MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Did you change your mind about touch screens?

tomsem · 04-09-2012, 09:13 PM

In terms of display quality, I haven't compared my KT and T1 screens directly (I would take a screenshot of the former and display it on the latter, lest font differences enter in) but suspect they are about the same. I did request a replacement unit for my KT at one point (to see if ghosting would improve) but wound up returning the replacement because display quality was worse. I set refresh-every-page option because the ghosting bothered me.

I think the touch interface of KT could be improved considerably by abandoning conventions established by previous Kindles. The Home screens for example look nearly identical to my K3's which doesn't make a lot of sense. Some people never discover that tapping on 'Page x of y' brings up a 'quick search' dialog, for example. It's great to have that feature but one would probably not guess that the labels above the item list respond to touch by looking at them, even if one had used other touch interfaces, and especially if you've used previous non touch Kindles. It doesn't LOOK like a touch interface. They should have just started from scratch, but I guess it is too late now.

Also I don't see any advantage to the asymmetrical and idiosyncratic touch zones. I keep tapping the center of the screen to bring up options, only to have the page turn (I switch between KT and Fire). 'center tap for options' is pretty ingrained in me after using many different touch interface reading apps and devices, all of which follow this convention. At least they should give an option to select the more conventional left/center/right instead of the default top/left/right.

KT is about what I expected at ship time but I expected a major update by now (to add KF8 support, orientation option, and localized UIs). Maybe that is coming with international launch later this month.

Beyond that, however, I'm not expecting them to address any other annoyances I've had with KT like inability to adjust selection, or to use selection as search term for google/wikipedia, among others. I still prefer decisively it to my KK, I just think it should have had a better touch interface than it does.

04-09-2012, 09:13 PM	#68
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,966 Karma: 27060153 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	In terms of display quality, I haven't compared my KT and T1 screens directly (I would take a screenshot of the former and display it on the latter, lest font differences enter in) but suspect they are about the same. I did request a replacement unit for my KT at one point (to see if ghosting would improve) but wound up returning the replacement because display quality was worse. I set refresh-every-page option because the ghosting bothered me. I think the touch interface of KT could be improved considerably by abandoning conventions established by previous Kindles. The Home screens for example look nearly identical to my K3's which doesn't make a lot of sense. Some people never discover that tapping on 'Page x of y' brings up a 'quick search' dialog, for example. It's great to have that feature but one would probably not guess that the labels above the item list respond to touch by looking at them, even if one had used other touch interfaces, and especially if you've used previous non touch Kindles. It doesn't LOOK like a touch interface. They should have just started from scratch, but I guess it is too late now. Also I don't see any advantage to the asymmetrical and idiosyncratic touch zones. I keep tapping the center of the screen to bring up options, only to have the page turn (I switch between KT and Fire). 'center tap for options' is pretty ingrained in me after using many different touch interface reading apps and devices, all of which follow this convention. At least they should give an option to select the more conventional left/center/right instead of the default top/left/right. KT is about what I expected at ship time but I expected a major update by now (to add KF8 support, orientation option, and localized UIs). Maybe that is coming with international launch later this month. Beyond that, however, I'm not expecting them to address any other annoyances I've had with KT like inability to adjust selection, or to use selection as search term for google/wikipedia, among others. I still prefer decisively it to my KK, I just think it should have had a better touch interface than it does.