The iGesture replaces clicking with gesturing
posted January 15th 2005 8:11AM
It's definitely not for everyone (and at $130, you'd better really want it), but we can't help but be intrigued by
the iGesture Pad from FingerWorks. Unlike a conventional mouse, trackball or touchpad, the iGesture relies on "finger
gestures," an approach the company claims is more ergonomic than clicks and drags. While the method seems less than
intuitive, the company provides animated examples of common gestures on their site, and many do seem fairly
straightforward (though tapping with three fingers to represent a double-click just seems wrong). And for fans
of mouse gesture plug-ins for programs like the Firefox browser, the iGesture could be a natural extension. We just
wish FingerWorks would consider calling the movements something other than "finger gestures." For us at least (we're
from New York, remember), that phrase conjures up some very specific images, and they ain't the ones FingerWorks would
like us to see.
[Via PC Magazine]
At one point I saw that these guys had created a keyboard replacement for powerbooks using the same technology...
I have one of those and I can't recommend it enough. At first, I didn't use any fancy "gestures" - just pointing, clicking, double clicking and dragging. But now I use gestures for a lot of stuff like select all, copy, new document, paste, save, close app, lock computer, open IE, switch apps and whatnot (you can create your own gesture/keypress mappings).
Once you get used to it (which happens very quickly) it becomes second nature.
I have one of their full size keyboards. The entire surface is touch sensitve material all the keys are virtual. Not really great for high volume typing because of the lack of tactile feedback. But it is GREAT for browsing around. The gestures quickly become very intuitive.
I love being able to access the whole UI from one device without having to go back and forth from mouse to keyboard.
I've used one for a while now on Linux and it works out quite well. You have to be careful to rest your hand on something and not keep it hovering over the pad between gestures, or you could strain your shoulder. Also, I get some weird behaviour from time to time where it suddently becomes very hard to resize a window, which can be frustrating. Other than that a great RSI-relieving mouse replacement.
does anybody else think the hand movements look a lot like the motions they use on the computers in Minority Report?
for someone that owns one, how close do your movements have to be to the predfined ones to get it to work? does it ever think you mean a similar gesture instead of the one you actually wanted? I wouldn't want to accidentally erase part of a file instead of resize a document...
I've been using the FingerWorks TouchStream keyboard for almost a month now and love it. I have a whole new perspective on GUIs since mousing doesn't require me to leave the keyboard, and the gestures are fabulous. I use the right click, cut, copy, paste, open, save, switch apps, etc gestures constantly. I wish all laptops could be customized with a fingerworks keyboard.
Typing speed is impacted, I'm at about 60wpm, down from over 100. It is important to hit keys with the right fingers so some retraining was necessary. I consider it well worth that cost however, and I can use my laptop keyboard when I need extreme speed. I also do expect my speed to improve as I continue practicing.
I have had the full-size keyboard on my office machine and the replacement keyboard on my laptop for more than a year. They are really great, you get used to the lack of haptic feedback after a while and can type high-volume pretty well. The gestures more than make up for the reduction in typing speed since you never need to grab a mouse and, even better, you can assign macro-like behaviors to the gestures. I have my weak-password stored in a particularly difficult to intuitively figure out gesture, Expos?o another, Quicksilver to another, etc. The gestures are pretty well orthogonal, you don't tend to get behavior of one when you ask for another. In fact, I can't think of that ever happening to me. The most persistent things are the typing errors, but there is a built in dictionary/correction engine you can enable to help out there too.
I had a full-size Touchstream LP for about two weeks and sent it back... It's probably fine if you're disabled and you can't type at all without one, but if you're used to doing more than 40 wpm on your current keyboard, you'll never match that pace on the flat keyboard.
I currently have an Retro keyboard, which is basically a Microsoft Natural keyboard with the iGesture pad in place of a numeric keyboard. I've had it for a couple years and it's terrific. Being able to put both keyboard and mouse in your lap eliminates many ergonomic problems, and the programmable gestures (hundreds) cannot be beat by software that uses mouse only.
I've been using a Touchstream LP for about six months now... I love it. There's definitely an impact on typing speed, but it's not enough to consider it a handicap. I used to be about 92WPM, but now (with the Touchstream) I'm about 60-70. It took me about three months to reach that speed, but I learned the dvorak keyboard layout at the same time as I learned how to type on this keyboard.
The gestures are what make this thing so special and useful. Like a previous poster, I have a couple passwords stored in the device and I use it in Linux (also have that occasional drag delay problem).
Couple of notes: Gestures are very intuitive and you can master many of them. They're great for RTS games, but not for FPSes. They definitely make you more productive.
I own a touchstream LP as well, and it is great. One thing i can't recommend enough is the 3rd finger pointing gesture that allows you to click while you're moving the mouse (i use my ring finger). It makes it much more enjoyable to use. I can type pretty fast (i use the dvorak layout) and it's really easy to move back and forth between words to edit, cut, paste, etc... Xwinder makes it really easy to resize windows (even with one hand), but sometimes it engages when you don't want it to, so I don't use it. Surprisingly, gestures are almost never mistaken for others... I like it :)
anybody cosidering this, first must consider strokeit for system wide mouse gestures