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General discussion

Beware of "Gorilla Arm"

Sep 3, 2014 8:10PM PDT
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html
"The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s.....humans aren't designed to hold their arms in front of their faces making small motions..... the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized,.... looks like a gorilla while using the touch screen and feels like one afterwards."

One reason Apple dropped "touch screens" for anything other than small items. Microsoft failed to heed this.

Apple's new MacBook Air borrows a lot of
things from the iPad, including hyperportability and instant-on flash
storage. But the Air won't use an iPad-like touchscreen. Neither will
any of Apple's laptops. That's because of what designers call "gorilla
arm."
And while Apple points to its own research on this problem, it's a
widely recognized issue that touchscreen researchers have known about
for decades.
"We've done tons of user testing on this," Steve Jobs said in
Wednesday's press conference, "and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch
surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo, but after a
short period of time you start to fatigue, and after an extended period
of time, your arm wants to fall off."


So, maybe "Metro Interface" should instead have been named "Gorilla Arm Interface" when combined with a touchscreen on laptop and larger?

Discussion is locked

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You're confusing a few things
Sep 3, 2014 11:41PM PDT

You're confusing a few things.

First off, aside from the Surface tablets, Microsoft is not a fully vertical supplier like Apple is. So it's a bit disingenuous to blame Microsoft for the likes of HP and Dell coming out with touch screen all-in-ones and just about everyone else piling on the touch screen laptop craze. They had no real control over what kinds of systems customers built.

Second, you can bet your last dollar Microsoft was fully aware of this from the beginning. Microsoft has been working on touch interfaces for a very long time, but most of it never made it out of the R&D labs. Originally what is now called Surface was intended to actually live up to the name. We're talking like a computer desk where the entire surface of the desk is a touch monitor. The major problem with that is it costs tens of thousands of dollars per unit so it wouldn't be profitable to sell.

Third, while tifkam is a bit odd on the desktop, it also is a rather limited and short-sighted view. Tifkam was always intended to be the first step on the road to convergence. For years Microsoft has been working on trying to bring it's phone/tablet, desktop and Xbox versions of Windows under the same roof, so to speak. Most of the under-the-hood changes are in place now and they all use the same OS kernel, meaning now they can start work on the UI side of things.

Here's where you run into a sort of catch-22 situation. People fear change. You look around and probably 99% of complaints about Windows 8 can be boiled down to either people not liking tifkam and/or that Microsoft moved the location of certain items that long-time users had become accustomed to being in a particular place. Oddly enough, as a side note, the much beloved Windows 7 moved a whole lot of things around compared to the also much beloved Windows XP, yet you rarely people complaining about it there, making the whole argument kind of fall flat with resounding thud. Back to the point, a company like Microsoft has two choices. Either A) You can dole it out in small incremental doses to let people gradually get used to the idea or B) you can dump a major change (like say the Windows 95 interface compared to 1.0-3.1). Each option has various pluses and minuses to it and at the end of the day you never know how people are going to react, so you have to make a choice and hope it works out. Any idiot can play Cap'n Hindsight over a year later and say they should have done things differently. Try working with imperfect information and having to do the best you can.

If you took 5-10 minutes to actually learn some of the behind the scene details, it will tend to change your perspective. Of course it also means you'll have to stop being a sycophantic hanger-on if you have any sense of integrity.

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MS with no hardware influence?
Sep 5, 2014 12:47AM PDT
You're confusing a few things.

First off, aside from the Surface tablets, Microsoft is not a fully vertical supplier like Apple is. So it's a bit disingenuous to blame Microsoft for the likes of HP and Dell coming out with touch screen all-in-ones and just about everyone else piling on the touch screen laptop craze. They had no real control over what kinds of systems customers built.


And yet, Microsoft can get almost all the OEM's to put UEFI BIOS on their motherboards, add Secure Boot, add MS license number to the BIOS, all simply by doing nothing and having no influence over what the OEMs do. No real control at all?

Third, while tifkam is a bit odd on the desktop, it also is a rather limited and short-sighted view. Tifkam was always intended to be the first step on the road to convergence.

Typical approach to convergence in any system is gradually moving toward the target, not jumping all the way and then backtracking after the screams begin.

