back to article Intel ignores Steve Jobs, adds touchscreen to Ultrabook

Intel's research department has overruled Steve Jobs: touchscreens have been added to the next generation of Chipzilla's Ultrabook spec. "Touch skipped the notebook, skipped the Ultrabook. It was dedicated to phones, it was dedicated to tablets," Mooly Eden, general manager of Intel's PC Client Group told his audience on …

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  1. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    Even if he doesn't believe Apple's research, and his own colleagues, the fact that no touch screen PC appears to sell well, and various tablets and phones with touchscreens are selling well should tell him that people don't like using touch screens vertically.

    Assuming I have enough battery life, I can conmfortably use my iphone for 2 hours . I find that after 2 hours of using a PC with a vertical touchscreen, my arms are tired.

    Admittedly, the Ultrabooks Intel are talking about may have a screen that can fold back so it's horizontal, but Intel and Microsoft didn't do a great job of marketing tablets, did they?

    1. Al Black

      Ipad Keyboards

      Then why is a plug-in keyboard and a stand to hold your iPad up such a hot seller? It is a must-have to convert the Ipad toy into a working tool.

      1. Giles Jones Gold badge

        Some people want to use boring office software on them.

      2. scarshapedstar
        Childcatcher

        To be fair

        I got one of these for my mother, she loves it, I hate it. Keyboard with no mouse drives me crazy.

        The real question is why Apple shoves their inferior soft keyboard down everyone's throat. Swype, Swiftkey... so many better alternatives out there.

        1. Jad
          Stop

          RE: To be fair ...

          we bought some dell laptops recently and one of them "came of the shelf" with everything on it (silly reseller)

          so it had a touch pad, _and_ "nipple" + keys, plus we always use external USB mice, and then I gesticulated at the screen and it clicked where I touched *shudder*.

          It was a great spec laptop, but there were just _too_ many input devices (and you couldn't turn them off)

        2. oldhead

          old head

          I have a touch screen ,tablet ,in two days I have had it;I hated then loved it and hated it again,

          today I love it ;;at 81 without my sons guidance I am up a gum tree; he is genius

          His fingers are magic wands Amen;

          Ignorance is not bliss,with touch screens ,except on my Kindle

          But on my tablet reading or listening to books,is brilliant ,

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Al Black

        Because when you plug the keyboard in, it makes your use "horizontal", of course. What am I missing?

    2. Giles Jones Gold badge

      It is exactly that reason why it doesn't work. Computers are designed to be used with your arms resting on a desk or other surface.

      While we all want a computer like in Minority Report, the fact is we're all going to need to get a lot fitter before we can use one for 7 hours a day.

      Same goes for a touchscreen mounted high up, plus the fact that is is annoying to have to move from keyboard/mouse to the screen, and you thought moving from keyboard to mouse was hard work.

      1. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        FAIL

        "we all want a computer like in Minority Report"

        No we don't. Standing all day long moving my arms every single time I want to interact with a system is not how I prefer to use a computer.

        Sitting in a comfortable chair, with a table set at the right inclination, a good, responsive keyboard and a wireless mouse is how I prefer working on a computer.

        The 200" screen, however, I would like.

      2. oldhead

        oldhead

        Yep Mouses and touch screens are a pain

        My son loves my blackberry he can have it

        I wonder why he suggested I buy it?

        At 81 I ain't stupid,or am I?

    3. Pisnaz

      I used toughbooks with touch screens for ages in work and must say while I did not do away with a mouse or such the touch screen on them was handy and in some cases could speed up my working. Like anything it is all a matter of how you use them. In a laptop, in my case a hardened one I could toss around as needed and was not worried about breaking, it made got used mostly to poke up a file and display it much quicker. I can see it catching on, these systems will be light enough for a person to hold one handed and poke at. It worked for me in the application and times I used it, long term work naturally I used a desk chair and mouse etc but on the go in the field repairing stuff or using it to run media as I repaired stuff it was a blessing.

