Comments on: Apple to Intro New Notebooks: Touch Coming?

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:18:03 +0000

Okay, I, uh, didn’t quite hit this one on the nose, did I? Touch is on the touchpad (albeit with some new gestures). But Eric, yeah, you not only got the first comment but proved me entirely wrong.

Doh.

http://createdigitalmotion.com/2008/10/14/did-apple-just-eliminate-all-s-video-composite-video-output/

@paco, @Amanda: the Pro will still work with your FW400 stuff, via an adapter — though you have only one jack.

The MacBook leaves you completely out of luck AND won’t let you plug in a DV/HDV camera. Uh… awesome?

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:06:17 +0000

Yeah this is really bad. I’ve been using my FW 410 for years :( The only FW 800 interface on the market is a 1400 dollar RME interface.

By: paco

paco — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:55:22 +0000

well bad news. looks like they are getting rid of firewire400!!!

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:37:15 +0000

@zenzen: You’re having this discussion and thoughtfully considering different options. You’re absolutely an ideal CDM/M reader. ;)

I don’t love touch for everything, either. It’s all about the right tool for the right job. And while touch surfaces may not trump physical knobs and faders, they can improve upon having to mouse around for everything. Put a combination of mouse, qwerty, knobs, faders, other physical inputs together, and with some blend of that you get an ideal.

Oh, as for bacteria — you probably don’t want to know what’s on your qwerty. (Heck, I just saw a report that says the gear shift has more bacteria on it than a toilet seat. Alcohol wash, anyone?)

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:35:02 +0000

@dplex: I have to disagree. Applications using standard APIs for UI widgets could get multi-touch compatibility once the OS vendor provides it. So, for instance, imagine a standard UI widget in, say, .net … or a standard file dialog …

And I don’t think the effort will be “huge.” bp’s example is a good one. You can overlay a new gesture with a touchpad, so you could overlay a gesture from the screen. Adobe already supports Wacom tablets that provide much greater accuracy and information than the standard mouse does.

“Huge” to get multi-touch everywhere, but not for new apps, existing UI widgets, or simple gestures, and that’s a pretty good place to start.

And HP already has this working on a computer. Note this story is from JUNE.
http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-multi-touch-to-come-to-notebooks-before-windows-7

You can actually go buy an HP TouchSmart now if you like. It runs Vista – not Windows 7, not special software. (Ahem, HP — can we have that in a laptop form factor, please?)

Now, HP may arguably be jumping the gun a little bit on this one, but imagine Apple went out and did this — fewer SKUs for the platform, developers already supporting their APIs. I think we’ll see a gradual transition to more multi-touch functionality and alternative inputs in general, and I think it’ll start VERY soon.

By: dplex

dplex — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:24:23 +0000

Just to clarify, we’re talking about multitouch screens here. Photoshop CS4 will offer some unique multitouch gestures for MacBook trackpads that support them, but that’s a far cry from an application which can be used solely through a multitouch capable touchscreen without needing trackpad or mouse input. Such development efforts will be huge and get a lot of press attention long before any machines are unveiled.

Graphics programs that have Wacom support will have a head start though…

Latest rumor: Apple is replacing the Intel graphics in their MacBooks with an NVIDIA chipset.

By: bp

bp — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:50:54 +0000

@dplex â€œhas anyone heard of third party multitouch OSX apps being developed?â€

Yes. Adobe has introduced basic support in CS4 for multi-touch. It is only a matter of time before it is more wide spread. Developers are very much aware of it but for it to start becoming standard we need to have the full Mac hardware line support it including an external pad device for iMac / Mac Pro owners. Matter of time.

By: tobamai

tobamai — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:50:33 +0000

Zenzen, I’m with you in that I would certainly prefer mechanical knobs, faders, and switches… but having a touch screen lets you put together a custom control interface without having to build anything. When I consider the reliability, portability, flexibility, and cost of buying a laptop with a touch screen vs buying a laptop and building a single dream interface the touch screen looks better at the cost of a screen covered in smudges.

By: zenzen

zenzen — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:00:37 +0000

OK, I finally realize that I’m not the ideal CDM/M reader. Touch screens are nifty and seem to be used and loved by many here. But I dislike them, dislike the oily streaks I leave on my first-gen ipod touch, dislike the inaccurate and laggy controls, and dislike how my stubby fingers seem to trigger adjoining virtual buttons and sliders. Give me mechanical/digital-hybrid stuff every time. Oh, and the thought of using somebody else’s grease-streaked screen… Eeeewww!

But I must be in the minority. I guess a big microfibre or scotch-brite cloth will be part of my studio / gig kit.

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:45:10 +0000

Snow Leopard — well, some of us paid attention. ;) But Apple didn’t reveal much of its functionality, though they did describe what you describe here.

Terabytes of memory may be far off, but I think more significantly it’d raise the 4G cap on most apps currently (yes, possible to run some 64-bit, but not all, certainly almost no consumer-grade apps). 8 or 16GB of RAM isn’t so far off.

Multitouch hardware is coming, that much is certain; less certain when on Apple’s front, though we can safely say we’ll see more PCs in the next 12 months or so and Windows7 shortly after that should unleash more. Apple I expect may be on a similar timeline; they just keep their secrets. ;)