> Using a map with a touch screen is incredibly intuitive compared to a mouse. (I cannot imagine using sliders or other "physical" interfaces)

What sort of map use you have in mind? I find panning (drag+move) and zooming (mousewheel) maps with the mouse very intuitive.

Swiping and zooming a map on a phone or tablet is quicker and far more intuitive than clicking and dragging with a mouse. You can't scroll to a precise depth without moving your mouse to a specific UI slider. Whereas with touch you control it with the spread of your fingers.

One big piece of functionality missing from mouse-controlled maps is rotation. I can't imagine doing it with a mouse, but "grabbing" a map with two fingers and intuitively rotating it to the angle you want is huge.

Similarly, two-finger swipe up/down to adjust viewing angle is something that could technically be done with a slider you drag with a mouse, but I definitely wouldn't call that better.

I edited and added Macbook trackpad example before your response. I agree when its done right, it works but those are rare examples. Vast majority of products do not go to the lengths that Apple does.

> Even space, versatility, & cost aside, there are definitely tasks that a touch screen does better. Using a map with a touch screen is incredibly intuitive compared to a mouse. (I cannot imagine using sliders or other "physical" interfaces)

Have you used a space mouse? I think it is vastly superior to moving hands, pinching and getting tired after about 3 mins. CAD work requires moving things around for hours on . Pinching, zooming and moving things around with hands is completely insane to a CAD engineer - take a look at this: https://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse.html

I've been using a space mouse since 2005 for mechanical CAD. I wish I can explain what it is like to use to others because you can't. It is as if its an extension of my senses, and it feels so incredibly natural.

The space mouse is like a joystick or a thinkpad “trackpoint”. It doesn’t move around or measure movements of the body, but just uses force on it to control velocity. This is much less intuitive/effective than a direct movement. A mouse beats a trackpoint hands down for speed and precision in any context where mouse-user performance is important per se (the trackpoint’s advantage is that it is already directly under the fingers while typing, so does not require moving the hands to a separate device and reduces switching time between mousing and typing).

For just inputting rotation, the best ever tried is a trackball which senses a full 3 dimensions of rotation (most trackballs only sense 2 dimensions, with rotations in the third dimension ignored). These have only ever been made as research prototypes, but they were dramatically faster and more precise for people to use than a space mouse.

3D movement is hard to build physical devices to measure; for that maybe the space mouse is the best we can do.

I totally disagree based on experience with using a CAD software for many years. A space mouse isn’t a trackpoint. It is a 6 degrees of freedom device that feels insanely natural once you get used to it.

There is a reason why professionals working on 3D software use a Space Mouse - animation studios to Boeing. Everyone got one when you start a new job.

You should try one if an opportunity comes up. Honestly, it will change your mind forever about what it does. And it’s nothing like a trackpoint, trackball or a joystick. I wish I could show it in person to you and blow all previous expectations.

Edit: a couple of things:

* Trackpoint: 2 axis device

* Trackball: 2 axis device

* Joystick: Usually 2 rotational axes, but you can get 3 axes (twist about Z-axis)

* Space Mouse: 6 axis device

You don't need to move things physically... try flipping through pages on iPad for 1 hour straight vs. using PageUp and PageDown keys on a keyboard. See it for yourself which one is more tiring.

> I totally disagree

Nothing you wrote is in disagreement with anything I wrote, except for the inaccurate assumptions about my past experience and your misunderstanding the main thrust of my comment.

I have used several different space mice, and also taken a couple of them completely apart. I understand reasonably well how they work. They have a fixed internal part which is attached to the (slightly movable) outside shell by several springs, with little position sensors used to measure a proxy for the force and torque exerted on their outside shell. I believe the early versions used strain gauges instead of position sensors, but the result was more or less the same.

> A space mouse isn’t a trackpoint.

You completely missed my point. The part that is similar between a space space mouse and a trackpoint or joystick is that all of these essentially measure force on them, with that input converted by software to velocity (or angular velocity). If you let go they move back to a neutral position instead of staying where you put them. They do not measure the direct displacement or rotation of some physical component or body part. This is different than the input of a mouse or a touchscreen or a knob or a slider or a trackball or a scroll wheel or a dial or a stylus, but similar to the input of an analog trigger or pedal or steering wheel.

> Trackball: 2 axis device

A trackball with the appropriate sensor(s) can be a 3-axis input device (i.e. if the sensor fully characterizes the rotation). There have been several such devices made as research prototypes in various universities and corporate labs, and empirically they are much more efficient to use than space mouse for inputting rotations. However, they have never (as far as I know) been commercially produced.

