A glimpse of the future?

[Andrew Kimery]

[David Eaks] “I don’t understand why so many people think the touch interface is so bad. Who ever said that if a touchscreen is used, that you get “locked in” and can ONLY use that? Am I missing something?”
In the demo the touch screen was used exclusively which leads people to believe that the point of the demo is to show how touch screen can be used exclusively with an editing application. I don’t think you can blame people for commenting on exactly what was shown in the video.

In a comment on the video Jason (the person giving the demo) mentions that he doesn’t use the touchscreen all the time. A demo of him using the touch screen in conjunction with a keyboard and mouse/trackball/tablet/touchpad would be much more worthwhile, IMO. An obvious downside to using a mixed environment is that in order to use the touch screen you have to move your hand(s) away from the kb/m and to the monitor which begs the question, in what instances is it quicker to touch and grab a clip or touch the play button versus hitting the space bar, clicking the play button or clicking and dragging a clip?

-Andrew

2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5)

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “There’s no question in my mind that FCPX was built with a touch interface in mind. It might be a few years, or five years, but that foundation seems to be built.”

If so, I’m going to invest all my money in shares of the company who make Windex.

David Roth Weiss
ProMax Systems
Burbank
DRW@ProMax.com
http://www.ProMax.com

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Thomas Frank]

I think I would be faster with a Keyboard. :p

[Ron Priest]

Now, I can see editing FCPX projects on your iPad such as shown in this video! As the guy in the video explains, it would come in hand if you were just wanting to walk across the hall to show a colleague an edit your working on. He is not actually running FCPX on a self contained iPad app, he’s just using the iPad as an interface to a more powerful computer with FCPX on it. What would even be cooler would be several persons working on the same project on different iPads at the same time!

https://fcp.co/final-cut-pro/news/457-fcpx-on-the-ipad

Ron Priest
Videographer
Louisville, KY

[Jim Giberti]

If I were to awaken from a frozen state, from pre computing days, and I was shown two models to control these new “thinking machines” – one where I moved my hands around a screen with images, and one where I had remote control with lots of tactile response that allowed me to view the images without my mitts all over them – frozen guy’s going with the keyboard, trackball and jog shuttle.

[Juan Salvo]

I disagree. And you have a real world example of this. If you’ve ever seen a toddler take to an iPad. They pick it up immediately and instinctively. Mouse and keyboard take a lot more brain power then grabbing and pointing,

[Jim Giberti]

[Juan Salvo] “I disagree. And you have a real world example of this. If you’ve ever seen a toddler take to an iPad. They pick it up immediately and instinctively. Mouse and keyboard take a lot more brain power then grabbing and pointing,
“

Well, first of all, I’m not sure you can disagree with a personal preference.

Secondly, the idea that something takes more brain power to master isn’t a bad thing. Take physics for instance.

[Jim Giberti]

Let me take my point a little further, beyond the obvious, “just because something’s new doesn’t mean it’s inherently better” thing.

Fingers have amazing sensory and manipulative abilities, and our ability to do amazing things with them comes from eons of evolution. All of this tactile response isn’t because millions of years of previous fingers moved over glass surfaces.

We’re wonderfully evolved to manipulate 3D surfaces. For instance, I’m sitting at an electric grand piano right now. On the screen that I’m typing, I can call up a virtual version of it…all 88 keys that will trigger the same 3GB samples. There’s no way anyone can input or manipulate the data/keyboard on the 2D surface with the control, dexterity and speed that you can on the physical grand piano’s responsive keys. Now add the sustain pedal…

Another advantage of the tactile feel from even a thin Mac extended keyboard, for instance, is the ability to train your fingers to do a vocabulary of commands quickly, without looking at them or the keyboard while you’re visually processing information on the screen.
In other words, you’re able to use a tactile and visual skill set simultaneously with 3D input.

Musicians, editors and typists can learn to fly on their devices specifically because of what they can feel and how they’ve trained their brains and developed muscle memory to work in a precise, defined, 3D area.

I don’t think fingers can be trained to perform a similar non-visual simultaneous skill if there’s nothing for them to reference and train on physically.

I think there are lot’s of techniques and devices for inputing and expressing information that won’t be improved with fingers on a 2D screen.

[T.a. Franks]

I kinda agree and disagree, this is the same discussion when the mouse hit the market and look what happen to that.
I have seen a musician play a virtual keyboard on a iPad with no stress, laid it down on the desk and went to town with it.
Another example Smoke is design for the tablet to use muscle memory.

[Tim Wilson]

[Jim Giberti] “Fingers have amazing sensory and manipulative abilities, and our ability to do amazing things with them comes from eons of evolution. All of this tactile response isn’t because millions of years of previous fingers moved over glass surfaces.”

Not to say that these skills can’t be applied to glass…eventually. The larger issue for me remains precision. Being precise on an iPad is a pain in the ass. Can you imagine trying to use that text selection “press, magnifying glass, slide…oops, dangit, press again, etc” process for multiple fields of metadata?

I’m not saying that you need arrow keys per se, but in the current scheme of things, there’s not a simple way to nudge something on any touch interface I’ve worked with (not that I’ve worked with them all), and frankly, I need all the nudge tools I can get my hands on.

And better access to an undo button, or even better, a list of previous undos a la Media Composer. I can imagine a touch interface getting there eventually…maybe…but I don’t see anything coming that will increase my precision. The solution for now seems to be more toward the application making MY precision part of the “old, outdated” way of doing things, by linking things together in ways that avoid circumstances where precision is called for, like re-syncing.

Good for them for thinking of ways to reduce my opportunities for making mistakes. Fooey on them for thinking of ways to reduce my opportunities.