There has always been a lot of discussion among Mac users about Apple using a touch screen for Mac computers. Some people think that the touch screen experience of Windows next door has been stumbling for so many years, but no one can say anything wrong.Let’s add touch screen functionality to Mac first, and the experience can be gradually optimized. Some people also think that Mac should retain the traditional note-taking interaction mode.
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If you want touch screen interaction, isn’t there an iPad? Wouldn't it be nice to have different needs handled by different devices? There's no need to scratch my beard and eyebrows, I want them all.
Tony thinks these two opinions are reasonable, but the Mac with touch screen has actually appeared a long time ago.
You might not believe it if you tell me.Among Apple's early Mac products, there were a number of Macs modified with touch screens.
There is a YouTube blogger named MichaelMJD who recently found a touch-screen version of the iMac G3 computer produced in 1999 while searching for items on eBay.
This thing is much rarer than a three-legged toad.
According to him, the touch-enabled iMac G3 he bought was an engineering prototype.
In fact, Apple has not officially launched a touch-screen version of the iMac G3. These G3 computers with touch functions are the work of a touch device company called elo.
They purchased a batch of iMac G3s from Apple, modified them with touch screen functions, and then resold them toShopping malls or airport stations serve as navigation devices and information desk inquiry devices.
The reason for this is also very reasonable. On the one hand, the colorful translucent shell design of iMac G3 at that time was indeed quite eye-catching when placed in public places.
I wonder who is passing by who doesn’t want to touch the new computer released by Apple?
But if you just leave the iMac G3 in a public place, the wear and tear of the keyboard and mouse will be a big problem, and the maintenance cost will be very high if it breaks down.
In this way, elo's touch screen solution seems very gimmicky. It can interact directly with the finger on the screen, eliminating the cost of additional peripherals.
However, Tony discovered a problem.
iMacG3 was still a big-headed CRT monitor at the time. How did elo put the touch function directly on the CRT monitor?
This has to mention the name that elo named themselves"iTouch"technology, elo used a very clever way to solve this problem on CRT.
Simply put, elo uses a method calledsurface acoustic wavetechnology, they inserted two sets of sound wave sensors into the CRT,One group is used to send out sound waves, and the other group is used to receive signals.
When your finger presses on the screen, the finger will absorb part of the sound wave energy, and the sound waves in the pressed screen area will change.
After the sensor receiving the signal receives the changed information, it will pass it to the plug-in control board behind the CRT.
Then drag out a USB cable from the control panel and connect it to the computer for processing, and you can complete the positioning of the touch screen on the screen.
Everyone found that no, elo's touch screen solution is essentially an external device. It does not directly make changes to the computer's motherboard, but it achieves a touch screen operation that is closest to the native experience.
Other companies also have touch screen solutions, but they all require the installation of a ridiculously large touch screen component.
What’s even more exciting is that elo’s touch screen solution also supports pressure sensing in the Z-axis direction. The computer can also sense how hard your fingers press on the screen.
Isn’t this the 3DTouch function on the iPhone later?
In terms of use, most of the software on this touch-screen iMac is well compatible with touch operations.
Especially when opening some electronic encyclopedias and electronic comics, which are mainly browsing software, except that the computer's response speed is slower, the interactive experience is really similar to the current iPad.
However, because it is a single-touch control, it is a bit difficult to operate the game.
In the old game Doom, touch interaction could only involve clicking on the screen to shoot, and movement operations still had to return to the WASD on the keyboard.
It’s hard to imagine that Apple computers could already perform these futuristic operations more than 20 years ago...
But in the final analysis, this touch screen solution is not Apple’s first-party idea.
I have never been very interested in touch screens on Macs. Lao Qiao answered this question head-on when he was still here.
At the 2010 Apple conference, when Jobs introduced the new MacBook, he said that Apple’s design team had done a lot of experiments and user testing.I think touch screen laptops are an ergonomic disaster.
Because when the arm is perpendicular to the computer screen, there is no support for the arm. In this case, the hand will become sore in a short time.
Apple's idea is that instead of thinking about making a touch screen, it would be better to make the trackpad larger, so that the user experience will be much friendlier.
But Apple has not completely given up on touch screens. In fact, it has been making similar attempts.
For example, the TouchBar, which was previously launched on the MacBook but has now been axed, is a good test of touch screen interaction.
It greatly expands the functionality of some MacBook keys and solves the problem of multi-purpose function keys to a certain extent.
However, the enthusiasm of software developers for TouchBar development is indeed not that high. There are fewer softwares that can be used, and most users will prefer the original keyboard usage habits.
But let’s talk about it, Tony thinks the TouchBar is quite cool for posting emojis and dragging the progress bar of videos.
Interestingly, news broke from Bloomberg at the beginning of this year that Apple is now developing a touch screen for its Mac computers and is likely to launch a Mac computer with a touch screen in 2025.
It’s really hard to guess how Apple will launch this touch-screen Mac.
But Tony vaguely feels that if it is really to be launched, it will have some ingenious connection with VisionPro launched this year in terms of productivity.
In addition, the current iPad is getting closer and closer to the Mac. Not only is the performance getting closer, but it is also getting closer in terms of productivity usage scenarios.
In terms of sales of the iPad in the past two years, it has been surpassed by the Mac. It is not ruled out that Apple may really add touch screen functions to the Mac to increase product competitiveness.
In general, there is not always an inequality sign between Mac and touch screen interaction.
At least judging from the touch-enabled iMac G3 launched 24 years ago, the touch screen experience of Apple Mac was indeed far ahead of similar products at the time.