      My big wish is a reversion towards the original tablet laptops where you can reverse and fold the screen down, then tossing a schematic or diagnostic flow chart on screen is easy and you can scroll and zoom one handed with minimal concentration dedicated away from your work.

  2. Raz

    Hey Intel, welcome to 2011! Cause the hundreds of thousands of Asus Transformer users that have a keyboard can tell you that a keyboard and a touchscreen works. I don't know what tests Apple did, but keyboard and touchscreen together are great.

    I just upgraded from the best overall phone I ever had, a T-Mobile G2 (HTC Desire Z). Having the keyboard was great, I am still thinking if I should sell the HTC Amaze 4G or the G2...

    1. Paul 135

      keyboard phones are superior to touch only, but not the same as laptops

      I have a similar keyboard phone - the Xperia Pro (much better than Desire Z :P) and agree that keyboard phones are vastly superior to touch only phones - so much so that I pity the masses who insist on inferior (and often more expensive) touch-only devices (e.g. GSII is huge and bulky, processor looks better on paper, but Xperia Pro pwns it in real life) - I would never use a touch-only phone ever again!

      However, the same cannot be said for adding touch to laptops. On a phone the touch screen is within easy reach of your fingers/thumbs. A phone screen is also easy to clean with a quick wipe on your clothes.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Paul 135 - Patronising? Not much!

        "so much so that I pity the masses who insist on inferior (and often more expensive) touch-only devices"

        Oh thank ye sir, so kind of you. * tug of the forelock*. I feel so lowly and humble in the precence of a true master of the mobile device. *bows down* I must avert my eyes from from your glorious countenance and wisdom.

        Ever thought that, and here's a shock basement-boy, that real-people in the real-world all have different tastes and interests? We all think, work, fart, burp and play in different ways. If we were all the same then there would be one computer, one O/S, one mobile phone, one car, etc....

        My pitiful Galaxy S2 may not be as superior as your stunning gadget but it's a phone that plays music and games as that's all I need from it most of the time.

  3. Paul 135
    Facepalm

    hate to say it, but Jobs is right

    As much as I despised Jobs, he is right. Laptops should not have touch-screens - Microsoft is also wasting so much time on this nonsense, that the more I hear about the bungle that will be called Windows 8, the more I want to switch to Linux.

    The exception is for hybrid devices where the keyboard can fold away so that you can use the device in a tablet mode and in a horizontal position.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      VERY TRUE STATEMENT

      Flat is definitely better than pushing at a screen resting on your knees.

      Does anyone else hate finger prints and mess on their screen?

      A mobile screen it tablet screen is easy to clean, especially if held, but try it with a laptop.

      One hand to reach behind the screen to hold it before the other presses.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        yes!

        I also hate fingerprints and mess on my screen. Easy to wipe off a phone, but not a larger screen, unless you're at home with a wipe. It would drive me nuts.

  4. LaeMing
    Trollface

    Touch is so last decade!

    Where is the eye-tracking?!

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. mfritz0

      RE: Touch is so last decade!

      http://www.news.com.au/technology/tobii-gaze-lets-you-control-your-computer-with-your-eyes/story-e6frfro0-1226238157525

      that is a pretty neat place to start.

  5. Andrew Tyler 1

    Touch.

    For normal computer (not tablet) stuff, I'd ideally have a mouse. However, I think I'd much rather have a touchscreen than a trackpad or nubby-pointer. So for mobile usage when there's nowhere to use a mouse, a touchscreen is probably the best option.

  6. David Simpson 1
    Mushroom

    More balls from the world's greatest snake oil seller.

    Just another example of Steve Jobs being full of $hit, the same man that claimed Apple didn't use focus groups.

    My tablet has a kick stand so I use it at an angle, the same angle a notebook screen is at and the same angle an iPad cover props the screen at.

