About virtual and built-in keyboards in covers, patents for new Force Touch and Touch ID functions, rumors about a new smartphone BlackBerry and beautiful advertising HTC …
Until a few decades ago, people dreamed of all sorts of amazing technical devices like computers that fit in a pocket, watches with support for holographic communication, or glasses that would allow their wearer to see objects in virtual reality. Then it seemed like a fairy tale, an almost impossible dream. An expedition to Mars was considered a far more achievable goal than all those 22nd century science fiction gadgets.
Now the development of technology has reached the level when anyone can assemble such 'pocket computers' almost on their knees. However, there is no particular influx of long-awaited 'spy' and 'futuristic' technology. Although crowdfunding resources like Kickstarter are teeming with all sorts of unusual devices, there is little demand for them. These are rather toys for geeks or unusual gifts for those who already have everything.
Phones and tablets have been devices for consuming content for many years; they can be called computers exclusively from the point of view of hardware, but not the use case. Smart watches are bought solely for the sake of convenient notifications of new messages or a primitive pedometer, although very few people need them as such. The mass consumer is not interested in glasses a la Google Glass at all, although if you want to buy something like that for a long time, in reality only a few need such gadgets.
Why, then, what aroused sincere admiration in science fiction films and novels turned out to be so unclaimed in practice? What is the reason why all kinds of wearable electronics and subminiature computers are of little use to a wide audience? There are many reasons, but the lack of convenient input tools is one of the main ones. Even a special 'professional' tablet is much inferior to an unpretentious laptop with a normal keyboard in terms of ease of use, and there is no need to even talk about attempts to replace a work PC with a smartphone. As for the management of wearable electronics like watches or glasses, things are even worse here, their ceiling is a set of SMS. Of course, you shouldn't forget about voice control, eye tracking, gesture recognition and even the first attempts to read minds, but they are all of little use as the main input method. As a result, it turns out that even if you install a super-fast processor of the latest generation and 10GB of RAM in your watch and add support for a couple of tens of thousands of popular applications, in real life there will be no sense from them all the same. They, as they were, will remain a simple toy with a couple of useful functions.
It should be noted that the touchscreen is already a compromise in itself. Despite all the advantages of modern smartphones, even such banal things as controlling music playback or launching a camera are still more convenient to carry out using physical keys. The same applies to typing – no matter how good swype is, and when typing long texts with a bunch of little-used words or specific terms, the classic keyboard will give it a hundred points ahead.
For a while, hybrids were popular, trying to incorporate the best of both worlds. For example, qwerty sliders with physical keyboards and touch screens, or 'music' smartphones, with an additional block of keys to control music.
Alas, practice has shown that users are not very fond of this approach and Frankenstein devices are not in great demand. This means that it is much more profitable for manufacturers to rely on fully sensory devices, without wasting energy, time and resources on unpopular ideas. Maybe a new one Android – a Blackberry smartphone will change something, but it's hard to believe in it – most likely, a bunch of positive reviews from journalists and enthusiastic tirades of nostalgic 'geeks' will not be able to convert into serious sales. In the eyes of buyers, a qwerty slider is a mammoth that has miraculously survived to this day and has no place in our world. “Extra” keyboard – unnecessary complications.
Meanwhile, there are already rumors on the network about the next Android smartphone with qwerty keyboard from BlackBerry called Vienna. True, there is still very little information about it, except for one 'leaked' render, nothing really.
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Interestingly, buyers are much more favorable to the same keyboards in the form of additional accessories. At least when it comes to tablets. I don't know how many people buy such things in practice, but the very possibility of turning a tablet into a 'real laptop' still warms the soul. Even if the possibility is purely theoretical.
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From time to time, some companies try to release something similar for phones. For example, EziCare Tech offers everyone to turn their smartphone into a full-fledged 'clamshell'. To do this, simply buy a special case with a built-in keyboard called EziSmart.
True, the project is designed not so much for 'geeks' and other lovers of the strange, as for the elderly. It is assumed that with such a keyboard it will be much more comfortable for them to use a smartphone, although the question of what prevents from immediately buying a normal 'babushkophone' remains open.
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EziSmart looks funny and will probably even be useful to someone. But you need to clearly understand that such decisions are nothing more than a crutch. Trying to 'attach' a good old keyboard to any modern gadget is about the same as replacing USB ports for flash drives in a laptop with an FDD floppy drive. Although some craftsmen have already begun to build Bluetooth keyboards even in their pants, it is impossible to take this seriously – new devices need new input means.
Recently, NEC shared its ideas on this topic. The ARmKeypad project is one of their promising developments, which is a cross between a projection keyboard and augmented reality. True, to work with it you will need a set of 'smart' devices, including glasses and a watch.
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By touching a special key on the watch, the user will be able to call a special virtual keyboard, which is projected directly onto his wrist. In this case, the camera on the glasses will track the movements of his fingers, registering all the presses on the virtual keys. Unlike voice input, such a system can be used anywhere, without the need to scream in noisy places and without fear of disturbing others.
The first products with ARmKeypad support may hit the market as early as next year.
