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points by at1as 1 day ago | 0 comments
"Touch screens don't want to be vertical" "After an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off" "ergonomically terrible"

- Steve Jobs

Apple: check our new vertical touchscreen!

[–] perbu 1 day ago
Jobs was wrong about a lot of things. Just because he thought an idea was silly, doesn't automatically make so.
[–] ElectroBuffoon 23 hours ago
Just thought? No, "we've done tons of user testing" and reached the conclusion "it doesn't work". Watch the full video, not even a minute long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zfir0Ide0A

Same conclusion that everyone has reached over the past four decades, at least. It even got a nickname.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#%22Gorilla_arm%22

Current Apple should show their new tests that demostrate the opposite.

(Edit) The full transcription of the video, faster than watching:

"You know, the first thing you think about is this, right? We thought about this years ago. We've done tons of user testing on this 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. It doesn't work. It's ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal. Hence, pads. For a notebook, that's why we've perfected our multi-touch trackpads over the years." -- Steve Jobs, 2010

[–] mixmastamyk 1 day ago
He was right about this one. Never used the touchscreen on my old Dell except by accident, over the last decade. Shoulder gets tired holding up arms.
[–] andai 1 day ago
If I recall, he originally thought the iPod was silly as well.
[–] ChrisLTD 1 day ago
Jobs died 15 years ago, and since then, Apple has been successfully selling iPads in vertical/laptop like configuration for nearly a decade.
[–] makeitdouble 1 day ago
The crucial part is, iPads can easily be detached from the keyboard when needed. Apple made a point to have very flexible keyboard cases for that.
[–] aucisson_masque 1 day ago
And before he came back, apple was on the verge of bankrupt because people without any vision whatsoever took the lead.

The same kind of people are now doing it again, it will take time but every decision apple has been taking is giving me a bad taste.

even the evolution of macos and IOS. They are much closer to windows and android now.

[–] grvbck 1 day ago
> even the evolution of macos and IOS.

ESPECIALLY the evolution of macos and ios.

[–] chakintosh 22 hours ago
That configuration has trackpad and keyboard sold to you by Apple. It's sold specifically to people who don't want to touch their iPad for work and also want to convenience of a lighweight case.
[–] ChrisLTD 16 hours ago
I've had multiple keyboard cases for iPads from Apple that didn't have trackpads built-in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
[–] crystaln 1 day ago
He also thought people didn’t want big phones and tablets.