    He simply never had a properly touch enabled version of OS X because his long term plan was always to faze out OS X while moving everything over to a more sophisticated version of iOS.

    1. OrsonX
      Headmaster

      More baloney...

      ...snake oil pedlar?

  7. mafoo
    FAIL

    Cost

    I think in the Ultrabook market, cost and thickness are going to be 2 very important selling points.

    Including a touchscreen that doesn't really add much often used functionality to the device isnt going to catch on too quickly amongst manufacturers, except maybe as a build to order option. Unless, of course, Intel puts its food down and strictly mandates it 's inclusion - at which point everyone switches to the AMD spec.

    1. mafoo

      edit*

      I think in the Ultrabook market, cost and thickness are going to be 2 very important selling points, and adding a touch screen will increase both of these.

      and foot, not food. :D

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. ratfox

    Trackpad for me, thanks

    After using a MacBook for a few years, I find using a mouse a comparative waste of time, going back and forth from the mouse to the keyboard.

    Similarly, I don't believe in touch screens for laptops, because moving the hand across the screen is simply too time-consuming and tiring.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A 360-degree hinge...

    is inevitable and renders all objections moot,

    1. Nigel 11
      Meh

      No hinge would be even better

      It should be a two-part design. Tablet. Keyboard+mouse. Bluetooth link. Software that adjusts the user interface so that you don't have to touch the vertical screen to accomplish anything when the keyboard/mouse unit is present. In "enjoyment mode" just take the tablet and leave the keyboard behind.

      OK, it's probably trivial to make it so that the two parts clip together for transport and for keyboard use on the move - you might call this "netbook mode". But at home there would be a plastic stand for mounting the tablet vertically above the level of one's desk, and put keyboard wherever the user finds most comfortable.

    2. ant_williams

      Such as http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows8/windows-8-lenovo-ideapad-yoga-split-141846?

  11. scarshapedstar
    Paris Hilton

    Less than 7 inches = epic fail

    Jobs is right... hang your head in shame.

    Wait. We're talking about tablets?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Transformer...

    As previously mentioned - the Asus Transformer already has this form factor/input model

    and after nearly 12 months with it - I love it - it's completely second nature, and doesnt involve any more movement than taking hands from the keyboard to trackpad - and an awful lot more accurate.

    Of course if you want to you can plug in a mouse - and the best bit no trackpad to get in the way of your typing - (it's great to turn it off on the transformer).

    Those who havent tried it - don't knock it - despite having to use a traditional laptop for work I still do find myself subconciously picking up a document from the non touch screen and having to revert back to trackpad/mouse - In the words of Trek's Commander Scott - "How Quaint" ..

  13. Paul E

    as another transformer owner

    I can agree they work fine with touch screen. If anything my main problem is with the normal touchpad which I ended up disabling as it was causing too many misjumps in documents.

  14. Monty Burns

    I love touchscreen

    I currently run two Iiyama gloss touchscreens at home on my main pc and have a HP TX2 and I love touchscreen. I may be in a minority if most of you lot are to be believe bit I completley agree with Intels findings; its great to be able to browse by finger, use local explorer and it comes into its own with document scrolling.

    The trick is not think exclusive touchscreen and think complement. They support a mouse and keybord perfectly and I never expect them to replace a keyboard but, a mouse? Yeah very much so! Windows 8 pre-beta released a few months ago worked great and if you never went techie, you never needed a mouse (the HTML5 front end was perfect for touch).

  15. g e

    Hopefully

    Intel will patent something crucial to it and lock Apple out of the ultra-touch-book market without paying a fat tithe to compete, which Apple will ignore reasoning, as usual, that they're Apple so 'fuck off' and then get sued for a billion trillon dollars. And so forth

    What goes around comes around.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Remember

      Apple already have a patent on a vertical screen that becomes a touch screen just by moving it to the horizontal. (I seem to remember reading on El Reg some time ago.)