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In parallel with bold experiments like all kinds of virtual and projection keyboards, manufacturers are trying to improve existing solutions. For example, to create a hybrid of an on-screen and a physical keyboard, teaching smartphones to recognize not only the touch of the display, but also the force of pressing.
From a technical point of view, nothing is impossible in this for a long time, another question is that the practical benefit of the solutions available at the moment was far from obvious. This will not make it more convenient to print blindly, this input method will not save you from typos during shaking, and an additional type of tapa will not make much of the weather. Most likely, things would not have gone further than talk, but then a company Apple appeared with its Force Touch.
There is only one problem – in Apple they were clearly in a hurry. Trying to come up with some interesting 'trick' for a new series of devices, the company forgot that technical improvements should be a tool, not a goal. Until recently, each new 'feature' of the same iPhone only made life easier for users. For example, Siri made it possible to perform standard actions (setting an alarm, sending SMS, viewing the weather, creating notes, etc.) practically without touching a smartphone. And the Touch ID fingerprint scanner eliminates the need to enter passwords when paying for purchases or unlocking a smartphone. To confirm the action, it is now enough just to put your finger on the scanner – simple and clear. With Force Touch, everything is not so simple – this function has not so much simplified everything as confused. How, why and where to use it is far from everyone and is not always obvious, especially when you consider that some devices on the new iOS support it, and some not.
I'm not even talking about analogues on Android smartphones – there will be continuous confusion and vacillation for many years. And adding Force Touch to smartphones will be just for it to be there, without any specific purpose. But not so long ago, Google specifically abandoned the separate 'Menu' key precisely because it was not clear to everyone when and where to press it. And this is the right decision – the user should not be forced to press keys at random, hoping that this will help bring up some kind of hidden menu or perform an additional action.
Interestingly, they clearly do not intend to dwell on this in Apple – touchpads with Force Touch have already appeared, and keyboards may soon join them. In any case, this is hinted at by one of the patents lit up on the network.
Although the keyboard can be called more mechanical than touch, in addition to the standard keystroke, it will learn to distinguish between 'short' and 'strong' clicks. Thus, three actions can be assigned to one key at once.
The only question is, why is it necessary? Isn't it easier to use combinations of several keys to perform additional actions, and not get confused in several types of keystrokes? The main advantage of the keyboard is in its usability, and not in the number of unnecessary bells and whistles. If it will no longer be possible to quietly type on it, then no new functions will save the state of affairs.
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All this applies not only to the keyboard, but also to any other input methods. Take the same Touch ID scanner mentioned above. Its main plus is not at all that it provides any additional functions. And the fact that its use is intuitive and makes it easier to work with a smartphone. Additional security here is rather a pleasant bonus, the twenty-digit unlock password is also safe, but for some reason no one uses it.
New patents suggest that this component could undergo questionable improvements. As well as the Force Touch keyboard, they plan to teach the scanner to recognize different presses. True, this time it is a little different – instead of the pressing force, it will take into account which finger the user touched it with.
If you touch your thumb or forefinger, the smartphone will unlock. They touched it with a little finger – and he went into 'panic' mode, starting to record ambient sounds, broadcast your location to family and friends, and at the same time call the police.
Most likely, we are talking about one of those patents, which will simply be shelved. But, characteristically, the commentators of the original news are delighted with this idea and are already wondering when it will finally appear in the new ones iPhone.
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It is interesting that gradually the manufacturers themselves find it more and more difficult to explain the practical meaning of certain innovations. Gradually, everything rolls down to explanations like 'this is necessary' or 'this is cool', but such slogans have not made an impression on buyers for a very long time. They want to feel that very 'cool' looking at the product itself, but not at its advertising.
An example is the 'Be brilliant' video from the company HTC. Formally, it is dedicated to the new A9, but with the same success, you can substitute any other smartphone instead.
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HTC is one of the few companies whose ads are sometimes interesting to watch. Take the same series of videos with Robert Downey Jr., which were more drawn to a separate picture … albeit completely incomprehensible.
Here, too, everything was filmed great, the video could well have been used for a clip of some popular pop star. And there is some claim to the meaning in it too, even if the hint of 'white plastic apples' turned out to be too bold. On some forums, a discussion is already going on with might and main, whether the idea of a commercial Apple 1984 was stolen in HTC and whether it looks too much like an SGS3 advertisement, which can only be called nonsense.
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But the moment itself is indicative – advertising is discussed simply as a beautiful clip, in isolation from the advertised device. The idea that after watching this video you need to get up and go buy a smartphone HTC simply does not arise.
Advertising can emphasize the features of the device, draw users' attention to some detail, or in practice demonstrate what kind of opportunity this or that device will give to its owner. But it will not be able to provide sales by itself. Even if, in honor of the novelty HTC, remove a new part of the Matrix or Terminator. It makes no sense to shoot a gorgeous video on the theme of 'don't be like everyone else' and 'stand out from the faceless crowd', and then expect that all this will somehow help the 'iPhone-like' A9, for which it is generally difficult to name at least one bright and memorable detail. They don't fit together a little more than completely.
