[Meatloaf] Fwd: Touch Screens Are Over. Even Apple Is Bringing Back Buttons. - WSJ

[pt]

Or this:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/touch-screens-are-over-even-apple-is-bringing-back-buttons/ar-AA1rlCa1

On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 9:14 PM david shenk <klmoexpo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Official Joe's Spoon Reflector.
>
> All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction.
> You have no chance to survive make your time. HA HA HA HA...
> For great justice.
>
> I got this from a friend and it might work.
>
> David Shenk
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> *Is Bringing Back Buttons. - WSJ*
>
> 
>
>
>
> https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/touch-screens-are-over-even-apple-is-bringing-back-buttons-86fb9ea8?mod=hp_lead_pos10
>
> Touch Screens Are Over. Even Apple Is Bringing Back Buttons.Product
> designers are embracing how users actually feel after years of pushing flat
> and sleek
> Christopher Mims <https://www.wsj.com/news/author/christopher-mims>Sept.
> 27, 2024 9:00 pm
>
> Companies have spent nearly two decades cramming ever more functions onto
> tappable, swipeable displays. Now buttons, knobs, sliders and other
> physical controls are making a comeback in vehicles, appliances and
> personal electronics.
>
> In cars, the widely emulated
> <https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/best-evs-under-60000-dollars-3eed42f9?mod=article_inline>
> ultra-minimalism of Tesla’s touch-screen-centric control panels is giving
> way to actual buttons, knobs and toggles in new models from Kia
> <http:///market-data/quotes/KR/XKRX/000270>, BMW
> <http:///market-data/quotes/XE/XETR/BMW>’s Mini, and Volkswagen
> <http:///market-data/quotes/XE/XETR/VOW3>, among others. This trend is
> delighting reviewers and making the display-focused interiors of Tesla and
> its imitators feel passé.
>
> Similar re-buttonization is occurring in everything from e-readers to
> induction stoves.
>
> Perhaps the most prominent exponent of this button boom is the company
> that set us lurching toward touch screens in the first place. Apple
> <http:///market-data/quotes/AAPL> added a third button it calls the
> “action button” to its full slate
> <https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/iphone-16-first-impressions-apple-ca09e301?mod=article_inline>
> of new iPhone 16s unveiled this month, after introducing the feature on its upscale
> Apple Watch Ultra
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-watch-ultra-review-better-battery-life-but-not-quite-extreme-11663721615?mod=article_inline>
> and Pro-model iPhones over the past couple of years. It also added a
> button-like “camera control” input on the iPhone’s side.
>
> As Apple shows, companies aren’t just rediscovering buttons, they’re
> reconceiving them. The camera control includes touch features, and the
> company has also developed the “force sensor” that enables its AirPods to
> respond when you squeeze their stems.
>
> Engineers and industrial designers—often prodded by user complaints—are
> tapping into our exquisitely sensitive sense of touch and spatial
> awareness, known as proprioception. And it’s all in service of making
> gadgets easier, more fun and, in some cases, safer to use. We want to touch
> type or operate cruise control without averting our eyes from the road.
> iPhone 16 First Look: New Buttons, New Cameras and New Processors
> [image: iPhone 16 First Look: New Buttons, New Cameras and New Processors]
> iPhone 16 First Look: New Buttons, New Cameras and New Processors
> The new iPhone 16 and 16 Pro models have new cameras, faster processors
> for better AI performance and…new buttons? It’s all about the buttons.
> WSJ’s Joanna Stern breaks down everything you need to know. Photo
> Illustration: Jacob Reynolds
> Why buttons became sensors
>
> To understand why buttons are making a comeback in a world in which any
> kind of controls are possible, it helps to understand how we got to the
> current, too-often sorry state of human-machine interfaces.
>
> Touch screens have their virtues, which explains the initial enthusiasm
> for them. We can do a lot more by tapping our iPhones than we ever could
> have with the old-school BlackBerry
> <http:///market-data/quotes/CA/XTSE/BB>, however much we miss those
> clicky little keyboards.
