Re: OS X is ten years old today
On 26/03/2011, at 1:21 AM, Nathan Sims wrote: On Mar 25, 2011, at 12:17 AM, Ashley Aitken wrote: I'm not one for visual programming (laying out code pieces) though, I would welcome this as an adjunct, to be able to pull up a .m class file and have it represented graphically -- each method displayed as a block that can be moved about within the file by touch, with arrows connecting what gets invoked where and by whom. Great for understanding your code flow, and would beat copying / dragging / pasting text. Yes, I think you've suggested one area where multi-touch could be useful. I've always like different levels of abstraction, so perhaps we can represent an app like that as well, and use multi-touch to delve deeper into particular areas of an app. I was specifically referring to those systems where you graphically drag a for-loop and similar to construct low-level algorithms - ok for teaching, inefficient for real developers. But I agree, you'll have to take my keyboard from my cold dead hands... Sounds like a good slogan for the NKS (National Keyboard Association) ;-) Cheers, Ashley. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On 26/03/2011, at 2:43 AM, st...@paper-ape.com wrote: it seems like it will take a whole new paradigm, not just a simulated typewriter keyboard, to make a touchscreen more efficient for writing or coding than a physical keyboard Yes, you could be right there - perhaps multi-touch and (infinitely better) voice. I think they will also do amazing things with multi-touch and simulated keyboards in the future. I imagine a wedge-shaped computer with a very large glass multi-touch surface / display. That said, the proposed machines could have an integrated keyboard, something like a MacBook Air with the screen pushed back until it was almost flat. i also feel it's more ergonomic to have the display at nose height and the hands at waist height; i don't know how we're going to get around that -- grow eyes in our chests? cross-breed with swans? I'm no ergonomic expert but I think of the many people who've worked as technical drawers on a slanted desk, looking down, for many years. And what about reading a book at a desk, we don't usually lift it up to eye-level. As long as you can rest your elbows on the multi-touch screen, and even your hands, and they get appropriately ignored, then I think it may be very similar to the technical drawing set-up. I wonder if that was ergonomically good or bad. Cheers, Ashley. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On 26 Mar 2011, at 06:13, Ashley Aitken wrote: I'm no ergonomic expert but I think of the many people who've worked as technical drawers on a slanted desk, looking down, for many years. And what about reading a book at a desk, we don't usually lift it up to eye-level. As long as you can rest your elbows on the multi-touch screen, and even your hands, and they get appropriately ignored, then I think it may be very similar to the technical drawing set-up. I wonder if that was ergonomically good or bad. I for one think that would be great. Now sorry if I'm repeating what people have already said... As long as one can keep the spine fairly straight and change positions occasionally it might be secondary to the nature of the work. If you're drawing a life model you sit with the paper in front of you almost vertical, and you're holding you arm out all the time, but it is so you can step back more easily from your drawing and glance between your drawing and the model, with both on the same plane. And don't artists pin their iPads to the easel in a similar way? Technical drawing boards can go from horizontal to vertical and I think most opt for somewhere in the middle, perhaps so that all parts of the large sheet can be reached more easily with your hands and drawing instruments. I find book reading a real chore on big vertical screens and will opt for the iPad Kindle app instead of the desktop app even when it is already open on the desktop. I think that has something to do with reducing the visual background of other distracting objects -- holding the iPad close to my face, like leaning over a slanted book, hides from view most other objects, which allows me to enter the book's world better. The iA Writer app for iPad tries to do something similar, by removing distractions. Maybe this is why physical keyboards work better for writing -- when writing the focus is really on the stream of thoughts in the brain, and perhaps images, and a physical keyboard allows the body and fingers to do the task of finding the keys, like writing with a pen, or like walking while talking, whereas the iPad requires much more accurate visual focus to find the keys, and I suspect that the extra visual effort detracts from the thinking process. Anyway I'm not expert this is just my own introspections. The mouse is also good for being able to cover a large area of screen very quickly with acceleration. But if I'm going to stay consistent with my own argument, when I reach for the mouse, say to reposition the cursor back a few paragraphs, there's a frantic grab, swing, oops too far... back...oops too far.. back.. er.. ok slowly, ok, click -- and although we're used to it, it is a rather intensive visual hand eye coordination task, and I'm not aware of thinking anything else whilst doing it. So it really interrupts everything, albeit briefly, but regularly. So imagining a 30 tablet, I think it would be like a drawing board, with adjustable stool height, and adjustable angle, so that you can reach all parts of it to suit your own body frame, and how tired or alert you are, and where you happen to be aching. Like drawing boards, they can sit propped up on desks, or they can be VESA mounted to a stand. It would know what fingers look like, just like multi-touch does now, and ignore your arm leaning on it, as you say. It would ignore your coffee cup sitting on it. And yes it would ignore your camera too, because Microsoft got that wrong. Sitting on something is just an inert activity. It's not supposed to mean anything, unless you're sitting on someone's lap. You don't want to accidentally download all your garget's contents to the large 40 screen in the room, just because you happened to leave it sitting on a dull-gray but active surface. On the 30 tablet imagine every app is multi-touch. Now let's try to think of an app where a mouse would still be faster... ok, now imagine that the mouse itself is a multi-touch widget on the 30 screen. A virtual mouse. Does that satisfy the remaining need for speed? How about a whole collection of different kinds of widgets for say, entering co-rodinates (often on CAD you have to type co-ordinates -- it is just faster than using a mouse) or for picking colours, etc. So, mouse is dead. Typing seems to be the main problem. Assume that voice input will stay weak... or just antisocial in a crowded office. Well ok you can have a physical keyboard sitting on your 30 tablet, along with your coffee cup. Why not? Or maybe handwriting recognition will improve and you can write on your 30 tablet with a stylus. Or some combination of all of these. As long as you can adjust the angle between say, 0º and 90º, and lean on the tablet itself, without confusing the poor thing, and lean your other items on it too, then I'd be quite happy with an iDesk. Ergonomically I think vertical screens are a disaster -- at least for me. If the
