“From the first time Steve Jobs demonstrated ‘the pinch’—the two-finger gesture used to zoom in and out of photos and Web pages on the iPhone—some Apple observers assumed it was just a matter of time before a multitouch-enabled screen showed up on the Mac,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for BusinessWeek. “That hasn’t happened yet. But as of Nov. 19, Hewlett-Packard has beaten Apple to the punch, announcing the first multitouch-enabled notebook PC, the tx2. I can’t help but wonder whether Apple just lost an important race.”
MacDailyNews Take: Nonsense. Apple introduced their first notebook with Multi-Touch™ on January 15, 2008. That’s 11 months ago, Arik. Each model of Apple’s MacBook family now sports Multi-Touch™. And Apple’s iPhone – which is also a portable computer from Apple – started shipping on June 29, 2007. That’s 10 days short of 17 months ago, Arik. [UPDATE: 11:50am ET: In fact, as readers below remind us, Apple introduced two-finger scrolling and panning trackpads, an early implementation of Multi-Touch™, on January 31, 2005, nearly 4 years ago in PowerBooks.]
Hesseldahl continues with his article’s baseless theme, “Hewlett-Packard’s tx2 sports HP’s version of multitouch technology, which lets you use two fingers at once to manipulate images on the screen or make on-screen gestures that signify specific commands. A pinch motion works just like it does on an iPhone, letting you rotate pictures or press and drag files around.”
MacDailyNews Take: Does it make more sense to be smearing your fingers around on your notebook’s screen or on a spacious trackpad that’s designed specifically and solely to be touched? Apple thinks things through more than other companies, Arik. You should know that by now. The iPhone’s screen has to be touched; that’s all it has available. A MacBook’s screen doesn’t not have to be touched in order to offer Multi-Touch™. There is a better way; Apple’s way.
Hesseldahl continues incorrectly reporting that “Apple so far sells only two multitouch-enabled products, the iPhone and the iPod Touch.”
MacDailyNews Take: You are wrong, Arik. Just plain wrong. BusinessWeek should immediately issue a retraction and an apology to their readership – and Apple – for that totally incorrect sentence, at the very least.
Hesseldahl asks, “What’s Apple got against touching the screen directly?”
MacDailyNews Take: They used their heads and thought about it for more than half a second unlike HP?
Hesseldahl presses onward, “Apple’s apparent foot-dragging is ironic considering the company made the point that handheld devices are essentially little computers, doing away with the need for either a stylus or a keyboard.”
MacDailyNews Take: And therefore, Hesseldahl admits and backs our point that Apple’s Multi-Touch™ iPhone is a computer, which shipped 10 days short of 17 months ago. Case dismissed. Thank you all for your service.
But, Hesseldahl just can’t stop typing, “Given the current physical attributes of desktops and notebooks, a touch interface would be awkward. Sitting here in front of my desktop and notebook displays, I imagine that repeatedly reaching up to touch the screen a few thousand times a day would make my arms and shoulders tired. Ideally, touch-based computers would be built into the surfaces we sit at.”
MacDailyNews Take: Yeah, exactly like any Apple MacBook’s trackpad. And, Arik’s Gorilla Arm description fits HP’s ill-conceived, and limited, touchscreen desktop perfectly.
Hesseldahl concludes, “Still, if there’s one company that can and should be showing the way, it’s Apple… Two years into the Apple-inspired revolution in touch interfaces on smartphones, I’m disappointed the only computers doing that run Windows.”
MacDailyNews Take: In order to make his circle of wrongness complete, Arik closes with a final blast of utter nonsense. Apple is showing the way, but this time it’s patented. To recap, Apple has been shipping properly-placed and properly-conceived Multi-Touch™-equipped MacBooks for nearly a year now and iPhones which are, as Arik himself describes “handheld devices are essentially little computers,” for nearly a year and a half. The only computers using Multi-Touch™ properly, using device-appropriate Multi-Touch™ input areas are computers from Apple that run Mac OS X (and Linux and can even slum it with Windows, if need be) and OS X for iPhone and iPod touch (and future devices).
The reason why Hesseldahl spends so much time on Apple, not HP — which is what his article is ostensibly supposed to be about — is that nobody cares a whit about HP and because Apple has always been, and continues to be, the leader in Multi-Touch™ interfaces.
