Writing Keyboards

[rdale]

Haptic feedback dude. That's the future. Just like on the new MacBook trackpad. Just imagine that for every key. You press it and gives a tap back. If they do switch to Star Trek land, it'll make keyboards for the first time programmable and catered towards whatever you want.

A few of my classmates have given up on external keyboards and just write on their iPads using the screen keyboard...so I predict the transition will eventually happen.

Sure, dude. Whatever you say.

Enjoy your fully mobile shoulders, all the feeling you still have in your hands, and being able to turn your head without shooting pains while you can. I give you 10 years at a desk job, max, before you're in physical therapy for one of the many ergonomic crimes you're committing against yourself.

[yosimiti]

Sure, dude. Whatever you say.

Enjoy your fully mobile shoulders, all the feeling you still have in your hands, and being able to turn your head without shooting pains while you can. I give you 10 years at a desk job, max, before you're in physical therapy for one of the many ergonomic crimes you're committing against yourself.

Don't mistake me. When I predict future technologies, that doesn't particularly mean I actually like it. In fact, for the most part, it's given me pause. I just report it as I see it. And I'm not particularly happy about this report, as it bodes, as you say, to hand injuries.

I actually struggle with severe hand tremors, so typing on a keyboard is difficult altogether. Shaky hands make both iPads and mechanical keyboards difficult to type for their own reasons. My hope is that, as Apple grows, its concern for people with physical disabilities grows too. But that's another matter altogether.

My predictions I think still stands. We're going towards Star Trek. Photon-torpedoes here we come. Let's hope haptic feedback is there to save us. Or something better.

[rdale]

I've seen this prediction coming for decades. Haptic interfaces have resulted in feedback which only tells you that some input has been acknowledged. It can't (I don't think ever) tell you that the input was what you intended. "You clicked" is a far cry from "your fingers are resting on the ASDF and JKL; keys on this smooth surface". It also can't communicate that you barely hit the very edge of the Y key, almost typing a U or a 7 instead.

There may very well come a time when there exist keyboards that are just a flat LCD with some vibrations as feedback telling you that you've tapped on a key somewhere on the surface, but it's not practical for the vast majority of touch-typists.

I will eat my hat if, in five years, Apple has replaced all the physical keyboards with smooth glass surfaces on their Macintosh computers.

[yosimiti]

Well, sir, I throw my gauntlet down; if Apple hasn't completely switched over to touchscreen typing, I'll eat my hat too (I'll make sure to add salt).

the future....
http://www.artlebedev.com/optimus/tactus/

[yosimiti]

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/mobile-computing/laptops/why-a-macbook-with-a-touchscreen-keyboard-isn-t-the-worst-idea-ever-1318689

[Sanguinius]

Here's one issue I have with a completely touchscreen keyboard: How would it distinguish between a touch and a press? I rest all of my fingers on the keys while I'm not typing. And when I'm typing, the fingers not actively typing a letter are moving to or resting on the next letter. How does a touch keyboard know that the fingers I'm waiting to activate aren't actually activating until I activate them?

And while I'm typing, I press one key but sometimes I touch another key with the finger that is doing the pressing. It's not enough pressure to actually press that second key, but there's a definite tactile response. Again, how does Apple know that I'm not pressing both keys? Square footage (or inchage maybe?) of where my fingers are touching? Will autocorrect be employed in the regular keyboard?

Physical keyboards are necessary for delineating precisely where the fingers are located, so that the precise keys can be pressed. If I touch a wrong key while typing on a physical keyboard, that letter isn't input into the text. On a touch keyboard, though, it's a different story. Haptic feedback during button presses doesn't prevent this from happening.

[yosimiti]

I'm sure some engineer somewhere is figuring out the various details of these sorts of things.

But the way I understand it, with every headway in technology, there arises a natural accompanying set of problems. No technological advancement is ever perfect nor is ever without consequence. My suspicion and prediction are that the benefits will eventually outweigh the drawbacks, as technology advances and improves, with touchscreen keyboards.

Again, this is just a prediction. I'd honestly be glad if it never really happened. But I'd be blind, to not notice the not-so-subtle trend apple is currently setting with its keyboard design philosophies.

[gr]

being able to re-label what each function key did in the context of the app that has focus would be really nice, actually. I have to look down at the keyboard to find the right one to tap anyway.