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On Mar 26, 2011, at 0:13, Ashley Aitken mrhat...@mac.com wrote: I'm no ergonomic expert but I think of the many people who've worked as technical drawers on a slanted desk, looking down, for many years Professional desks for drafting are slanted up at an adjustable angle, from flat to nearly vertical. Sitting at a desk looking down all the time is a bad thing, especially if you a doing something like reading. Even old typesetter boxes were placed at a 45* angle. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
[I did read the whole post, but easier for me to quote less on the iPad] On Mar 26, 2011, at 4:51, Stefano Mori stefano.m...@zen.co.uk wrote: Typing seems to be the main problem. Typing is the big barrier to changing the input method wholesale. First off, voice will never replace typing for two reasons: for most people, typing is faster than speaking and second, talking all day is difficult and tiring. There is also the fact that even the human brain is not a perfect processor of speak (how often do you misheard something?) so it is unlikely that computers will ever be able to process speech well enough to replace a keyboard. That said, there are better keyboards. For example, a chorded keyboard allows very fast input using only one hand. The trouble is just the traction that the QWERTY keyboard has. I see the future as being a combination of keyboard, touch, and physical pointer (mouse-a-like), because they all have their individual strengths. I notice with the Magic Trackpad that dragging items is a pain in the butt and I will use the 'mouse' with the physical button when I need to drag items. Selecting precisely is also a lot easier. But the gestures on the trackpad make using it lovely for Safari, iPhoto, and Exposé. Probably other things as well. Oh, yes, mail reading as well where the three finger swipe moves me to the next message. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 12:01, LuKreme krem...@kreme.com wrote: There is also the fact that even the human brain is not a perfect processor of speak (how often do you misheard something?) [...] This was too perfect to pass up ;-) Back on topic... I doubt an iOS desktop would drop a physical keyboard. Even the iPad has the keyboard dock as an option. (Does the old one still work with the iPad 2? Has there been an updated dock?) Maybe by the time this becomes an issue we'll have a reliable neural interface. -- arno s hautala /-| a...@alum.wpi.edu pgp b2c9d448 ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
Planned obsolescence is the old term for what y'all are writing about. Another example is the tight restriction on memory expansion: always just slightly more than standard so you will have to keep buying new machine. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
I would like an iMac if it weren't on that rigid stand, if I could position it where I want it today and move it tomorrow. A giant iPad with lots of connectors for mouse, keyboard, TV tuner, comm devices, etc, but not on the back where they make it hard to lay it on something. With WiMax built in, easily tunable to the various wireless internet providers. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On Mar 25, 2011, at 8:37 PM, Michael_google gmail_Gersten wrote: Also, with no OS X Lion Server release, and with the XServe and XServe RAID long dead, Apple's focus on any sort of business market seems to have gone out the window (not that they ever really had much of one to begin with...) though there could always be some surprises with Apple cloud services in the future. The times, they are a changin'. Business services? I would never, ever recommend to any business that they rely on Apple supplied functionality for their product. Not given the complete death-kill of all their database / web services. DBKit EOF Web Objects Full Objective C access for Java First class native citizenship for Java (Heck, decent graphics performance on Java) Direct to Web Direct to Java Client WebObjects and Direct To Web are still going strong, btw. WebObjects has in no way been abandoned by Apple. -- Mark ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On 2011-03-26 11:35 , William Ehrich wrote: I would like an iMac if it weren't on that rigid stand, if I could position it where I want it today and move it tomorrow. get a Mini and tape it to the back of any display ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On Mar 26, 2011, at 6:27 PM, st...@paper-ape.com wrote: On 2011-03-26 11:35 , William Ehrich wrote: I would like an iMac if it weren't on that rigid stand, if I could position it where I want it today and move it tomorrow. get a Mini and tape it to the back of any display Or use a VESA mount adaptor kit for the iMac and mount it however you want. -- Mark ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
If you mean on your desk? Stick it on a moveable arm. The Armatron units should hold the weight (depending on the model of both). I use one and it’s great) On Mar 26, 2011, at 1:35 PM, William Ehrich wrote: I would like an iMac if it weren't on that rigid stand, if I could position it where I want it today and move it tomorrow. A giant iPad with lots of connectors for mouse, keyboard, TV tuner, comm devices, etc, but not on the back where they make it hard to lay it on something. With WiMax built in, easily tunable to the various wireless internet providers. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
Re: OS X is ten years old today
On Mar 25, 2011, at 10:06 PM, Matt Penna wrote: On Mar 25, 2011, at 9:54 PM, Jean-Christophe Helary wrote: Also, with no OS X Lion Server release, I thought Lion Server was included in the Lion release ? That's what Apple says isn't it ? Just to be clear (and I realize now that my phrasing was too ambiguous), I was referring to the lack of Lion Server as a distinct, separate product. I do not have access to the beta, so I don't have any knowledge of what the integrated server components look like right now. For all I know, it could be even better than having a separate product (and I am already of the opinion that in some ways, it is). There is no question from the link he’s given that it is included with the Lion product. How is NDA and only available to developers who have agreed to that. Having it as a separate product (more expensive at that) seems less of a win than this. This seems like an improvement to me. And in one step simplifies the product line even further. ___ MacOSX-talk mailing list MacOSX-talk@omnigroup.com http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-talk