The full ridiculous article is here: Hewlett-Packard Out-Touches Apple: Apple watchers assumed Jobs & Co. would be the first to offer a multitouch laptop, but Hewlett-Packard has beaten them to the punch
MacDailyNews Note: Arik loves email: . Also contact BusinessWeek Editors here.
Apple MacBook’s Multi-Touch Trackpad:
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
@ eaDGbe & Chano
I certainly understand what you’re trying to accomplish and that’s noble, but you’re going about it all wrong.
Dave, you do a good job in the second email to call out the specific instances where he is incorrect. But you’re doing it in a condescending way that only makes him defensive.
Chano, all you do is attack Business Week and state that they’re wrong and they suck. To say there are “totally baseless inaccurate (sic) and actionable lies” in the article is a totally baseless, inaccurate statement. Two or three sentences missing one word (display) does not make an article full of lies.
I’m sure both Arik and BW are getting tons of emails like these, and the only impression they get is, “attack Apple and the fanboys come out”. Next time, be more tactful and specific without attacking, and you might get your point across.
@ Jordan, you say “condescend”, I say “engage in friendly discussion”.
I’ve sent another email to the author which I very much hope he doesn’t take as condescending:
Arik,
It occurs to me that you could write a very interesting follow-up article, named something like “HP and Apple’s Differing Approaches to Multi-touch” in which you could compare and contrast the multi-touch HP screen vs. the multi-touch Apple trackpad, and come up with meaningful conclusions about the effectiveness of each. The two approaches each deserve the benefit of the doubt, if not a legitimate nod to innovation as well as a head-to-head comparison.
I believe many would find that useful. What do you say, follow-up article?
Respectfully and Cheers,
Dave
The guy is obviously talking about “multi-touch” directly on the screen. In that case, it’s a “race” that Apple did not run.
And as MDN already mentioned, the iPod touch and iPhone are Apple’s computers with a multi-touch screen. No doubt, there will be a model with a bigger screen, and then people will start referring to them as “tablet computers.”
The author has posted a follow-up blog article which I appreciate and recommend:
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/19164/
Something tells me that MDN will neglect to acknowledge this follow up article from Arik, mostly because it shows how wrong they were. Never let the other guys have the last word, eh
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
I was in PC World on Monday. The HP Touchsmart was on display. In front of it was a sign “Please do not touch”.
Says it all really.
I have to clean my screen often enough without INTENTIONALLY wiping my fingers across it several hundred times a day!
MDN totally pwns Arik! The poor guy won’t be able to show his face out for at least a couple of weeks!
I have a touchscreen iMac on ebay right now http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-24-iMac-2-8GHz-4GB-ram-10-000rpm-TOUCHSCREEN_W0QQitemZ130269407388QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Desktops?hash=item130269407388&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1205|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1309
HP is one of the earliest companies to offer touch screen technology on the desktop in their HP150 series from the mid-1980s.
From WikiPedia: “The screen is not a touch screen in the strict sense, but a 9″ Sony CRT surrounded by infrared emitters and detectors which detect the position of any non-transparent object on the screen.”
This technology worked pretty well in the low-res MS-DOS era and was used mainly for pressing soft function keys along the bottom of the screen.
For direct manipulation of graphics and other detailed work, computer ergonomics will need to change. E.g. the monitor needs to live on the work surface and sensors should reliably support a multifunctional stylus, a la Wacom.
Sky
Doesn’t anybody notice what Apple is planning? They went out of their way to explain that the track pad is glass. They did all kinds of things to make it not smear and to roll under the fingers like it should…why did they do all that to GLASS…? Why did ALL the Macbooks go to all glass screens? Think about it for two seconds…time’s up. They are experimenting with GLASS screens that are matte finish and smear proof and no one will be able to beat that for years to come. It all makes sense doesn’t it. I’m holding out to upgrade my 1st gen Mac mini for when the touch notebook comes out.
wow, a bit insecure mac? who are you or apple to say what is better, a touchscreen or a trackpad. how about let the consumer decide, thats what steve has no clue about. maybe that why macheads cant say firewire, blueray, customize…
get over yourself mac daddies…you have a good product, so stop acting like insecure middleschool cheerleaders that have to make fun of others to feel good about themselves
“[Microsoft] started becoming clueless after the company released MS-DOS.”
…which they just licenced from an other company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS
Still, if there’s one company that can and should be showing the way, it’s Apple… Two years into the Apple-inspired revolution in touch interfaces on smart phones, I’m disappointed the only computers doing that run Windows…office ergonomics