> Clicking a menu item, or even better, knowing the keyboard shortcut, is the most superior method of getting shit done
That is certainly true on general purpose computers (those running a standard Windows, macOS or Desktop Linux distro).
But most special purpose computers do not have a keyboard and a mouse. For example:
- a hospital sonography station has a screen, a lot of quick access function keys, a trackball for moving a crosshair, lots of sliders for adjusting things, etc.
- a cashier desk has a barcode scanner with a trigger and a num pad for manually entering codes
- a musician might use a (musical) keyboard, and a mixing board with lots of knobs and sliders
There are a lot of input devices that are a lot better for special purposes like a mouse and keyboard.
The magic of touch is that you can simulate specialized user interfaces for a lot of things. Just look at those DJ apps for the iPad! They have a pretty sweet interface that would be really hard to implement with mouse and keyboard.
So I don't think that mouse/keyboard is the ultimate input device combo. I haven't seen anything better for programming yet, but who knows, maybe some day someone comes up with an idea that works better than traditional windows + menus + buttons.
Re:iOS Menu
by exergy on Saturday January 05, 2019 @10:22AM
(#18832036)
I think calling a sonography station a 'personal computer' is a bit of a reach. The discussion here, at least from my end, is firmly whether the iPad is enough of a computer to justify owning it to the exclusion of other computers.
That is certainly true on general purpose computers (those running a standard Windows, macOS or Desktop Linux distro).
But most special purpose computers do not have a keyboard and a mouse. For example:
- a hospital sonography station has a screen, a lot of quick access function keys, a trackball for moving a crosshair, lots of sliders for adjusting things, etc.
- a cashier desk has a barcode scanner with a trigger and a num pad for manually entering codes
- a musician might use a (musical) keyboard, and a mixing board with lots of knobs and sliders
There are a lot of input devices that are a lot better for special purposes like a mouse and keyboard.
The magic of touch is that you can simulate specialized user interfaces for a lot of things. Just look at those DJ apps for the iPad! They have a pretty sweet interface that would be really hard to implement with mouse and keyboard.
So I don't think that mouse/keyboard is the ultimate input device combo. I haven't seen anything better for programming yet, but who knows, maybe some day someone comes up with an idea that works better than traditional windows + menus + buttons.