>> ^blankfist:

Most mouseover events are antiquated practices.

Mouseover is still used everywhere; it's not antiquated at all. I know what you're getting at though; most people probably would think of the cheesy rollever effects when they think of what mouseover is used for.

Check the menu at the top of this page for an example; and every link here has a :hover style to slightly change the colour. It's a fairly standard and good UI practice to give feedback.

Where mouseover is mostly used though is in combination with click. Think of any UI that uses drag and drop - it's good practice to give feedback on what you're going to drop onto and mouseover is used to trigger that feedback.

On most OS', mouseover just about any UI element and you'll get feedback

Click then mouseover is supported on most capacitive touch devices (ie drag with your finger). Some implement non selected mouseover by allowing you to touch anywhere on the screen (that doesn't react to a hold event) then move your finger around. This isn't completely intuitive though, and flash apps that use non clicked hover will likely have to be changed or suffer usability problems on a touchscreen.

>> ^dag:

I have one question - So much of Flash uses an "on hover" function. How is that managed on a touch screen?
Honestly I like the Adobe tools in general and Flash as a creative tool- it would be nice though, if they could make the switch and have it output to HTML 5 Canvas, instead of compiled closed binaries.
I shouldn't be against Flash- after all, it's been very good to VideoSift- but I do think the writing is on the wall that we're moving to an open standards plug-in free world.


By "on hover" I take it you mean the mouse event for mouseover where the cursor is over an object. I don't think mouseovers will be necessary for Flash on touchscreens, and are things that can be ignored completely.

Most mouseover events are antiquated practices. Back in the day, everything was html hot links where the link was blue and rolling over it would change it to different color to alert the user that it was clickable. We've grown passed that, and with touchscreens there's no need for it.

Mouse events like Click and Move will be useful.

>> ^brycewi19:

>> ^dannym3141:
>> ^brycewi19:
Keep in mind that they're comparing apples to oranges (at least with the iphone). The iphone uses a capacitive touch screen vs. many of those others are resistive. Two different technologies; the capacitive being the newer and better tech, IMO.

That's not strictly true - they're testing smart phones against smart phones.
The technology behind it is a bit irrelevant if you're looking to buy a smartphone with a good touch screen, really. I'm not going to go "well it's less recent tech so i'll buy x phone for trying harder"

Perhaps, but in a sense some of these smartphones have a significant difference in a major tech - the screen type. Sure they're both "smartphones", but they're not the same.
It's like comparing a stickshift to an automatic. Sure, they're both cars, but their transmissions are significantly different.


Yeah i understand that, what i'm saying is this: If you're comparing a manual car to an automatic car and you say "which is the best to drive?" then the method of gear change is irrelevant to that comparison. These guys are asking "which is the most accurate touchscreen smart phone?" So the tech is moot. Mention it in passing, but you may as well mention the colour of the phone.

So yeah, just saying - it isn't apples and oranges at all.

If the title of the video said "Which smartphone uses the touchscreen technology the best?" Then you'd have a point.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Just to be clear- all of the phones tested are capacitive touch screens. A resistive touchscreen is the older kind that you would more likely use with a sylus on a Windows 6.5 handset.

I have the Motorola Droid. I've been hoodwinked.

I've used both the iPhone and Droid side-by-side and it doesn't take a robot to determine that Apple is the king of touchscreens.

^ Supposedly Google is designing a netbook based on Android with a touchscreen, accelerometer, etc. I'm not sure whether they're actively designing it or just setting minimum design requirements. It would still be a netbook, but maybe it will open 180 degrees or flip around into a tablet like the Lenovo ones.

We're just getting to the point where tablets are feasible from a hardware standpoint, and I salute Apple for pushing the tech forward (despite the intentional limitations). Over the next few years we should see multiple versions from different vendors, along with increasing power and longer battery life.

My personal ideal computer would be something the size of a Droid/iPhone with similar interactivity, but with the ability to sync with a wireless mouse/keyboard/whatever and full-size external display... and of course enough horsepower to use any operating system comfortably. That might be 10 years away though. =)

It's a big iPod Touch. Quaint. Here's my Pros/Cons just looking at it.

Pro:
1. Apple's touchscreen is the best. Hands down. Very responsive.
2. It's a touchscreen television. That's kind of cool. Hell, it's probably the future.
3. The games and apps are nice. I doubt you'll find any hardcore games interested.
4. Price point. It's not "Apple" expensive.

Con:
1. Not a true browser. No Flash.
2. How often did you read books on your laptop? Exactly. I don't care if you can swipe the paged with your fingers; it's too bright. There's a Kindle for that.
3. It's not portable enough to buy for music.
4. Typing on it looks impractical. Seriously, would you really do spreadsheets on that thing?

If I wanted a portable TV, it's probably okay. Other than that, I'll stick to my laptop.

On the iPad front... I don't see how a device touted as being a supreme media watching device can be 4:3 ratio... it's utterly insane. And yet their ads show Star Trek being watched full screen... hence pan and scan... yay! welcome back to TV of the 90s.

