, even virtual, could well vanish forever, except where possibly needed to reset or re-initialize a voice-activated system. You're right that touch can take control far beyond what a mouse will ever do, but voice, rather than keyboards, will likely become the standard for text input before too much longer.

Oh, I know -- almost 15 years ago both PCs and Macs were touting voice-control capabilities; what happened to them? Well, we do have a few voice-control apps, but they are not an integral part of the OS. We have voice output, but as yet they don't sound natural enough for everyday use. In fact, the best voice output systems in computing today still rely on a human recording syllables and sounds for the Voice Response Units used in almost every enterprise. These systems are learning, but their responses are still a recorded human voice. We're just not there yet.

 

[Vulpinemac]

Truth. I own two Touchsmarts and a dozen other enterprise touch computers (for development) around the house. The mouse and physical keyboard are still quite popular with them.

Just the other day my daughter and I were playing Bejeweled, and we did use the touchscreen to play it as a team. After I left, she went back to using the mouse... she said it was less tiring.

I used to develop casino gaming machines with touchscreens, but that only worked because we also built in a ledge to put your elbow on. Otherwise it'd be way too tiring.

Someone mentioned that kinetic scrolling was "natural". It's actually a poor substitute for a scrollbar when you want to move quickly to a spot, especially one far down a document. The iPhone sucks at reading large PDFs or long forum webpages.

As for Star Trek, who in their right mind uses a touch interface for navigation and weapons controls on a ship where you have to constantly hold onto those same control surfaces because the ship rocks back and forth so much under attack? Worst UI idea ever.

All that said, I'd love for Apple to make a really nice kitchen computer.

Allow me to ask you a new question based on the experiences you reference here:

Had the game been lying at a slight angle on the desktop--say, 30° or so--would she have gone back to the mouse, or would she have been just as comfortable using her finger? You pointed out that the slot machines had a ledge to rest the elbow on; wouldn't it have been just as easy if you could rest your whole arm on it, not just the elbow?

The point is that when you're working with touch, you can't say that touch alone is enough; an engineer has to design the entire package for usability and comfort, something, regretfully, that's too rarely done. Obviously, this is one reason why the HP Touchsmart isn't flying out the doors. Another reason, for HP, is that the OS itself is still not touch-centric; it's still Windows under the hood with an HP touch application riding on top of it to represent the mouse and perform some of the other functions. Of course, you seem to have conveniently forgotten in your description of scrolling that you could touch the scroll bar at the side and either gone directly to that relative point in the document or dragged the scroll button up or down to your desired position--similar, but probably easier than you could with the mouse alone. For touch to work right, the whole environment--hardware and software--has to be touch-centric.

Try imagining the old arcade game Centipede© played with a touch bar on the tabletop screen (like you see now in Buffalo Wild Wings©) for instance. By using touch at the bottom of the screen, reaction time would be significantly faster and scores would go incredibly higher. The same could hold true for Invaders© and any number of other scroll-type games (as compared to joystick games like Dig-Dug©.)

Your thought on the Star Trek navigation and weapons control might have merit--in combat--but fighter pilots in today's latest wire-controlled planes have their arms clamped down to reduce inadvertent input, plus the fact that the plane's computers automatically damp down excessive control input to what the pilot can handle. Granted, it can't eliminate inertial reactions entirely, but the concept would work just as well on a starship as it does on a fighter plane. When not in combat, the clamps could retract into the arms of their control seats, allowing for broader access to less combat-essential controls. Science Fiction only points a direction, it doesn't set rules in stone.

 

[Mcgargle]

What's faster than typing? Talking.

Sometimes. Talking is faster than typing when the person who's listening knows what you're on about. We've all had the experience where we're working in close collaboration with someone and we say, "Hand me that thing?" and we get precisely what we wanted. But that's a special case. Cause we've also all had the experience of trying as hard as possible to schedule a dentist's appointment, or dispute a credit card charge, or report a utility outage only to find that the person on the other end was apparently raised by wolves and only learned English from reading the backs of cereal boxes.

A voice interface depends on two things: the ability to break down audio input into recognizable commands regardless of background noise, a head cold or a mouthful of Doritos; and the ability to know what the hell the ugly-bag-of-mostly-water wants now. We've seen improvements in the first area over the past couple decades, but that second part remains elusive.

