It took me years to finally warm up to getting a "smartphone". Mainly because I found a logical flaw in the need of a touch screen based device. Sure, its one of those things that used to be purely a work of fiction, and its a scifi dream come true. This does not change that the whole purpose of the interface is flawed at it's root.

-I prefer BUTTONS! Not the sad excuse for them seen on touch devices. They give a better brain response/feedback which is required to opperate most things smoothly. Case in point, the Keyboard. I took 2 years of typing classes so I know my way around the thing. The raised endents on the "F" and "J" keys represent where my pointer goes. And the satisfying click of the buttons lets me know that my key press worked(more often than not). What is going to happen the day touch completely replaces PC and ppl have to type full school reports on touch screen? The only reason this quick fix on touch devices work is because its never used seriously. Everything is short hand when typed. Is that going to become the new language in the digital age? "TXT me bby TTYL <3 BBQ." "ne 1 kno of a gud short way 2 spl m8?"

-Seems to benefit the companies that make them far more than the actual consumer. They are easier to make then other devices as they have fewer moving parts.............yet they cost 3 times as much. Baffling.

Same goes for Voice commands. I just watched IGN's uncut demo of Kinect XBO and i was bemused. Some of the functions sounds really cool. We have all dreamed of being able to control devices by simply speaking. Yet now that it has come to fruition..... I don't know if its really as convenient as we once thought.

-Firstly Voice commands take more attempts to get something working as you want it. Sure, it just might need some bugs worked out, yet how good could this type of tech ever possibly be? At the end of the day, is it not simpler just to grab the remote and press that solitary button that you KNOW will get the reaction you desired?

-Speaking is more tiring than the small dexterous movements required to work a remote. When I am tired from work and just want to watch tv, I don't want to speak. I just want something enjoyable to appear in front of me. This might just be a personal squabble but speaking takes way more out of me than pressing buttons.

-The fact that so much can go wrong with speaking to a machine has me stunted with it all. WHat if a friend comes over and says "Device, off!" Maybe you should pick better friends or its User functionality is conflicted. If you have to restrict a device to a small number of people's voices then that just leads to further usability problems later on. I see this leading to electronics that are tuned only to one person's heat signature/voice and are completely inoperable otherwise.

Am I the only one that sees this?

bump