Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

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> Is mouse support required for something to be considered a computer?

The ipad pro's marketing copy describes it as "..packed with our most advanced technology, it will make you rethink what iPad is capable of. And what a computer is capable of."

Computers are capable of using mice. Even a WinCE box sitting inside a touchscreen ATM will support a mouse if you can hook one up to it.

> The iPad also supports an implement that mimics something professionals have been using to draft blueprints and create art for millennia.

I don't recall ever needing to buy a pencil that was specific to the make and model of the paper I wrote on.

My original comment was in response to "Samsung should look at what Apple is doing". And what they're doing, and doing very well, appears to be writing persuasive marketing copy that turns glaring feature deficiencies into upsell opportunities like "just buy the pen for another $100".

> Computers are capable of using mice.

Not all of them. The iPad is a computer and it doesn’t support mice. To be less flippant, neither did a lot of computers prior to the original Macintosh, but they were certainly computers that were capable of real, professional work. Even today, many programmers still favor text editors like vi and emacs for which the mouse is an afterthought if it’s supported at all. You don’t need a mouse to make a computer.

> In fact, Even a WinCE box sitting inside a touchscreen ATM will support a mouse if you can hook one up to it.

If WinCE is your example of “advanced technology”, I think we’re done here.

Almost all technology becomes obsolete eventually. I’m not saying that’s happened to the mouse (in fact, rumors suggest that the next version of iOS will support mice), but I also think you’re failing to acknowledge that progress sometimes means removing vestigial features. I don’t see too many people complaining that it’s hard to find floppy disks these days. You don’t have to buy the pencil. It’s a value-add. You can use your fingers. You know, the world’s most natural, intuitive, and (in almost all cases) inexpensive pointing devices. On touch-screen devices, they’re a pretty good substitute for a mouse in the same way that a USB drive is a pretty good substitute for a floppy disk.

I don’t really understand why you’re so concerned with marketing copy. My guess is that you just don’t like Apple and nothing will convince you that you’re wrong. But you are. The iPad is a computer. A pretty powerful one too. That fact that it doesn’t adopt the 40-year-old WIMP-based user interface scheme doesn’t mean much.

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