This is a shame, because I would love to have one, and building hardware for myself is a lot more effort than buying something off the shelf.

> try flipping through pages on iPad for 1 hour straight vs. using PageUp and PageDown keys on a keyboard. See it for yourself which one is more tiring.

This is a non sequitur. But to answer you, I am perfectly happy to flip physical pages on a book for 5 hours straight, without my fingers ever getting tired.

> You completely missed my point. The part that is similar between a space space mouse and a trackpoint or joystick is that all of these essentially measure force on them, with that input converted by software to velocity (or angular velocity). If you let go they move back to a neutral position instead of staying where you put them. They do not measure the direct displacement or rotation of some physical component or body part. This is different than the input of a mouse or a touchscreen or a knob or a slider or a trackball or a scroll wheel or a dial or a stylus, but similar to the input of an analog trigger or pedal or steering wheel.

Yep, I did. I am sorry. I personally cannot stand using a trackpoint for precisely the same reasons as you're describing. Conversely, I tremendously enjoy using a space mouse and you would have to snatch it from my dead cold hands! It is so good, I don't know how to explain.

> This is a non sequitur. But to answer you, I am perfectly happy to flip physical pages on a book for 5 hours straight, without my fingers ever getting tired.

As compared to PageUp/PageDown? Which one do you think would make you less tired?

The physical book is a lot easier to carry to different kinds of body positions on varying furniture, walk around with, etc.

I suppose a tap on the iPad screen is probably technically the least effort, but I don’t find flipping book pages to be a hardship, and being able to write in the book margins, organize books on the shelf, etc. is nice. YMMV.

The most stressful aspect of using a typical workstation computer to read a long document is probably sitting in a typical office chair. You could compensate for that with a standing desk, but the book is still nicer IMO.

> It is so good, I don't know how to explain.

This is mostly because a 2D mouse + keyboard is quite a poor tool for navigating in 3 dimensions. A multitouch screen could conceivably be decent with a well-designed interface, but the common ones aren’t great.

> Not sure why you're so confident with this when most people I tell are surprised that their new Macbook touchpad is entirely haptic and not actually moving.

I'm not really sure I understand this, I remember a fair amount of discussion when it came out. But, just trivially, I have the latest MacBook Pro, and if I look at it from the side, it is indeed clearly moving as I press down, and not as some sort of weird millisecond-delayed sort of thing, if I press hard (for force touch), the trackpad clearly angles downward. If I continue holding down, the trackpad continues to be tipped down.

From an experience perspective, whatever the MacBook Pro trackpad does is quite different than the haptic thing my phone does, which does not feel like a press at all (and does indeed feel different in the new iPhone 11 Pro's from the previous XS's that had actually "pressable" screens).

Yeah, but what you are feeling with the "click" is not directly physical. Turn your computer completely off (not just power off, but like, "hold the power button" hard shutdown, and that "click" will stop happening.

Sure, I’m just saying that it’s really weird that this is referred as no moving parts when things clearly move. I guess my point is that haptic without movement still feels “uncanny valley” (like on the phone), but with movement (or whatever else they do different on the MacBook) feels better.

I suppose Tinder-style rapid decision apps might excel with a touch screen. Infinite scrollable timelines are certainly built for touchscreens, though I can’t think the last time I asked for one....

99% of the time the reason I put up with touch screens is so I don’t have to sit at my desk.

OTOH, a physical keyboard is vastly preferable over a touch screen one.

This isn't true for smartphones anymore. Touchscreen keyboards provide much more data that can be used for autocorrect. Also, you can't swipe type on a keyboard.

> Touchscreen keyboards provide much more data that can be used for autocorrect.

My spelling mistakes are either from muscle memory hitting an incorrect sequence of characters, transposing letters, or from me not knowing how to spell a word. How is a touchscreen going to improve any of those problems?

I find myself, when I have the choice, always gravitating to Google maps on my laptop. Enough that it frustrates me how far behind the web version is in terms of features compared to mobile.

My mouse is far more accurate than my finger and I can zoom more accurately and more quickly with my scroll wheel, it is milliliters of finger travel as opposed to a much larger, and slower mulit finger operation.

> So by this definition Apple is worse than Google for privacy?

Wait what? I think you have that backwards. Unless you’re suggesting Apple sells ads?