Hi Keith,

A couple of points first: there are plenty of makes of styli available for
the iPad. Also, if you really don't care about the ghost of Steve or the
lawyers of the vibrant Tim coming after you, then you could always do what
a lot of technically savvy iPad user do, and jailbreak the device if you
want absolute control over the OS and its behaviours.

The iPad should probably not be thought of as a 1:1 analogue of a desktop
machine. As I said, I think the fundamental error is to decry the iPad and
its like for its failure to map to the expectations you have for a
completely different form factor, namely, the desktop computer.

For me, it serves as a portable device for accessing student records when I
am wandering the campus. I can carry my library of required texts, to show
students what they should be reading. I can also use it to test student
games designed for the platform. It manages my calendar and to-dos, which
really should travel with me. I can take impromptu pictures of studio
activity. And lots more mobile uses besides, none of which my desktop can
do.

I can also edit docs on it if I really have to, btw, I just plug the iPad
into its keyboard stand, which doubles as a recharge slot, and crack out my
MS Office compatible QuickOffice. Yes, there's a delete button. But now I'm
converting the iPad to a cut-down laptop, and while it handles the job OK,
perhaps a desktop is better for my document processing given my familiarity
with the WIMP interface.

Cheers,
Adam

On 15 January 2012 17:26, Keith Russell <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Dear Adam,
>
> In your response to Don, you raise, for me, an interesting issue regarding
> gestures in current computer interfaces. (See extract below)
>
> Watching my grand kids using gesture-based interfaces, I can see the point
> that "technical-social pressures" have given rise to some of the solutions
> offered by gestures. My 4 year-old grand son is able to negotiate most of
> the subtleties of  how hard he needs to press ( that should be rather, how
> softly he needs to just touch) while my 2 year-old grand daughter just
> pokes away like the screen was a very large button. She presumes that most
> button like things get pushed and most button like things need to be pushed
> hard. Directional swiping is a bit beyond her at the moment - she is ok
> with Angry Birds but often the birds go backwards and she doesn't
> appreciate that there are angles involved.
>
> I have seen (on YouTube) old folks who weren't part of the computer age,
> handling their iPads quite well etc.
>
> But, when you sit down for hours with an Android device and an Apple iPad
> and see that a sub-set of traditional tools, on the Andorid make usage so
> much more comprehensive, then you start to wonder what the point is in
> collapsing existing knowledge for the benefit of dumbness. Why can't I have
> a back key on the iPad? Going back, escaping etc. are just as primitive in
> the world of gesture as they are in the world of keyboard interfaces.
>
> Then we get to the dumb thumb issue and the millions of lost hours because
> the wrong item was gestured. It is probably socially improving that we are
> being taught how to function with less dexterity and more failure in our
> communications but it is also debilitating.
>
> Let's have an ontology war and establish just what is in and what is out?
>
> Then we get to the silly software which is not really a problem of the
> interface designers but it is certainly a problem for the users. It is hard
> enough for a kid to use a fat pencil to follow the dotted lines of a word
> they are learning to write on real paper. Using a finger on a screen it
> becomes stupid. Sure, it means that those who can't hold a pencil might be
> able to achieve a certain skill they might not otherwise be able to attain.
> But, is what the iPad is about? (Hint: A stylus would help?)
>
> I am very happy for the 5% of uses I can find for gestures but I am
> annoyed about the 50% of lost access that has been imposed by the knighted
> gods of design.
>
> Having complained thus way, I fear that the ghost of Steve will rise and
> pull the arrow keys of my keyboard, smash the extra buttons on my mouse and
> fill up my USB/HDMI/SD ports with tomato sauce, but I don't care. I inhabit
> a world of redundancy where I can do many things in many different ways.
>
> cheers
>
> keith russell
> OZ Newcastle
>
> >>> Adam Parker <[log in to unmask]> 01/13/12 1:23 PM >>>
> Hi Don,
>
>
> Could perhaps the gestural issues, that both you and Terry raise, be due to
> these devices answering an entirely new set of culturally framed usage
> models that do not map to the collaborative computing workspace problems
> (couched in ideologies of the value of efficient activity) that Doug
> Engelbart, Alan Kay and co were chasing - and that assessing modern
> gestural devices in terms of their effective and efficient applicability to
> those historical tasks is thus possibly an error? Perhaps these devices are
> more comprehensible in terms of the technical-social pressures that give
> rise to them, than in how well they mapping to theoretical frames of
> reference devised for other technologies?
>
> Cheers,
> Adam
>



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