Indeed the iPhone has somewhat 'standardised' how people expect to be able to interact with a touchscreen phone, but that absolutely doesn't mean they should be going lawyer crazy on everyone... it just is not productive.

They didn't invent multitouch
They didn't invent the gestures they use
They make a huge deal of adding things to their devices which others have had for a long time previously.

Hurray for Apple making products, hurray for competition... but the iPad is hardly revolutionary as people like yourself Dag, like to make out. It will do OK... and it might even do very well a few versions down the track when Apple can be arsed actually making it a decent product.

The million bloody tablet pcs out there at present do not excite me in the slightest, not the iPad, not any other manufacturer. The million bloody eReaders are similarly boring to me.

As I've said many times here, the rumoured Microsoft Courier is the form factor and functionality I want in 'a larger than a phone' portable device... something like THAT would get me excited.

All these other tablets are merely half arsed products with no clear goal AT ALL as to what need they're filling. The iPad falls into that same hole... if it really was trying to be a little portable media hub then it SO would not have been 4:3 ratio.

I'm not a fan of Apple, but I am glad they exist. Innovation from anyone is a good thing, and competition tends to motivate innovation.

I love touchscreens, but I hate having to look at the letter I'm aiming for. Until we get flawless computer-brain interface tech, I'm keeping my mouse and keyboard. Voice input is nice where available, but I'd rather not use it with other people around.

The iPad is a great idea, despite its surprising intentional limitations, but I don't see it "killing" anything. The days of computers coming in any type of "standard" format are gone. Laptops and Netbooks can still do lots of critical things that iPads cannot, and the iPad is more convenient for other things. Smart-phones do things that no tablet/PC do and also fit in your pockets. None of them obsolete the others.

The iPad form factor it great for certain things so we will see more products with similar uses, but it is hardly the first product of its kind (though Apple will inevitably get credit for it). I'm glad Apple exists, but I very much hope that their business model is not the one that takes us into the future.

1024x768 is retarded Like others have said at least do 1280x720.

Still no Flash? But also no camera or other features my iPhone has?

I don't think it's a piece of shit or anything but I'm a little disappointed. I'd hoped it would at least run Flash.

Older people really do benefit from touchscreens.

Wow... you can change the wallpaper... STOP THE PRESS

Gee... a WHOLE WEB PAGE in front of you that you can manipulate with your fingers... you don't say... like... um... tablet PCs that have been around for years? Or touchscreen desktops?

I'm sure I'll be proved wrong, and it'll be a complete success... but I really think they've lost it this time. I think this looks horrendously chunky and inelegant. Why does it have such large and horrendous edges around the screen?

Why is there no camera?

This device... the as yet announced 'Courier' is something that really does excite me. The interaction on THAT device is something that makes me excited about a portable computer again.

This? This does nothing for me... who really wants this limited functionality at this size? I'd rather this (plus more... camera etc.) in my phone that I can hold in my pocket rather than having less than that in something I have to carry in a bag.

If it were instead something more like what the Courier looks to be I'd actually see the joy in using it, the usefulness in having a 'live' scrapbook.

I just have this feeling that the iPad will be an iBomb.

But again... Apple seems to do no wrong, and people wee themselves over anything they put out... but this time... this time I don't see it.

Hmm, I hadn't thought about the copy/paste thing. On the Droid you can hold down the Shift key and drag your finger over any text you want to copy. It even copies automatically, so no menus are needed. I'm surprised he didn't even mention the built in navigation or voice-to-text features.

Eye Candy: Mostly pointless, but it's important to some people. The animations don't really get in the way, but they can be turned off if desired.

Pinch Zoom: Probably useful, but I mostly operate my phone with one thumb anyway, and the controls are intuitive enough. I don't think it is specifically a patent issue though. Other US phones have it, as does the European version of Droid. There are free apps that use it, and it can be enabled in the map with a little work.

Apps: The store could be better, but you can search it easily enough. I am curious what functionality he is missing from the iPhone apps though.

App Switcher: I could be wrong, but I think it shows the six most recently opened apps. I would like it to show more than six, but there are plenty of free apps that show more if needed.


I never owned an iPhone so I can't really comment on the differences. I hear that Apple isn't playing well with Adobe, so no Flash support for the iPhone. It should be available on just about everything else some time in 2010 (according to Adobe). On the upside, the iPhone does appear to have the most accurate finger tracking of the three phones.

The Nexus does have the fastest cpu so far (that I know of) at ~1Ghz. I wouldn't give up my keyboard for it though. Maybe they can put it to some good use with more support for voice commands and language translation (Droid and Nexus already have some translation... speak to it in english and it will audibly translate to other languages, but it is limited currently). Otherwise it's only good for animations and flash games.

I look forward to the current batch of phones being obsolete by the end of the year. Competition is always a good thing. =)


Notes: Google Goggles is great, and Verizon's network does let you use the 3G internet while talking on the phone, despite what AT&T's commercials state.

That touchscreen sure enhances the show.

Yeah, those aren't even real touchscreens. It's like, jeez, put some effort into it.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'zombie, shooter, fps, nvidia, game' to 'zombie, shooter, fps, nvidia, game, tegra, touchscreen, ar' - edited by Zonbie