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Touchscreen needs a different interface

    big icons and buttons etc., and probably indicates different applications. If I'm sitting in bed with a laptop running media streaming software, skype or browsing, touchscreen might be fine, though I suspect a large trackpad would be also work. If I'm working with excel, I'll pass on the touchscreen.

    On a similar topic, I hooked up an apple bluetooth trackpad to windows and found it to be a rather good mouse replacement for across the living room media control. Not as functional as in osx, but accurate, robust and handy when my work laptop was hooked up to the tv and running vlc.

    1. slhilly

      Interesting about Excel...I think there's actually a case for a bit of both worlds here....Excel is quite a non-linear app -- ie I might fiddle with cell A51 and then cell BG204. Moving from one to the other using either keyboard shortcuts or the mouse is definitely suboptimal compared with being able to just touch the cell I'm interested in. Similarly, selecting a range would be much easier and faster with a touch input than it is with a mouse or keyboard shortcuts. And resizing the page through pinching is superhelpful. I speak as a long-term user of Excel on Windows and a newbie with Numbers on iPad.

  17. Sean Baggaley 1

    Jobs was referring to traditional computer form factors, not tablets.

    It helps if you consider the context of that keynote speech he was giving: he was launching some new Macs and discussing the new multi-touch trackpad features they were introducing to OS X.

    Note: "OS X", not "iOS".

    OS X is a desktop computer OS that still sticks pretty closely to the traditional WIMP desktop metaphor, with windows and (relatively) tiny widgets designed for clicking on with a precise pointing device like a mouse or trackpad. Those GUI elements are generally too small for pointing at accurately with a finger. (Yes, there are doubtless some people with very thin, sharp, pointy fingers, but "some" people is not "most" people.)

    Apple's iDevices proved popular because iOS' GUI was designed *from the ground up* for touch-based interaction. OS X, Windows, KDE and GNOME were not. Any attempts to nail touchscreen features onto those will inevitably result in a compromise.

    Yes, Intel, I see your hand raised: what is it?

    "Please, sir! OS X might not be designed for touchscreen use, but Windows 8 has that new 'Metro' touch-based UI!"

    Bingo! And THAT is what Intel will have been running on their prototype touch-screen "ultrabooks" for their focus groups to play with.

    Jobs was right in October 2010. Nobody anyone cared about was offering a touch-screen desktop OS back then, and the MacBook Air line was still in its infancy. Times change. Technologies change. OS X has gone for multi-touch touch pads, rather than touch screens; Windows 8 is going for an untried chimeric approach: part WIMP, part touch-screen. Whether that will actually prove successful is anybody's guess, but I suspect Windows 8's touch screen features may take a while to catch on with the laptop and desktop set.

    1. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Jobsian nonsense

      You don't have to throw out everything every time you take a different turn with technology. All of the different seemingly diametrically opposed input methods can all live in harmony together as can the applications that access them. It's only this "one true vision" approach that has problems.

      Keyboard. Mouse. IR remote. Touchscreen.

      Different interfaces can be used in different contexts as appropriate.

      Apple-TV:~ root# uname -a

      Darwin Apple-TV 11.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 11.0.0: Tue Nov 1 20:33:58 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1878.4.46~1/RELEASE_ARM_S5L8930X AppleTV2,1 arm K66AP Darwin

  18. Andy Christ

    Not going to happen

    Um... Apple is Intel's best customer.

  19. Absent

    Whilst I wouldn't want to have only touch, I could see it being quite useful whilst typing. Moving your fingers up and selecting something on the laptop screen mid-type would be quicker than moving down to the trackpad and moving the pointer. Defiantly quicker than moving your whole arm over to separate mouse.

  20. the-it-slayer
    Devil

    Okay, now develop an OS which works with it...

