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Phil Schiller Says Apple Tested and Rejected Touch Screen Macs, Finding It 'Absurd' on a Desktop

thealkimist said:
The most important thing is cost-benefit analysis in this scenario, both economically as well as user-oriented. It isn't worth it even if there are some 'useful' scenarios. You're not getting a lot from it with the price you'd have to pay.

Proof of this statement? I assure you Apple has one of the most advanced teams and labs that experiments with myriads of design and technology implementations. Their ability to rapidly prototype is rarely matched in the product world. The process of design never has a consistent cadence when you take it seriously.
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Sometimes there is no use for a cost-benefit analysis. As our now dead great leader once said, "people want a faster horse, not a car." You cannot bring new things to market by doing a cost-benefit analysis; the analysis will never work out. The iPad would never have survived a CBA. The iPhone never would have survived it either. Unibody aluminum enclosures wouldn't make the cut either. Making your own chips. Making our own OS. Making your own phone. None of those would survive a real cost-benefit analysis.

From everything I've read their design team is 12-15 people big. A team like that has been shown to suffer from groupthink by multiple studies, and that make for fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand how teams work. Your blind faith in Apple's design process, if shared by Apple, shows the trap that designers and teams can fall into. There are things you can determine a priori, and there are some things you can only discover when you release it into the wild.
 
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This is Phil's Steve Ballmer moment. The only problem is we don't have him on video saying it. Ballmer claimed the iPhone was going to flop because it cost so much.

Schiller claims there is no need for touch screen computers because it doesn't work when Microsoft has already shown it can.
 
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MacsRuleOthersDrool said:
And in "Drafting Table" mode, not only your hands, but your ENTIRE ARM has to be suspended OVER THE SCREEN in a MOST-UNNATURAL POSITION.

My shoulders and arms ache just THINKING about the Surface Studio. That's probably why you haven't seen any advertisements for it.
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So we haven't seen any Microsoft Studio adverts because you believe your arms and shoulders will ache using it?????????

ER, ok...

Just believe in your world where artists and designers and architects and cartoonists and so on and on simply do not exist.
 
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AustinIllini said:
What is it that Steve Jobs said about marketing people running companies?

I seriously am weary of Schiller at the moment.
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Then you can blame Steve Jobs and his infallible judgement for putting these "marketing people" in charge of his company before passing away.

To say Schiller is just a "marketing person" shows you have no clue who he actually is.

Everyone keeps pointing to the Surface Studio. Yes, MS designed a usable touch solution for desktops. One that is very clever. But what are the practical applications? It really only seems practical for drawing. Which is a very small segment. Sitting in drawing mode, for "normal" use seems completely unproductive to me. Forget about holding your arm in the air and getting fatigue. How about reaching across a massive 27" display, regardless of its angle? A mouse can navigate from one end of the screen to the other in just the flick of the wrist, with much less effort and much faster than my arm can.

I think Apples angle here is that they believe the Mac is a tool for GENERAL productivity and work. I do think it wouldn't hurt Apple to make the option for that small segment of artists who need drawing capabilities, but their Wacom products seem to be fulfilling that niche fairly well, and it's not large enough for Apple to chase. MS on the other hand is the under dog now, thus they're able to chase these smaller segments, much like Apple did when THEY were the underdog.
 
nazaar said:
Apple is out of touch with this. HP, MS are doing interesting / useful things with touch screens on desktops. Just because it might be cumbersome to reach up doesn't mean the idea can't evolve.
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The concept can't "evolve" until WE evolve. Into something that can keep it's "arms" in the air for many minutes at a time without tiring.

The problem is, I don't think MS (or really anyone) can write drivers that will successfully do "arm rejection"; so you can lay your sweaty, greasy arms on top of the display, without generating "phantom touches" often enough to be a real annoyance in real life.

So the whole thing fails because we aren't built like the giant Spider in Johnny Quest. It's really just as simple as that.
 
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Phil is completely correct on this one folks. There are a few people with a need/use for full screen touch, but not most users. If you want it that badly, go buy a Surface Studio.
 