"
If you took 5-10 minutes to actually learn some of the behind the scene details, it will tend to change your perspective. Of course it also means you'll have to stop being a sycophantic hanger-on if you have any sense of integrity."


People don't use their computers behind the scenes, a company should meet THEIR expectations if they want to sell a product to THEM. Actually, behind the scenes is how Apple discovered "Gorilla Arm" and chose NOT to push touch on their vertical screen products. Obviously "behind the scene" was different at Microsoft. "Behind the scene" doesn't seem to be the greatest place to seek understanding.
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So what
Sep 5, 2014 11:29AM PDT

So what does UEFI have to do with touch screens? Come on, lay it on us. I'm sure this will be mind blowing and not just a pathetic attempt at changing the subject by throwing out a red herring. Any moron can use the, "Hey look, a bear!" argument, I feel confident that you are building to something more, so don't keep us in suspense any longer, please!

The BIOS never progressed passed a 16-bit real-mode program. It was slow, decrepit, and holding back progress, like the whole 1024 cylinder limit that required some ugly hacks to get around. As much as possible, every modern OS would bypass it. UEFI isn't perfect, and I'll be among the first to admit that SecureBoot is basically security theater, but at the same time I can't help but notice the distinct lack of any better alternatives coming from you.

The BIOS had to go, every motherboard maker out there would tell you that, so if sticking with the status quo wasn't an option and not UEFI, then what? What is the magic James Denison solution? Enlighten and bedazzle us all with your ready to go solution that you can demonstrate is better than UEFI in all, or at least nearly all, possible use cases. Don't be shy now, lay it on us. Where is your solution that is ready to go as soon as motherboard makers can ink a deal with a fab factory to produce the chips? And why didn't you speak up earlier? The industry would have beaten a path to your door with big bags of money. You could have made company reps fight to the death on your front lawn to decide whose money you take! Talk about a pay-per-view event of a lifetime!

On the convergence topic: Spoken like someone who has not even the slightest clue about software engineering... Or marketing... Which is continued on to the next segment of your post.

How exactly do you think it happens that software is made? Is it something like this rendition of a washing machine?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab3jA286BzI

Do you think software just kind of magically appears ready made? Do you have any conception of the amount of work that goes into creating even something as relatively simple as Notepad? Clearly you don't. Without those "behind the scenes" changes, all of the visible features wouldn't be possible.

But again, I see we've come full circle and are back to the "Hey look, a bear!" argument. Microsoft isn't making any of the OEMs produce touch screen stuff. It's in Windows to support Microsoft's efforts at tablets, from the old stylus based monstrosities to the current Surface tablets and Nokia phones. If Toshiba, Dell, HP and the rest think that they can leverage that for their own financial benefit, it's not like MS has much ability to stop them.

Let's put it this way. You have the testimony of a dead CEO of a company that is admittedly known for its designs. I have millions of touchscreen laptops and all-in-ones that have been sold over a several year span. The market has spoken and it would beg to differ with Steve's assessment. Companies wouldn't keep building these things if they weren't selling. It increases the cost of manufacturing, so with margins as thin as they are on PCs, you can bet managers at all the major PC companies were watching sales figures very closely and would not have hesitated to dump the more expensive touch panels if the sales numbers didn't justify keeping them.

It might do you some good to take a few business classes at a local community college. It would help you better understand how large companies actually operate and dispel some of these cockeyed conspiracy theories you seem to have. While you're there, maybe take an intro to programming class. It'll at least give you a small taste of what it's like to write computer software and provide you with the foundation you'd need to be able to extrapolate to larger and more complex programs like an operating system.

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It's obvious you are incapable
Sep 5, 2014 11:42AM PDT

of carrying on a decent conversation about anything without pitiful attempts to insult or belittle anyone who disagrees with you, rather than just dealing with the subject matter. I'm just glad I'm not you. I've wondered why these forums have slowed so abysmally in the past couple years. Now I have a fairly good idea what has contributed to it.


"Linux, the other OS"

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Translation: I've got nothing
Sep 6, 2014 12:17AM PDT

Translation: I've got nothing, I was just making an emotional anti-Microsoft outburst.