Go to Youtube and google up a demo called "Put That There." It's thirty years old, and shows a hybrid speech/gestural interface concept that seemed awfully neat at the time. The research never went anywhere, not only because the whole system, while cool, was clunky and impractical, but also because it was so incredibly limited. It was one thing to imagine teaching the machine to understand a vast vocabulary of commands, but it was another thing entirely to contemplate ways to get around the inherent ambiguity of human speech.

Plus, speech interaction often pales in comparison to direct manipulation. How do you crop a photo through a speech interface? "A little wider. A little more. No, too wide. Oh, bugger." It's much easier just to reach out and grab the dang thing. So if you only can have one, choose touch. (Not that we necessary can only have one, but right now we basically have neither, so we have to pick which one to develop first. The one that's more beneficial wins.)

The challenge posed by ubiquitous touch, though, is one of decades of ingrained habit. I was born in the early 1970s, so I'm not exactly an old guy. My family got our first home computer when I was in my teens, and it was an adjustment. What we had was little more than a glorified word processor, but getting into the habit of writing school papers by sitting at a desk in an upright posture and typing while looking straight ahead at a screen was difficult at first. My body was used to a different posture, and I was accustomed to looking down at a piece of paper as I wrote with a pen.

By the time I was out of college, I'd fully adapted to the desktop computer way of working … just in time for laptops to come along. It was quite a while before I got used to having a screen so close to my hands. I used to get a sore neck from looking down at the laptop screen instead of straight head at the CRT. But again, it was just a matter of changing habits.

Maybe thirty years from now, we'll all be used to using handheld pad-style devices the way we often use laptops now, and larger desktop-sized devices with touch interfaces where we use desktop computers now. Maybe not; maybe the normal interaction models will be based on something none of us have imagined yet. Remember in the 80s, when it was almost a given that in the future we'd all be wearing stylish, lightweight, unobtrusive virtual reality glasses all the time? That didn't pan out, but who knows. Maybe it'll make a comeback.

My point is simply that we don't have to go back very far in time to see that "this sucks because it's different" isn't a good way to judge how things will evolve in the future. We went from goose quills and ink pots to typewriters to desktop computers to laptop computers, and it's not at all easy to predict where we'll go from here. It's fine to look at a given interaction model and be skeptical, but it's kind of foolish to dismiss anything out of hand. The future has this nasty habit of surprising us.

 

[fox10078]

Its logical to think, I mean magic mouse, the track pad on the laptops, all quite capable for multi-touch.

 

[dtreese]

I suspect that most folks that post on this forum have a high degree of tech-saavy ... at least the ones that are getting heated up on this particular topic. So I'm gonna guess that most of us have watched someone else use a computer, surf the web, program their smartphones, etc. So I'm thinking that I'm not alone in the belief that most people don't know how to "properly" use a computer or any electronic device in general.

You recognize this later in your post, but this statement comes from you thinking like an engineer. You see one best way to skin a cat and find it aggravating when people use other techniques.

What Jobs et al recognized with the Mac is that there is one way to skin the cat that is most efficient, but perhaps not everyone has the time, talent or patience to use that technique. Nevertheless, if they can skin the cat some other way, the cat still winds up dead.

Now, an engineer might consider it inelegant and limiting to create a cat-skinning box for those without the know-how to do it manually, especially if the cat-skinning box can't multitask while it's skinning the cat. Nevertheless, if there's a huge market base of people who don't know how to skin cats but want to skin them, then that cat-skinning box could sell well. And if those people don't know how to skin a cat, they probably won't mind the extra step of opening the box to find out whether or not the cat is dead.

That said, I'm not suggesting that iPhone OS is a good idea for a desktop PC -- I find it frustrating that my multitasking abilities are limited if I'm trying to use my iPod touch like a portable pc. I'm just suggesting that there is a new interface technology with some great opportunities to revolutionize computing if it's used creatively, and maybe instead of trying to bolt the tech onto an OS architecture that's lasted more than a decade, it's a good time to rework things from the ground up. I intentionally did NOT suggest that iPhone OS should be a new PC OS, because I would throw that machine off a high-story building.