

Windows 7? We already hate it. - fromedome
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/microsoft_windows_7_we_already_hate_it

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karzeem
Adding multi-touch to PC screens without reinventing the form factor is one of
those visions of the future that our grandchildren will chuckle about. It
reminds me of a cartoon I saw from 1900, depicting a classroom of the year
2000. Presciently, the students had access to any book ever printed—there was
a huge machine with a tube that spit out the requested book.

Multi-touch will almost certainly work its way into larger-than-iPhone form
factors. But just as certainly, they will have to be different than the ones
we're used to.

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axod
I think a laptop would work with the bottom half (Where there is currently a
keyboard + trackpad), as a second LCD which is touch sensitive.

The default arangement could be to simply have a keyboard displayed on the
bottom half, with a trackpad area, but then with other apps you might want to
manipulate graphics, or paint, or do other cool stuff on that bottom area.

It'd take a little while to get used to non moving keys, but typing on the
iPhone is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, and I'm sure there are
technologies that could give some sort of little feedback to the fingers.

(This sounds quite like an enlarged Nintendo DS really).

That way also, you get one clean LCD, and a separate one that gets a little
dirty from fingers, and has to be cleaned. Seems a good plan to me.

~~~
abas
Another possibility would be to have a smaller area, like a touch pad, that
corresponded to the screen. Wouldn't be great for detail work, but would save
space and cost and I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to get used to doing
multitouch stuff on it.

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jdanieli
I believe apple has something similar to this in the case that they have a
multi-touch track pad which can recognize some multi-touch commands. I'm not
sure to what extent you can use it for though. (of course, macs still have the
keyboard.)

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josefresco
Here we are TWO+ years out from Windows 7 and you already have bloggers and
various websites bashing it.

MS will never win.

How about this, just by reading the headline "Windows 7? We already hate it."
I chose not to read the article because I knew it would contain useless/troll-
like/flame bait. How's that for jumping to conclusions?

~~~
brandonkm
Yea, wayyy to early to hate on windows 7. I think peoples existing hate for
vista is to blame here.

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mattmaroon
And their pre-existing general loathing for Microsoft.

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TrevorJ
I think multitouch is a decent thing to put into an OS if only as a stepping
stone to later form factors. Sure, it isn't so hot now, but you can at least
give hardware manufacturers reason to look at making computers that can
leverage the feature more effectively. Trains need track, and tracks are only
good for trains, but ya gotta start someplace.

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astine
It strikes me that this is the kind of feature that you can safely ignore if
you don't want to use it. I suspect that touch surfaces will increase in
popularity over the next few years, at least amongst certain user groups and
having the OS accommodate these devices can only be a good thing. It's not as
if you will be required to use it.

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rewind
Don't like the touch features? Don't use them. It's not like the OS won't work
just fine with a keyboard and mouse. Not liking Windows 7 because of a feature
you won't even use is like me not liking Office because I only use Word and
Excel but not Access. Windows 7 won't force you to use that feature any more
than using Word and Excel forces me to use Access.

And on a slightly separate note, I'm pretty curious to see how this actually
works. I use a multi-monitor setup, as I'm sure a lot of developers do, and
I'm curious to see what it would be like to, for example, use my left index
finger to quickly flick windows out of the way while using the mouse for
specific activity. Or even just doing some basic stuff with touching with both
hands to reduce the repetitive use of the right hand on the mouse all the
time. I'm more than willing to give this a chance.

It took me ages to use the scroll wheel in my mouse instead of pointing-and-
clicking on scrollbars, but once I did, I couldn't believe I waited so long to
get into the habit.

A lot of people probably thought the mouse was a dumb idea when they were just
using DOS. I doubt many of them would give up the mouse now. The uses for
touch may not be obvious now, but once it's available, you may see very novel
uses for it that people aren't thinking about now because it's not a standard
feature. Just give it a chance. No one is ever going to force you to use it
(just like you can still use a graphical OS without using a mouse if you
really want to).

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Hoff
Dear Microsoft,

Please shut up about Windows 7. That's so far into the future that any
discussion of its features and capabilities is entirely meaningless.

As for Windows 7, please go implement things that are interesting and elegant
and useful and desirable, and -- when your set of features is mostly baked and
mostly ready to ship -- then and only then tell me about it.

Finger-smudge-covered displays and tablets are useful, but far from cool or
original.

Sure, do copy the cool stuff from other platforms. We know you want to. But
you better have some fresh new tools and toys; the new features and tools that
make me or any other customer want to drool over and buy and use your
platform.

And for those few moments while you're not busy working on Windows 7 coolness
and getting set to rock my world, how about fixing the mess that is the Vista
ecosystem?

Using a Windows PC is somewhere between unpleasant and frustrating. This due
to the mess that is modern PC design, adware, malware, bloatware, buggy
software, proprietary formats and the rest of the stack. Make some room for
your partners, too.

Oh, and this little Vista mishap will arrive fully fixed and solid and ready
for production in Windows 7, too, right?

Thanks.

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seren6ipity
Pic here -
[http://www.appscout.com/2008/05/windows_7_multitouch_feature...](http://www.appscout.com/2008/05/windows_7_multitouch_features.php)

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manvsmachine
I agree that I wouldn't want be touching my laptop / desktop screen. But,
assuming that the cost of of LCD glass continues to drop as a reasonable rate,
I could see the custom-building crowd using it to make their own Surface-like
tabletop computers. At least that's what I would do.

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initself
Talking about Windows is so very tiring. I just want the most efficient
computing experience possible, but they're not going to give that to me.

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yaj
Probably not a standard monitor. Maybe they are targeting something like
Microsoft Surface?

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andrewfong
The Surface team contributed but it's meant for a wider range of devices. The
demo was running on a Dell tablet.