But the idea that we'll all be typing on glass in the near future is ludicrous. You have to have some tactile feedback to tell that your fingers are still on the home row, and that you tapped the right key.

When you think about the future prospects, it will be well to remember that almost no one touch types.*

gr

* I wanted to write 'almost no one touch types anymore', but then it seems to me that touch typing was always to specialized purview of a group of folks specially trained for it.

[Sanguinius]

being able to re-label what each function key did in the context of the app that has focus would be really nice, actually. I have to look down at the keyboard to find the right one to tap anyway.

But the idea that we'll all be typing on glass in the near future is ludicrous. You have to have some tactile feedback to tell that your fingers are still on the home row, and that you tapped the right key.

When you think about the future prospects, it will be well to remember that almost no one touch types.*

gr

* I wanted to write 'almost no one types anymore', but then it seems to me that touch typing was always to specialized purview of a group of folks specially trained for it.

I'd like to know what makes you say this, actually. Unless they've been abolished, we've had typing classes for decades. I can't imagine that people take these classes, learn to touch type, and subsequently throw away that knowledge for a less-efficient means of typing.

[gr]

I don't know where you are located, but learning to touch type is nowhere near a norm in the U.S. Touch typing is not part of people's high school training, etc.

"we've had typing classes for decades"

I could easily agree with the letter of this assertion, but not with what I take to be its spirit.

So, would you say most computer users touch type? Would you say that most writers+ would-be writers touch type? Is it even fifty-fifty? Would you say that most people who write/edit text for a living (more or less) touch type. I strongly suspect that a 'Yes' answer to any of these would not get the facts right. Do you in fact disagree?

...he said without any source to cite.

[vic-k]

A while back, someone opened a thread: 'What do you look at while you type?' I thought, "Wot?!. I go crosseyed, watching' me two fingers jumping up-n-down on me friggin keyboard ... wot else would I be lookin' at?!" Of course, apart from me, all who responded revealed a load of interesting/amazing scenes that they looked at while typing. Would that not touch typing?

[yosimiti]

touch typing is taught here in the great north (Canada). I can't imagine kids learning to type any other way. And yes, I think once you learn it, you don't want to ever go back to becoming a look-and-see pecker of keys.

[Sanguinius]

I don't know where you are located, but learning to touch type is nowhere near a norm in the U.S. Touch typing is not part of people's high school training, etc.

"we've had typing classes for decades"

I could easily agree with the letter of this assertion, but not with what I take to be its spirit.

So, would you say most computer users touch type? Would you say that most writers+ would-be writers touch type? Is it even fifty-fifty? Would you say that most people who write/edit text for a living (more or less) touch type. I strongly suspect that a 'Yes' answer to any of these would not get the facts right. Do you in fact disagree?

...he said without any source to cite.

I'm in the US and we had computer keyboarding classes in junior high/middle school in the 90s. I guess I made the assumption that the rest of the country was as advanced as the small Nebraska city I grew up in and that everyone received this kind of training.

I would say that most computer users that expensive laptop computers are marketed towards are touch typists. People who care enough about their writing are most likely touch typists, as it makes little sense to do something you love in an inefficient way. So, yes, I do think that most people who write/edit text for a living touch type. As do engineers and computer programmers and doctors, most likely.

Again, this is all based on my own experiences as a student twenty-plus years ago in Nebraska. It's absolutely possible that what we learned wasn't taught as extensively elsewhere or that the training I received is no longer offered. If this is the case, then I weep for the future.

[yosimiti]

Even if you didn't learn how to use a keyboard formally in some class, there are so many touch typing learning apps out there that could teach you if you wanted to learn. If you wanted to learn to type, no software would ever teach you to not touch type.

[Jaysen]

But the idea that we'll all be typing on glass in the near future is ludicrous. You have to have some tactile feedback to tell that your fingers are still on the home row, and that you tapped the right key. Only a physical keyboard can provide that. The proliferation of tablet keyboard cases is evidence enough, for me, that we're not headed into a Star Trek TNG interface nightmare.

if you look at the real end point for TNG, there was no "typing". It is was all "control interface" all txt input was spoken. That is what i predict. More voice recognition with less actual text and more direct recording of vocal/visual for person to person and post recording voice recognition for voice to text requirements.

Who really needs a keyboard in that world?