Its interesting to hear designers on a rant about capacitive buttons. Switches are the bane of most electrical engineers because they cost a lot and they have a finite lifetime. So generally they are thing that is going to 'kill' the product. And because they are both mechanical and have moving parts (in the non-capacitive variant) when they break the users just push harder trying to get them to work and that can crack traces on the circuit board and end the life of an otherwise working piece of gear.<p>Capacitive buttons can be 'tuned' (which is to say one can adjust how sensitive they are) somewhat depending on their antenna design and the ambient conditions. What is really hard for them is in a high emf environment (think lots of fourescents and shag carpets) there is so much charge available at your fingertip that even turned waay down they fire with the barest touch, reverse the circumstance like a modestly humid day out in a field somewhere and they are lucky if they can see your finger at all. If you're finger is wet (and thus charge will tend to distribute more evenly around you body) they are nearly worthless.<p>I recently saw some interesting 'piezo' buttons where they were effectively capacitive buttons but covered by a bit of piezo material so that you had to push on them to get them to activate. But while better in many ways, the cost difference between a button that is just a trace on the PCB (essentially free) and one that has a bit of piezo material in it (even if it only costs 2 or 3 cents) is easily someones salary when you're activating 500,000 devices a day.
Another issue people don't bring up: the weather. Living in Seattle I frequently wore mittens. With the physical buttons it would not be a problem to operate the phone, with the touchscreen there is this long ordeal of pulling off the mitten to answer the phone. If it is raining (or rather, when is it not raining?), the rain will mess with the touchscreen, making it sometimes impossible to answer a call. You might say there is a solution: either cut off the fingers or sew in some conducting thread to the tip of the mittens. This doesn't solve the rain problem though.
Those buttons hit their maximum disaster level when installed on an induction stove. You know, the ones that are one flat shiny panel with areas that magically turn red and hot at the push of a button?<p>Of course, said buttons are always next to impossible to press correctly (except by accident), so the standard use case is to mash your finger onto it until some form of feedback occurs.<p>More often than not, that feedback comes in the form of 3rd degree burns as a result of mashing your finger onto a magically hot stove.<p>I hope there's a special little room in hell where the guy who designed that stove is forced to repeatedly burn his thumbs on it for all eternity.
This is why I liked the older Android devices (as opposed to the new ones). Having physical buttons and a trackball were significantly better than both capacitive buttons and optical trackpads. Trackballs are significantly better than optical trackpads from a use-perspective. They work in all orientation, have finer grains of control, don't require awkward flicks to work, and have a much easier learning curve. The industry really needs to stop trying to the trendy thing and focus on things that work.
I don't agree with his comment about the stove - Sure it's more fiddly than a real button or dial, but the ease of cleaning more than makes up for it IMHO.
tldr: <i>Did they never play a game in landscape mode, and accidentally back out of the whole game by merely holding the device wrong?</i><p>I really don't get the anti-(physical-)button trend.
I remember when I bought an LG Chocolate when it first came on the scene about 5 years ago. It had capacitive touch buttons that were in such a bad place that if I was talking, and the button brushed against my ear it would hangup the call. It was awful and I vowed never again. Its the very reason I never got an iphone, opting for blackberry instead.
The author mentions his experience with capacitive buttons that are too sensitive. I have the opposite problem on my phone—the buttons aren't sensitive enough.<p>I think that capacitive buttons are just too difficult to tune because the conditions they are used in vary so much. My phone doesn't even register touches at all if my hands are slightly sweaty.
How about capacitive buttons in elevators? It's very annoying if your hands are full and you can't easily find some other exposed body part to touch the button.<p>With normal buttons you at least have a shot at nailing them with an elbow or a foot.
I would totally buy his book if I didn't find the prices of tech books to be completely absurd.<p>I remember how for 15 years VHS movies cost from $79.95 to $119.95 because they figured their only customers were video rental stores. The problem was they were selling each movie once for $80 instead of selling it 500 times for $20. Since fixing their flawed pricing model, far more movies are sold than before, to the point that rental stores have all but disappeared.<p>Could a similar thing be happening with books? Perhaps they are pricing for library use, where many users are expected to read one book. Or perhaps they are targeting captive audiences like in colleges where impoverished youth are shaken down.<p>Usability failure? Market failure? Or smart pricing model?<p>I'd buy a decently bound paperback as is being offered of this length and interest for $9.95 to $17.95. But I won't pay $35-44, not even close.<p>The question is, how many others are out there like me that represent lost sales. Maybe I am the only one. In that case, $44 is the right price. Or why not even $99.
My Samsung TV has capacitive buttons - in the shiny black surround, labelled with tiny iconographs in very, very dark grey. It took me several minutes to even find the 'on' button when I first got it.
Anything that vaguely pretends it's a button without being one deserves to burn in hell for all eternity. This includes touch screens, capacitive or otherwise, and any other such nonsense. If I'm meant to press it, make it obvious and use a button. If I'm meant to slide it, give me a slider. Turn? Give me a knob. How hard can it be, seriously?<p>As for engineers moaning about the life time of switches, puh-please. Show me one phone with buttons that has outlived its buttons. You can't? Didn't think so.<p>What really needs to go is this touchy cult. It's ridiculous. There are a couple of things where it makes sense. Angry Birds is not one of them. Anything else is just a useless fad. Especially touchy keyboardy crap that NO ONE can type on. Show me one person who can type 150WPM (and I don't mean swipe or predict or any such crap) on a touch screen and I'll go out and buy an iPhone.
One place I found that capacitive buttons have worked well is on the newer xbox models. The power and tray eject buttons are capacitive and it works well there.
The worst offenders are android phones like my nexus one with capacitive buttons right beneath the software keyboard. Overshoot the space bar just a tiny bit? Hello home screen, goodbye app. Some apps handle this and you can just press back -- others lose all of what you just typed.
What is a capacitive button?<p>EDIT: Oh, I see now. They are buttons that respond to electric impulse from the fingers on touchscreens.<p>The solution the author seems to be seeking is: everyone should use the old Nokia bricks?
as long as my phone's primary interface is a capacitive touchscreen, i don't see a problem with the buttons being capacitive as well. it's really just an extension of the screen interface, dedicated to a specific purpose.<p>yes, it sucks that i can't press the buttons on my phone with mittens on. but i wouldn't give up my capacitive touchscreen in exchange for a phone that operated solely by physical buttons.
isn't the entire screen of a smart phone a capacitive button? It's pretty hard to accidentally dial my ex or launch the "fart noise" app in a meeting on it so why not link the "capacitive" buttons to the same software unlock as the device already has. (referring to my Android / HTC desire)
I absolutely despise the touch-sensitive 'wheel' on my iPod Classic. It's useless if I'm working in the garage with nitrile gloves on. I've resorted to using my elbow or nose at times.<p>It's even pretty useless <i>without</i> gloves, if I've been doing anything that gets my hands dry, or had the iPod in my pocket so that it became relatively moist. I often have to breathe on my fingers before changing the volume!
Anything which is not tactile is bad if you ask me. That means capacitive buttons, touch screens etc. Even Star Trek shot themselves in an episode when a blind person had to use a panel:<p><a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tactile_interface" rel="nofollow">http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Tactile_interface</a><p>Now I'm not partially sighted, but I'm not always looking at the display.