After hearing a bit about the upcoming Windows 8...

[commodorejohn]

Computer users want touch monitors as much as they want 3D TV, as in, they don't. This is just tech companies forcing things on the consumer.

I'm all for touch on phones/pads, but I don't think many people want greasy finger prints and arm ache on a large size stand up monitor.

Amen. Anybody who thinks they're going to want to use a touchscreen for daily tasks hasn't tried resting their elbow on a desk with the full weight of their upheld arm on it for hours at a stretch.

Someday there will be a revolution in which all the Star Trek-obsessed prognosticators and graphic-design majors are thrown out of tech companies, and people who actually care more about usability than gimmickry take over in their place...

[commodorejohn]

Why not have computers navigated by wiimotes?
Gimmicky AND unusable at the same time.

Great idea! After all, since they've sold so many units, it must be a good idea to indiscriminately copy the interface for completely different products!

[commodorejohn]

I like shiny things when they're part of something by which I want to be distracted. The basic user interface of an operating system is not something by which I want to be distracted. It's something I want to get the hell out of the way and let me manage files and launch applications.

[commodorejohn]

I know it may be controversial to say so here, but I actually believe that a broad range of people will actually find the Metro interface to be quite be appealing, even on desktops.

I don't, and frankly my opinion is the only one I care about when it comes to deciding what UI I'd like.

[commodorejohn]

Touchscreen Photoshop would be a giant pain in the ass. A mouse and even a good tablet can give me pixel-level precision at 1x zoom, trying to do that with a touchscreen when my fingertip covers half a hundred pixels even on a large monitor? No thanks.

I've seen some interesting things done with multi-touch screens, but I still don't buy the propaganda that they're a million times more convenient than a mouse for general tasks.

[commodorejohn]

Never used one, myself...seems like it'd have better precision than a touchscreen, but still require more motion for the equivalent action with no increase in precision over a tablet.