It's the Battle of the Corporate Titans as to which one could make the Most Absolutely Worthless Keyboard possible. Years ago, Microsoft went with curved and ludicrous while Apple started getting flat ... and flatter ... and flatter ... until finally the keyboard was so bereft of tactile sensation it became like making love with a partner in a space suit which is slow, tedious, and ultimately really messy.
Apple has now outdone itself with a keyboard which rolls up and thus has no tactile sensitivity of any kind. Now it will be like making love to a partner in a space suit ... when the partner is in another spaceship.
All of these solutions dance annoyingly around the obvious, that computers mostly work by text. To work effectively with text, it's going to be exceedingly difficult to do it with something which has the responsiveness and tactile sensitivity of a Kleenex.
This looks much like toying with a problem rather than solving it. Making a larger screen for the iPad Pro is all very well, everyone likes pictures, but the fundamental method of input is weak. The Apple Pencil may be a fair compromise depending on the flexibility in the way it can be used. The irony of it is this protocol was being used for Palm Pilots fifteen or twenty years ago. A Palm Pilot without its stylus was mostly useless. It was cool to use infrared beaming to do clandestine things in meetings, tho.
There is more reason to grouse over Apple keyboards than typing efficiency as we never heard of carpal tunnel syndrome back in the days when typists were employed by the millions, most using Royal or IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM punch card writers, etc. Flat keyboards are known to exacerbate any vulnerability to carpal tunnel syndrome so it takes an active effort from you to prevent it. Meanwhile, keyboards keep getting flatter and, thus, Apple gets the latest award for the Most Horrible Keyboard.
Apple has now outdone itself with a keyboard which rolls up and thus has no tactile sensitivity of any kind. Now it will be like making love to a partner in a space suit ... when the partner is in another spaceship.
All of these solutions dance annoyingly around the obvious, that computers mostly work by text. To work effectively with text, it's going to be exceedingly difficult to do it with something which has the responsiveness and tactile sensitivity of a Kleenex.
This looks much like toying with a problem rather than solving it. Making a larger screen for the iPad Pro is all very well, everyone likes pictures, but the fundamental method of input is weak. The Apple Pencil may be a fair compromise depending on the flexibility in the way it can be used. The irony of it is this protocol was being used for Palm Pilots fifteen or twenty years ago. A Palm Pilot without its stylus was mostly useless. It was cool to use infrared beaming to do clandestine things in meetings, tho.
There is more reason to grouse over Apple keyboards than typing efficiency as we never heard of carpal tunnel syndrome back in the days when typists were employed by the millions, most using Royal or IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM punch card writers, etc. Flat keyboards are known to exacerbate any vulnerability to carpal tunnel syndrome so it takes an active effort from you to prevent it. Meanwhile, keyboards keep getting flatter and, thus, Apple gets the latest award for the Most Horrible Keyboard.
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