>
> As soaring production drove down the price of such displays, though, they
> became something of a crutch for gadget designers and corporate bean
> counters.
>
> “Now that touch screens are the cheapest option, they’re being deployed
> everywhere, even in places where they don’t belong,” says Sam Calisch,
> chief executive of Copper, a startup that makes induction ranges for
> cooking
> <https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/the-tesla-of-stoves-comes-with-a-battery-to-power-your-whole-house-927fee12?mod=article_inline>.
> In electric stoves and ovens, this has led to poor design decisions—for
> example, induction cooktops with touch-based controls that become
> inoperable when a pot boils over, as my Wall Street Journal colleague
> Nicole Nguyen lamented last year
> <https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/what-our-phones-cars-and-refrigerators-need-more-buttons-c7359d42?mod=article_inline>
> .
>
> Even when our devices have buttons, they are too often the kind that are
> flat like touch screens, and have similar shortcomings. Capacitive buttons
> sit flush on hard surfaces and don’t actually give way when you press, and
> so can only signal they’ve been activated through sound or light. These,
> too, have taken over because they are cheap and easy to incorporate into
> the printed circuit boards that are already inside gadgets, whereas
> incorporating physical switches means additional wiring and complexity,
> Calisch says.
>
> Anyone who has known the agony of having to mash a capacitive button on a
> newer washer, dryer or dishwasher knows how uniquely infuriating such
> cost-cutting measures—masquerading as futuristic interfaces—can be.
> Capacitive buttons sit flush on hard surfaces and don’t give way when you
> press, as on the UltraFast Combo washer dryer. Photo: Jon Cherry for WSJ
> The hazards of ‘touch’ interfaces
>
> Fundamentally, the problem with touch-based interfaces is that they aren’t
> touch-based at all, because they need us to look when using them. Think,
> for example, of the screen of your smartphone, which requires your
> undivided gaze when you press on its smooth surface.
>
> As a result, “touch screen” is a misnomer, says Rachel Plotnick, associate
> professor of cinema and media studies at Indiana University Bloomington,
> and author of the 2018 book “Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic,
> and the Politics of Pushing,” the definitive history of buttons. Such
> interfaces would be more accurately described as “sight-based,” she says.
>
> The hazards of burying many of a vehicle’s controls inside touch-screen
> menus that need drivers to look at them have become so obvious that the one
> European automotive safety body has declared that vehicles must have
> physical switches and buttons
> <https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/stop-making-dangerous-touchscreens-car-firms-told-xv3gmpdc6>
> to receive its highest safety rating. Responding to criticism from drivers,
> Volkswagen has pledged to bring back physical controls
> <https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/2025-volkswagen-id-2-will-be-even-better-concept>
> for certain oft-used features, such as climate control.
>
> Newer electric vehicles from BMW Mini are bristling with physical
> controls. To make it so drivers never have to take their eyes off the road,
> industrial designers at Mini put into their vehicles a user-customizable
> head-up display that drivers can navigate using buttons and a scroll wheel
> on the steering wheel, says Patrick McKenna, head of product and marketing
> at Mini USA. These controls can also be accessed through the vehicle’s
> round touch screen, and via a voice assistant. The entire point of the
> vehicle’s interfaces is redundancy, safety and a reduction in distractions,
> he adds.
> Satisfying switches and clicky keyboards
>
> The switch back to physical interfaces is also, in many ways, a vibe shift
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/vibes-from-buzzing-appliances-to-cool-intuitions-11668721957?mod=article_inline>.
> With touch screens ubiquitous, what was once viewed as luxurious is
> becoming tacky. Physical controls, done well, now signal the kind of
> thoughtfulness and exclusivity once attached to the original iPhone.
>
> Take the knobs on the induction range from Copper. Made of walnut, they
> let cooks know, without looking, the level of heat they’ve set a burner
> to—just like physical knobs on a gas range. This is deliberate, says
> Calisch, who admits that in the past he’s put capacitive-touch sensors on
> other electronics he’s designed.
