> They can make buttons more “touch friendly” all they want, but they’ll never make Excel for Windows feel right on a touchscreen UI.
I suspect it goes the other way, too: touch friendly apps won't feel right with a mouse. The video reassures us that "of course [the new apps] work great with mouse and keyboard as well, if that's what you have", but the trade-offs and requirements are completely different. Just based on the video:
- For a touchscreen, buttons must be large and spread out, but the result with a mouse would be a lot of unnecessary movement-- jumping all over the screen.
- This also means you can't pack a lot of buttons into a small space (or have a menu bar), which, when done in moderation, is a good way to add flexibility to a mouse UI. A touch UI would seem unnecessarily simplified.
- Scrolling things around is really natural on a touchscreen, but most mice don't even have horizontal scroll wheels. How do you scroll sideways, flick with the mouse? Reach over to the keyboard?
>I suspect it goes the other way, too: touch friendly apps won't feel right with a mouse.
That's the angle I'm looking at it from too. Why should I install this on my non-touchscreen Thinkpad? Will I need to constantly 'flick' and scroll things with my Trackpoint?
From the video: "[The apps] are designed for touch... but of course they work well with mouse and keyboard as well if that's what you have."
Sorry, but that's not how it works. Microsoft needs to realize this. Everything he was doing there would be terrible with a mouse.
I suspect it goes the other way, too: touch friendly apps won't feel right with a mouse. The video reassures us that "of course [the new apps] work great with mouse and keyboard as well, if that's what you have", but the trade-offs and requirements are completely different. Just based on the video:
- For a touchscreen, buttons must be large and spread out, but the result with a mouse would be a lot of unnecessary movement-- jumping all over the screen.
- This also means you can't pack a lot of buttons into a small space (or have a menu bar), which, when done in moderation, is a good way to add flexibility to a mouse UI. A touch UI would seem unnecessarily simplified.
- Scrolling things around is really natural on a touchscreen, but most mice don't even have horizontal scroll wheels. How do you scroll sideways, flick with the mouse? Reach over to the keyboard?
Etc.