You mentioned the Touch Bar but didn't mention smart phones?
I think the trend is clear, ideally you don't want anything between you and your computer. Hence the rise of touch screen phones (combining the keyboard and touch controls with the screen).
What I'm excited about is moving from 2D controls to 3D environments. It is still a little early but if you look at VR, you can create any sort of interface with your computer. Need more monitors? Just edit your scene. Need a bigger or smaller monitor? Easy, edit your config file. Those monitors you just created ... you can make them respond to touch or your eyeball movement.
The only hardware you will need is a VR kit (headset for vision and audio + gloves/knuckles for your hand interface).
Those are really good points - thanks for the well considered reasoning.
On the smartphone side, I think we use them very differently - you wouldn't do engineering design on a smartphone, for example, so this is maybe outside of the use-case I was thinking about. I don't think touch screens are that effective either - typing on them is a pain!
Your point about VR is very interesting though because people are starting to do complicated tasks like CAD and graphic design through VR. This does mean it's able to do tasks that typically people would spend a lot of time sat at a desk typing and clicking to achieve.
Having many 'virtual' computer monitors displayed through a VR or AR headset is not something I've ever thought about, but is a really cool possibility. Do you know of any examples?
I think the trend is clear, ideally you don't want anything between you and your computer. Hence the rise of touch screen phones (combining the keyboard and touch controls with the screen).
What I'm excited about is moving from 2D controls to 3D environments. It is still a little early but if you look at VR, you can create any sort of interface with your computer. Need more monitors? Just edit your scene. Need a bigger or smaller monitor? Easy, edit your config file. Those monitors you just created ... you can make them respond to touch or your eyeball movement.
The only hardware you will need is a VR kit (headset for vision and audio + gloves/knuckles for your hand interface).