So to recap, here's a rundown of what your post should have said:

* I have no better alternative to UEFI, I just like to complain about it because it's new and scary
* I don't know about the technical limitations of the BIOS and why it needed to be replaced over a decade ago
* I have nothing to support my claim that UEFI proves Microsoft is behind touch screen laptops/all-in-ones/etc
* I chose to make myself part of a niche market that is not economically viable for motherboard makers and act as if I am being singled out for persecution because of it
* I have absolutely no idea how computers software is created, but don't let it stop me from pontificating on how it should be done
* I do not know the difference between marketing and advertising, but don't let it stop me from making comments that I cannot support factually or logically
* I failed to take into account years worth of data that is plain for anyone to see if they cared to even look regarding the continued availability of touchscreen laptops/all-in-ones and the obvious conclusion that this means they must be selling sufficiently well to justify their continued production
* I have a number of conspiracy theories about how companies like Microsoft operate that I cannot support factually or logically

Finally

* I can dish out the criticisms and nasty ad hominems, but when someone is mean to me I pick up my toys and go home

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you are foolishly repeating yourself
Sep 6, 2014 4:14AM PDT

Ignoring the drivel, I'll point out the obvious Lie.

"* I have nothing to support my claim that UEFI proves Microsoft is behind touch screen laptops/all-in-ones/etc["/i]

I never made any equation between UEFI and touch screen technology. Only you did.

I sort of pity you, although you probably deserve all the rejection in life you must face on a constant basis.

Former Windows User

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Sure you did
Sep 6, 2014 10:14AM PDT

Sure you did.The following is a direct copy and paste from a previous post of yours. Anyone is free to go back and check that I didn't alter it. All I did was tinker with the formatting slightly.

<i>First off, aside from the Surface tablets, Microsoft is not a fully
vertical supplier like Apple is. So it's a bit disingenuous to blame
Microsoft for the likes of HP and Dell coming out with touch screen
all-in-ones and just about everyone else piling on the touch screen
laptop craze. They had no real control over what kinds of systems
customers built. </i>

<b>And yet, Microsoft can get almost all the
OEM's to put UEFI BIOS on their motherboards, add Secure Boot, add MS
license number to the BIOS, all simply by doing nothing and having no
influence over what the OEMs do. No real control at all?</b>

I say how Microsoft doesn't have control over what OEMs do, such as building touchscreen devices. You then tried to claim that Microsoft does have control over what the OEMs do by saying that Microsoft somehow forced computer makers into switching over to UEFI from the BIOS. You also very deliberately quoted me talking about touch screens, you could have simply limited your quote to the last sentence, but you didn't. You were very deliberately trying to make the argument that if Microsoft can force PC makers into using UEFI -- and your whole conspiracy theory about secure boot and the embedded product key being proof is putting the cart way out in front of the horse -- they could then force these same companies into building touchscreen devices.

Now that argument is crumbling around you, along with all the others you couldn't back up, but once again instead of simply admitting that you were in error, you try and walk this one back and rewrite history.... Which doesn't work so well when people can just look a few posts up and see exactly what you said, or I can post it again for those too lazy.

You know what really "seals the deal" so to speak? The fact that you couldn't resist adding that insult at the end. That is your subconscious mind's way of dealing with the guilt of your attempted deceit. You've created this elaborate fantasy in your mind where you're the one who's being persecuted and that people are stalking you -- on a public forum, that you voluntarily come to multiple times a day. The very simple reality of it all is that you bring it on yourself with comments like the second to last line of your post. If you can't handle someone hurling insults back to you just as good, or better, than you give them, that should tell you something. Like maybe you should make liberal use of the delete and/or backspace keys the next time you feel like insulting someone.

I know it's kind of a "thing" for people to say someone should seek professional help on web forums, but being absolutely 100% genuine here: your increasing levels of paranoia over trivial things means either you're just hamming it up in an effort to get pity from others or it's the early sign of a psychotic disorder which, left untreated, could make you a danger to yourself and those around you like family. If you genuinely believe that you are being deliberately persecuted, again being absolutely 100% sincere, you should seek out immediate help.

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again, you proved what I said was true
Sep 6, 2014 11:49AM PDT

I never equated UEFI with touch screens. I don't know why you keep obsessing on it, especially as you seem intelligent enough to recognize I never made any such comparison.

As for the rest of your blather;

ROFL!

PS - quit stalking me.