    There's all this "yes this upright touchscreen will work on an ultrabook", but develop a god damn OS which will work in this situation! Windows 7 is still well off the mark. And we will never see Mac OS X installed on an iMac with a touchscreen surface. So where do we go? Intel needs to get out of dreamland and get some distortion reality field to tell us why it will work. Not tell us why Apple/Steve were wrong.

    I'd rather see a touch-screen keyboard which changes dependant on application and offers more than a base of solid keys. Anything that tries to be hybrid (ie Windows 8), is bound to be trouble for users.

  21. Gobhicks
    Unhappy

    Cohabitate?!

    Urgh

    Clearly inhabitated by illiterates.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have an ASUS Transformer, if I use it for any length of time on the keyboard dock and then work at one of my desktop machines I usually catch myself about to touch or drag one of the screen icons. OK, it's muscle memory - but it's muscle memory because touchscreen on a computer with muse and keyboard can be useful.

    Now, not everybody is going to like it - the solution is hardware and software that accept, and function, with a variety of input methods. Forget the 'right' or 'wrong' way, the productive way wins out every time.

  23. Bill B

    Can I have..

    ... a big touch sensitive screen (say 2ft x 3ft) that can be laid flat (or angled slightly). Happy to have a soft keyboard on it. Must have ledges on side to put coffee cup, chocolate bars and screen wipes.

    Get the best of both worlds then. Space to layout my work any way I want (I use two screens at the moment) coupled with friendliness of touch and support for hands, fingers (and a nice warm surface when i sleep on it).

    Thinking about it, a touch stylus would be a useful accessory when fingers aren't accurate enough.

  24. Drew V.

    If you give the ultrabook a swivel-attached screen so you can turn it into a tablet - just like many Fujitsu notebooks have always had for a very long time already - then yes. Otherwise fuggedaboutit.

  25. B4PJS
    Thumb Up

    Inspiron DUO

    I love the touchscreen on my DUO runing W8. I even use it when in laptop mode, not just tablet (okay, paving slab, it is a wee bit heavy to use whilst standing on the train) mode. So useful for scrolling and file managing :)

  26. Admiral Grace Hopper

    Never mind Steve Jobs

    Has anyone asked HP? They spent a large part of the 1990s trying to convince the world that touchscreen interfaces on PC monitors were the way forward. The world, I recall, quite rightly laughed at them as PCs, as then configured, worked much better with mice and keyboards and this holds true today for the tasks for which typing-oriented PCs are used. Browsing-oriented PCs, such as tablets, do work much better with a touch interface, as do specialised devices such as medical monitoring kit where HP did turn their touchscreens into an advantage, but if you need to type anything of any length then I'd much rather have the appropriate interface. Never mind writing a novel, how about coding a decent sized lump of C++ using a touchscreen? Mouses and keyboards for courses.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It will come.

    I had to support machines which worked as smart POS terminals, the screen was in the traditional arms length and there were standard operating system actions where touching the screen (even dragging) was better and felt more natural than using the mouse.

    Obviously the POS system has large-ish buttons but even selecting the start button and selecting the prorgrams was easier because there was none of that collapsing when the mouse slipped over another option on its way between menu strips.

    It took the best part of a year, because I wasn't working on these systems every day like the front of house staff, but just like everything else, I eventually found myself swapping between the mouse, keyboard and touch screen fluidly, when it suited me.

    Which is to come first, the touch screen or the touch-orientated app? Moan all you like, but it will come, and people will moan and bitch about it, but it will become as much a part of life as the keyboard and mouse ... like it ... or not.

  28. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
    Boffin

    This shouldn;t come as a surprise

    To anyone who has used a touchscreen phone and then absentmindedly found themselves trying to poke at their laptop screen, the concept of a touchscreen as a secondary input device is great. The point here is that it is secondary. There are certain things a touch-screen is good for, such as pinching and zooming on maps, dragging things about, etc. but the keyboard and mouse are still king and queen for so many proper applications, and I can't foresee a time when people aren't going to want to use them.