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MacsRuleOthersDrool said:
The concept can't "evolve" until WE evolve. Into something that can keep it's "arms" in the air for many minutes at a time without tiring.

The problem is, I don't think MS (or really anyone) can write drivers that will successfully do "arm rejection"; so you can lay your sweaty, greasy arms on top of the display, without generating "phantom touches" often enough to be a real annoyance in real life.

So the whole thing fails because we aren't built like the giant Spider in Johnny Quest. It's really just as simple as that.
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Again ... look at the Surface. There's no arms dangling in the air. They basically combined the laptop and tablet. Apple could definitely do something similar. The arms dangling argument is silly since that problem has already been solved. Also, if that tires you out, maybe hit the gym.


brianvictor7 said:
go buy a Surface Studio.
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@__@
 
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usarioclave said:
Sometimes there is no use for a cost-benefit analysis. As our now dead great leader once said, "people want a faster horse, not a car." You cannot bring new things to market by doing a cost-benefit analysis; the analysis will never work out. The iPad would never have survived a CBA. The iPhone never would have survived it either. Unibody aluminum enclosures wouldn't make the cut either. Making your own chips. Making our own OS. Making your own phone. None of those would survive a real cost-benefit analysis.
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When it comes to big game changers, I couldn't agree with you more. But you're not understanding that this topic is a very specific user experience scenario, where a thorough analytics process is a necessary component to determine the best solution.

usarioclave said:
From everything I've read their design team is 12-15 people big. A team like that has been shown to suffer from groupthink by multiple studies, and that make for fascinating reading for anyone who wants to understand how teams work. Your blind faith in Apple's design process, if shared by Apple, shows the trap that designers and teams can fall into. There are things you can determine a priori, and there are some things you can only discover when you release it into the wild.
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YES, I also agree with this as well and the dangers of being insulated. I am a design practitioner myself and I have plenty of design criticisms of Apple, but this is one issue where they have it right.
 
I agree with Schiller. Optimizing an OS for both touch and cursor leaves an overly compromised experience for both. This isn't a guess; I've used Windows. They did a good job considering the compromise, but it's certainly not ideal.

That said, Apple will now certainly have to work very hard to recapture their future-facing high-ground status with the larger public. I hope that Apple stands by their convictions, but the downside is that people are starting to find Apple's products stale by comparison. However few people actually go out and buy the Surface Studio, and however few people find it to be a compromised experience, people look at the Surface Studio and it *looks* like the future. I would argue that it looks like the future in the same way that sci-fi movie's see-through monitors and minority report gesture-based OSs look like the future – beautiful on screen but highly impractical – but the fact remains... the public loves a good gimmick and they love having their sci-fi dreams realized. I'm no exception. I drew a future incarnation of the iMac a few years ago and it was pretty much a Surface Studio. I have to imagine Apple tried it.

But that leaves a more interesting question... where does Apple go from here? How do they get the same level of techno lust for their computers while staying true to their convictions/taste/testing? What does the next desktop Mac look like (if they release one)?
 
apolloa said:
So we haven't seen any Microsoft Studio adverts because you believe you arms and shoulders will ache using it?????????

ER, ok...

Just believe in your world where artists and designers and architects and cartoonists and so on and on simply do not exist.
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No. Quit being willfully ignorant.

What I meant was that there weren't any advertisements for the Surface Studio because they don't want to SHOW people using it with their arms hovering in mid-air to avoid false-touches.
 
StayPuft said:
Again ... look at the Surface. There's no arms dangling in the air. They basically combined the laptop and tablet. Apple could definitely do something similar. The arms dangling argument is silly since that problem has already been solved. Also, if that tires you out, maybe hit the gym.



@__@
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Hit the gym? Are you serious here or just ignorant of reality? Raise your arm and hold a pencil. See for how long you can do that.
 
