Is the computer mouse dead?
Trackpads, touchscreens and the future of computing
Recently, I wrote about my feelings on desktop computers. What place do they still hold in our digital lives? For a long time, we've been trained to use a desktop system with two very important input methods. The keyboard and the mouse.
These two stalwarts of our desk haven't really changed a whole lot over the years. The keyboard in particular is more or less the same as it was twenty years ago. Sure, they may be wireless these days, but the act of inputing characters that appear on screen is virtually unchanged
I suppose if it ain't broke, why fix it?
3 methods of input
But what about our other means of interacting with our screens? For the sake of our argument, I'm going to lump these input devices into three categories. The mouse. The trackpad. And the touchscreen. Let's take a closer look.
The advent of the graphical user interface introduced us to the computer mouse. It has taken several form factors, but its purpose hasn't changed. It's a physical device that you move in order to control a cursor on your screen. We may have evolved from rolling balls inside our mice to lasers and other more precise means of control. Maybe we went from one button to two or more buttons. But the idea of pointing and clicking has been engrained into our computing psyche.
As laptops grew in popularity, we became more comfortable with the idea of a trackpad. Trackpads essentially do the same thing as a mouse, they just rely on the movement of your fingers over the pad rather than the mouse moving over your desk (or mousepad). And trackpads have also gotten more sophisticated to allow for gestures and pre-programmed motions that can be customized to whatever the user needs.
Finally, we have the touch screen method of input. I'd say this is becoming the most popular way of interacting with our devices. Pretty much all of our phones and tablets allow for this method. It's as simple as just tapping the portion of your screen that you want to interact with. It works well no matter the size and orientation of your screen and just feels like a natural way of manipulating our devices. If this has become the de facto way of interacting with our phones, why hasn't it also become the default for computers?
My personal preferences
Let me dive into some of my particular use cases here. I have a Macbook Pro laptop that of course has a built-in touchpad. But when I'm using it at my standing desk, it's propped up on a stand. That makes it clumsy to use the built-in trackpad to navigate. So I've setup an additional wireless Apple Trackpad that lets me get the same gestures and benefits with a more ergonomic setup. Yes, after many years of pairing mice with my laptops, I am now fully bought-in to the trackpad life.
Here's the other reason why I love the trackpad. There is no annoying clicking sound. Am I the only one who gets driven crazy by the sound of clicking mice? I can remember scenarios where I worked in offices where you'd just hear mouse clicking all day long. But now, I can just silently tap on my trackpad to avoid any unnecessary noise. It may seem like a small thing, but I love it.
So it's clear that I'm not going back to using a mouse anytime soon. But what about the touchscreen?
I'm frankly surprised that Apple hasn't released a touchscreen MacBook Pro yet. Maybe it's because they want to keep selling those Magic Mice and trackpads. Maybe they just want people to buy iPads that have touchscreen capabilities. Hell, a touchscreen iMac would be pretty sweet if you ask me. Microsoft offers its line of Surface computers that allow for touchscreen navigation, it seems like Apple will follow soon enough.
I do have a Google PixelBook computer that has a touchscreen to go along with its amazing, always attached keyboard. It really is the best of both worlds if you ask me. Sure, you may still use the keyboard and trackpad most of the time, but there is something really comforting about being able to just grab your laptop screen with two hands and tap on sometimes.
So the point of this little discussion is just to get a better sense of how other people interact with their computers. I know that many of you are loyal to the mouse, the trackpad, or the touchscreen. What do you prefer? Please take a moment to answer our poll question!
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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