We took a trip to the mall the other day, and I took that chance to check out the new Force Touch trackpad on the MacBook Pro. Force Touch is an incredible feat of engineering, I couldn’t stop thinking about how it was working. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that Apple just made a few minor enhancements to the trackpad to produce the different click. I really couldn’t tell there was no depression of the glass; the illusion is phenomenally good.
With the Force Touch trackpad, force sensors detect your click anywhere on the surface and move the trackpad laterally toward you, although the feel is the same familiar downward motion you’re accustomed to in a trackpad. The Taptic Engine also provides haptic feedback, so instead of just seeing what’s happening on the screen, you can feel it, too.
I was surprised to find out that there were two levels of force that could be applied to the trackpad for different results. For example, if you hover over a word, and press down, and then keep going down to a secondary click, OS X will pop up the word definition. Likewise, if you do it on a date, OS X will open up a calendar. This demo gave me a new appreciation for how interacting with the Apple Watch will turn out, but it also made me excited for the next generation of iPhones. Assuming this technology spreads to all of Apple’s products, I image an entire new level of user interaction design for iOS apps. There are interesting times ahead.
We left the Apple store and were detoured by a trio of XBoxs in a Microsoft pop-up store. While my boys were testing out the consoles, I wandered around the counters examining what Microsoft considers the best of breed. A flyer caught my eye that advertised a five dollar Starbucks giftcard if I demoed the Microsoft Band. Feeling a bit tired from the mall, I thought a jolt of caffeine would do me good, so I grabbed the flyer and asked the kid behind the counter for a demo.
First, they were out of Starbucks gift cards. But, since I was committed by this point, I tried on several of the bands till I found one that fit, and tried to keep up with the demo. I took three things away from my brief time with the Band:
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This thing is bulky and uncomfortable. The top part of the Band, where the touch screen lives, is about an inch and a half rectangle of metal and glass surrounded by rubber. It did not even try to fit to the contours of my wrist. The clasp under my wrist was equally as uncomfortable. The kid advised that it needed to be snug for the laser to be able to read my pulse, which leads me to the second point.
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The interface is confusing. I tried to get the Band to read my pulse, and when it didn’t pick it up right away the kid tried to show me a few other things the band could do. Once I was away from the screen reading my pulse, I couldn’t figure out how to get back to it again. The kid showed me how you could check your email, send text messages, and a few other unmemorable capabilities, and then he showed me the kicker.
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It has a keyboard. Seriously. I could clearly make out the letters “QWERTY” across the top row. The kid even typed something out on it. The presence of a software keyboard on a device that I’m supposed to wear on my wrist all day, and sleep with it all night, shows a significant lack of understanding at Microsoft of how people will actually interact with the device.
Microsoft is doing interesting things as they reinvent themselves, but I was just as much unimpressed with their Band as I was impressed by the Force Touch trackpad. The trackpad worked seamlessly and invisibly. The Band was uncomfortable and confusing. After demoing the Band, I paid for my own coffee.