  29. PAT MCCLUNG

    Clerk

    It is SO interesting. How huge amounts of effort, commitment, and energy are devoted to the same, trivial, irrelevant things. It has always been thus - viz- in Christian theology - Homoiousia or Homoousia. It really doesn't matter whether we use keyboards, mouse clicks (thank you Doug Engelbart), gestures, voice, or "thought waves" to access information. The special class of people who worry about such things are those who really don't have any information to provide - there are a lot of people who know how write in some language, but most of them, like these people, don't have very much to say. The same is true of "content providers" over the Internet. Their communication is not significant, though it may be topical. Nobody remembers which faction won the chariot races at the last race sponsored by Caligula in Rome.

    So, touch screen, mouse, or keyboard, who cares about that, as long as information is accessible? Only the those who really have nothing to say, but are ambitious and greedy, want to make money on the latest gadget.

  30. Ron Luther
    Trollface

    Form factor?

    Quite right. Because there are no other possible form factors.

    It would be quite impossible to manufacture a touchscreen half-top - a laptop where the keyboard 'half' is shorter than the screen "half" and that allowed itself to be opened 180 degrees so the whole thing could lie flat on the coffee table. Nope. Can't be done.

    It would be quite impossible to manufacture a pad-like thing that had a slide-out keyboard like my phone. Nope. Can't be done.

    Yup. We've completely exhausted all possibilities.

    Now where's that irony tag?

  31. Jeff 11
    Childcatcher

    Touchscreens on an ultrabook? Won't someone please think of the.... hinges?

    On most recent craptops with twin hinges, poking the screen constantly is going to strain these cheap plastic mechanisms to breaking point in fairly short order - unless they're redesigned.

    But then even if the hinges are strong and stiff enough, and the laptop is a lightweight ultrabook, you're going to gradually end up pushing your machine further and further away from you unless you have a soft touch or the machine has better friction to the desk.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Does anyone still care what Steve Jobs thinks/thought?

    Not moi.

  33. Alan Firminger

    But ...

    ... there are new PCs that comprise a slim form with a flat board encased behind a vertical laptop screen; essentially bits of a laptop rearranged. See them from perhaps four suppliers in Staples, none are shown on Staples website.

    Half the models have touchscreens. So the experiment is in progress, see what sells.

    I bet the answer is that a mouse is easier.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge
      Meh

      Our marketing dept bought some

      When they are used for Flash presentations where customers explore the features of %product%, the touch is great and works brilliantly.

      When they are used as actual computers, the touch is never used and we mess about trying to get a mouse and keyboard connected neatly.

      Some of that is down to the software - few to no software applications are designed for touch.

      The other is exactly what Jobs said - a vertical touchscreen is tiring to use. It is fine as long as you rarely use it - eg only for selecting an individual item of interest, then using alternative input to manipulate it.

      The reason is quite simple - you cannot accurately position your hand in mid air for any length of time. That's why mouse and trackball work so well, because you're resting your arm on the desk.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bring back light pens!

    Higher resolution, no fingerprints.

  35. Nick Roberts
    Thumb Up

    I wonder how I use the touchscreen on my phone - horizontally or vertically? Well I don't look for a surface to put it on, for sure, I hold it up...

    OK, so that's not the same form factor, I hear people cry. But the EeePad Transformer with keyboard is, and it's brilliant to be able to integrate touch into how you use a machine, as others have said.

    On top of that, I do a lot of photo editing, and I use a graphics tablet to help me. It would be massively easier to be able to use the screen directly, particularly when travelling or editing in the field - exactly where I would want to use an Ultrabook. So although I wouldn't want it to be the only input method, I think it's entirely sensible.

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Your graphics tablet

      Is it on a desk, or stuck to the wall?

      I expect it's on your desk at a slight angle to make it the most comfortable.

      So a touch notebook only works for you if you (almost) flatten it out... Kinda like a tablet.

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