> I hate being the city snob, but are we really cheering on the incoming mass of people that are OK with using resistive touch screen onto our apps/websites?
Yes, because until capacitives drop in price enough to make resistives utterly redundant, devices like this mean that they're going to represent 80% of the market (well, for some markets. Markets which it would be foolish to ignore). The people who have iPads now are lead users. Give it six months to a year, and the mainstream will catch up; the vast majority won't be buying iPads because they're seen (and priced) as premium products.
Besides, modern resistives don't have to be that bad. The one on my Nokia N900 is more than usable, and I have no issues whipping the stylus out for detail work.
Unless we explicitly opt out of being accessible to the mass market, it's incumbent on us to make our apps and websites work well for as many types of interface as possible. If the flick-and-stop gesture for contact searching doesn't work well on the majority of devices, then we need to find something which does. Just because Apple have picked something they can uniformly implement across their range doesn't naturally make it the best option for everyone; in fact, they're more likely to pick something that only they can implement well as a differentiator.
I think your points really get at the heart of the matter, thanks :)
I think the flick-and-stop gesture is truly brilliant HCI, and Apple went through a lot of testing before figuring out exactly how fast things should scroll for each piece of hardware they make. Once people are used to it, it truly becomes second nature, and doubly so because it's consistent across devices (with the exception that on the MB line, you "scroll the camera", while on the iPhone you "scroll the page").
Again, I'm conscious of my solipsism, I wouldn't want to create apps for users that don't know how to scroll on a trackpad or use the 'enter' key for the same reason I imagine making bikes targeted at professional athletes is a lot more fun than for recreational consumers.
Yes, because until capacitives drop in price enough to make resistives utterly redundant, devices like this mean that they're going to represent 80% of the market (well, for some markets. Markets which it would be foolish to ignore). The people who have iPads now are lead users. Give it six months to a year, and the mainstream will catch up; the vast majority won't be buying iPads because they're seen (and priced) as premium products.
Besides, modern resistives don't have to be that bad. The one on my Nokia N900 is more than usable, and I have no issues whipping the stylus out for detail work.
Unless we explicitly opt out of being accessible to the mass market, it's incumbent on us to make our apps and websites work well for as many types of interface as possible. If the flick-and-stop gesture for contact searching doesn't work well on the majority of devices, then we need to find something which does. Just because Apple have picked something they can uniformly implement across their range doesn't naturally make it the best option for everyone; in fact, they're more likely to pick something that only they can implement well as a differentiator.