> An induction range from Copper has walnut knobs, top, so cooks know,
> without looking, the level of heat just like the physical knobs on a gas
> range. Playdate handheld games, above left, have buttons. The keyboard
> filled with keys on a synthesizer made by Teenage Engineering, above right. (top)
> COPPER,(L) Panic, (R) TEENAGE ENGINEERING
>
> Physical controls are effective in part because of our sixth sense, known
> as proprioception. Distinct from the sense of touch, proprioception
> describes our innate awareness of where our body parts are. It is the
> reason we can know the position of all our limbs in three-dimensional space
> down to the precise position of the tips of our fingers.
>
> Making good physical interfaces isn’t just about the utility of engaging
> our sense of touch; the big button comeback is also about joy. Think of the
> satisfying heft of the volume knob on a hi-fi stereo, or the way a proper
> ergonomic keyboard
> <https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/best-tech-gifts-holiday-season-2023-710814c4?mod=article_inline>
> can make typing seem less of a chore.
>
> A good example of this sense of fun is the hand crank on the side of the
> Playdate portable videogame system, which also includes a familiar,
> plus-shaped D-pad and two buttons. Putting a controller that works like the
> crank on an old coffee grinder onto a gadget resembling the original
> Gameboy is about whimsy, but also introduces new game mechanics that would
> otherwise be cumbersome or even impossible on other devices, says Greg
> Maletic, director of special projects at Panic, the company that makes the
> Playdate.
>
> Makers of musical instruments have always understood the importance of
> physical controls. Teenage Engineering, the Swedish consumer-electronics
> company Panic partnered with to make the Playdate, makes a variety of
> synthesizers bristling with a dizzying array of buttons, sliders and knobs.
>
> Once you know what to look for, it becomes apparent that this kind of
> design thinking is showing up all over the place, and that adding physical
> controls back to a device ignominiously stripped of them can unlock new
> kinds of interaction and utility.
>
> E-readers have begun adding back page-turn buttons. While Amazon
> <http:///market-data/quotes/AMZN> has abandoned such buttons in its
> Kindles, competitors from Kobo, Nook and Boox all now offer models that
> include them.
>
> Similarly, Apple—whose 2007 launch of the iPhone ushered in a touch-screen
> era—is adding a surprising variety of buttons back to devices that
> previously seemed on a trajectory to have none at all.
> Apple’s Touch Bar on a MacBook Pro laptop in 2016, above, eliminated
> physical keys. Apple has restored them. Photo: David Paul
> Morris/Bloomberg News
>
> It restored the physical function keys
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-macbook-pro-with-m1-pro-and-m1-max-chips-apple-giveth-apple-taketh-away-11634593341?mod=article_inline>
> atop the keyboards on its MacBook Pro computers in 2021, after replacing
> them with much fanfare in 2016 with a touch-screen strip that it touted
> as the Touch Bar
> <https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-unveils-tv-app-new-line-of-macs-1477590582?mod=article_inline>.
> Apple boasted
> <https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/10/apple-unveils-game-changing-macbook-pro/>
> that restoring physical keys brought “back the familiar, tactile feel of
> mechanical keys that pro users love.”
>
> The push to re-physicalize interfaces has even led to an unexpected side
> gig for Dr. Plotnick, the academic authority on buttons. Companies are
> tapping her to consult on how to improve their physical controls. At its
> heart, these consultations—which include advising on the function of
> potentially lifesaving buttons on medical devices—are about making
> interactions with machines less intimidating and more intuitive.
>
> “You know, there’s often a lot of skill behind button pushing—even though
> it seems like the simplest thing in the world,” she says.
>
> *For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines,** sign
> up for our weekly newsletter*
> <https://www.wsj.com/newsletters?sub=55&mod=article_inline&mod=article_inline>
> *.*
>
> Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims at wsj.com
>
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