Denny, you’re a nerd and early-adopter though. Among normal people, I know of very few people who use touchscreen interface on Windows 8-10 because there aren’t any worthwhile apps. Business people use the touchscreen with stylus for OneNote and some artists for creative software…but regular people, I’ve not seen many.
I’m with LeeAbe here–OS X was proven “right” in not grafting on touchscreen to the desktop OS while Windows 8/10 has suffered for it and had to backtrack to the desktop some.
The biggest case where the touch screen is a win is when showing someone else a document or procedure on your laptop. It’s much easier to follow what someone is doing on a touch screen (and to participate alongside) than with moving a cursor via touchpad.
Like you guys (given your response about touchscreens), I really don’t give a crap what other people use. I care about what I use.
Windows in no way “suffers” from Touchscreen support. (Well, since they killed the Win 8 Start menu. :) Win 10 works just like XP with a mouse and keyboard, but you can scroll/select with the screen too. It’s additive and in no way harms previous functionality. You guys are in full-on Mac Defense League mode here arguing otherwise. :)
And Lee, you’re arguing that you’d rather see the platform with touch support as a primary platform! iOS needs a full filesystem and Bluetooth mouse support. I could use an iPad as a primary platform if it supported using a mouse when I’m writing. Ironically, Apple’s only solution for precision text selection on an iPad is the Apple Pencil. Talk about awkward/gorilla arm.
I am not blindly defending the Mac, I genuinely don’t think touch adds anything to a laptop. I bought a Surface (twice) because I liked the stylus and thought the cross between a tablet and laptop was interesting. The problem is most apps don’t support touch in Windows, and when they do they either have tiny hit boxes which makes them awkward to use, or they make everything bigger for touch. Too many apps, like OneNote, have a limited touch version and a desktop version. I am in desktop mode, don’t open the touch version or keep asking me which version should be default. I didn’t find the ability to scroll or select things with my finger added anything to the usability of the computer, especially when I am using two apps, one that supports touch and the other doesn’t. I thought the confusion between touch/non touch very much hurt Windows 8 (I haven’t used a touch device under 10) and I just don’t see what it would add to OS X. iPads are great because everything on them is made for that interface, and vice versa for OS X.
When using it as a laptop, “gorilla arm” was definitely a problem, why would I hold my arm up constantly when using a mouse/touchpad is easier? The reason I gave up on the Surface is because I found I always used it like a laptop, so why not just get a real laptop?
I am arguing that the iPad should have more capabilities than it does, sure, but I use my devices very differently and don’t need/want a hybrid. As far as text selection on the iPad, have you tried selecting text with the new touchpad interface on the keyboard (dragging two fingers), it works quite well once you get used to it.
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my earlier posts, but I don’t use the touchscreen all the time (and I certainly don’t think it’s intended to do so), or even close to it. Hence, no gorilla arm. But there are certain situations where I have found it to be extremely useful to have a touchscreen on a laptop.
Again, different people use things in different ways. Just because you don’t want a touchscreen doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be an added convenience for a significant audience.
I don’t mind touch screens at all. OSX is in now way built around a dual use environment like Win10 and so would be a miserable thing with a touchscreen.
The real crime is hobbling iOS here. They need to suck it up and make it a full fledged OS and not a glorified phone OS that barely works with peripherals and not at all with external devices.
I like Postbox for email. I actually use it on Win 10 but it was actually made for a Mac so does more things than its Windows version.
I have MS Office, OneNote, Wunderlist, and Google Drive installed because I use them across platforms. And I also suffer from missing touchscreen-idis. Sometimes it is just easier to touch the screen to open something or move it. Also count me in as somebody that misses a file system for iOS. Won’t buy another iPad until that is added.
I think the only utilities I use that haven’t been mentioned are Yoink, which makes dragging and dropping files really awesome, and SizeUp/Cinch which give me that really nice Windows style window management plus some extra features.
As for gorilla arm, I can’t really add to the discussion except to say I’ve never really wanted to touch my laptop screen but I guess some people do.
Finally, iOS is developing a rudimentary file system with the ability to install the iCloud Drive app with iOS 9. It’s a small indication that Apple is heading in that direction for those that need a more standard file system.
Divvy is a good utility too.
Any update on your Mac ownership, Denny?
Has anyone found a non-browser desktop client for Keep for OS X?
You mean one that’s not just a wrapper around a browser window? Not that I’ve seen.
Haven’t had a ton of time with it yet due to some recent travel. Did discover it works surprisingly well with my 34-inch ultra-widesccreen monitor, though!
Any thoughts on iStats Menu 6? I’m looking for a menu bar CPU utilization thing and it turns out iStats Menu does that really well - especially it can show 4 different graphs for each core. But what caught my eyes was the drop down calendar when clicking the time date although Fantastical does that pretty well.
I use it and think it is great. Although I am not really a hardcore user, so I can’t say I really need it. It is the first place I look if it seems like something is wrong. Feels like the computer is running slow? My eyes go right to the menu bar. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes a program will go crazy and eat up CPU cycles or memory and you can see it instantly. I can’t imagine using a Mac without it at this point. Been using it for years.
I do have Activity Monitor running in the Dock for moments such as you described but definitely having it in menu bar is more convenient.
Yeah I use iStats also, for the network monitor and time/date display primarily.
I am not a fan of the icons in the top right of the screen, so I plaster my compulsive iStats need on the desktop using Geektool.