Quote of the day by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on touchscreens: ‘After an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off’ — savaging a bitter rival’s PC pivot | Daily Reports Online
The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had a reputation for being ahead of the curve. At the time, Microsoft was heavily pushing touchscreen computing in an attempt to innovate and embrace new possibilities when interfacing with machines; Jobs dug his heels in and refused to take Apple down that same path.
“We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives a great demo, but after a short period of time you start to fatigue, and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work. It’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal.”
Swimming against the tide
Steve Jobs was speaking during the ‘Back to the Mac’ media event at Apple’s corporate headquarters while introducing Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.
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Instead of adding a touchscreen to the MacBook, which Jobs saw as something of a gimmick, Apple focused on multi-touch gestures using the trackpad and mice instead of adding a touchscreen into the fabric of the display. The reason, according to Jobs, was simple: using this technology would quickly lead to strain, fatigue, and the loss of precision the longer a user was navigating using touch.
He put his foot down despite immense industry pressure at the time in the form of the emergence of new kinds of devices such as the HP Touchsmart family.
Times are changing
With Windows continuing to introduce new touchscreen devices and 2-in-1s to the market, Apple stood firm on its resolve over the next few years – but the manufacturer experimented with bridge technologies like the touchbar, which was eventually phased out.
There has since been renewed pressure on Apple to embrace touchscreen and embed this in its devices – with the company now expected to break its stance for the first time and introduce a new touchscreen MacBook Pro with an OLED panel, according to rumors.