Stella said:
Steve jobs is dead.
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Judging from Apple's products the past few years the is true both in reality and in spirit -- though Apple execs are oft to quote him when they are in a bind. As long as Apple depends on Job's legacy products to survive though it's not credible to dismiss Job's mark on the company even years after his passing. Jobs said a lot of things he then backtracked on. But his basic product ethos was dead on and why Apple products were so amazing and exciting and envied by the rest of the industry during his tenure. I was a habitual upgrader. Now I'm in a funk having an impossible time justifying any Apple purchase to replace an old one because it's pretty much the same with a new box.
 
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Ecuadorexpat said:
Doesn't anyone besides me realize that a trackpad is a touchscreen? Sliding a finger across a trackpad before a tap is much more efficient than touching a finger to a screen.

Convergence is docking your smartphone and using that for the trackpad. Whoever develops this first is going to be the next Apple. Convergence will destroy the phone market like the iPad destroyed the pc.

Apple is planting the seeds of its own destruction by failing to realize what the WORLD wants is a cost effective device that runs macOS, not thinner or faster or more innovative.

Just like selling the iPhone 4s at cost plus 10% at end of cycle would have owned the phone market, a $400 hacintosh would own the computer market. But rich guys can never figure this out.
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Do you realize a mouse is faster than a trackpad? A trackpad is not a touchscreen. You can't do 1:1 touch. You have to discern where to press. Yo need to find the pointer and move accordingly. It's not the same.
That is like saying the blackberry ball mouse is the same as the touchscreen on smartphones.
 
Why would anyone want to be limited to what Apple want them to use. I certainly do not.

Touch screen is a great option.

Lenovo did a 27" all one one desktop that ran Windows 8. You could fold it flat and when you did that it transformed into a giant photo viewer and it had 2 pucks that you placed on the screen and you coukd play a game table football.
 
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Phil Schiller - you are a moron. Or more precisely you must think we customers are morons. A far more capable touch screen doesn't work, but a less useful touch bar will?

Anyone with a touch screen notebook knows that you do not use it 100 percent of the time, it's a convenience for when a mouse isn't the best way to do something in an app. Or, if its a convertible, you can use it for a short period of time as a touch device, like when you can't sit at a desk.

A touch screen isn't meant to replace a mouse - not yet anyways. But it gives a notebook more flexibility in how you use it.
 
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Touch bar, smouch bar. I just want the keyboard to not suck, and I'm dubious that it's any better than the predecessor (which I've tried on my wife's machine and don't particularly like).

As for touch screen laptops... We've known that touch interfaces on vertical displays are a bad idea for nearly 30 years now. Just go google "gorilla arm."
 
StayPuft said:
Again ... look at the Surface. There's no arms dangling in the air. They basically combined the laptop and tablet. Apple could definitely do something similar. The arms dangling argument is silly since that problem has already been solved. Also, if that tires you out, maybe hit the gym.



@__@
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Honestly, do you REALLY think that the company that PIONEERED the modern SUCCESSFUL Tablet (and don't talk to me about all those horrible Windows tablets of yore!), AND the first USEABLE Touch-Screen smartphone hasn't REALLY given this a THOROUGH LOOK?!?

Seriously?

They probably have had a touch-screen Mac since the G4 "Sunflower" iMac. In fact, I personally thought they were going to release a touchscreen Mac at THAT time; because that was probably the best design for same, even better than the "computer in a flat-panel monitor" design we have now.
 
MacsRuleOthersDrool said:
No. Quit being willfully ignorant.

What I meant was that there weren't any advertisements for the Surface Studio because they don't want to SHOW people using it with their arms hovering in mid-air to avoid false-touches.
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Their arms are not hovering in the air they are leaning on the screen.

Think palm rejection but for the whole arm.

Artists can lean into their drawing.
 
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Those "horrible" tablets are now the NOT horrible Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book - highly regarded. Microsoft figured it out - or at least they figured out something to build on. Why can't Apple? The touch bar is just a weak attempt at giving touch control to a Mac. Apple half-azzzzed it and they rarely used to before. Recently though...
 
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