[mschuster91]

> For example, compare the times you've tried to input something on a dodgy public touchscreen versus the times you've tried to input something on a public physical keypad—I'll bet there're way more failures on the first than on the second; certainly that's been my experience.

Well, anything with glass is prone to vandalism. A metal keyboard is hard to vandalize, a touchscreen needs only a piece of random rock or other debris to shatter.

[okcando]

Not even clear he's talking about vandalized glass. Sounds like maybe he's referring to those squishy resistive-touch displays found in ATMs and POS terminals and other kiosk-type applications, and early consumer devices. Did those ever work well, even when new?

[chrismeller]

How much of that is even hardware?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve used some big impressive digital map kind of thing at a mall or airport only to find it completely frozen (software), insanely laggy (potentially both, but likely software if a RPi could run it), and/or infuriating to use because I have to touch very hard exactly on the center of the icon, taking into account what I think the angle of the display is so that I’m hitting it exactly where the screen thinks it is, not where I see it through a layer of glass as being (most definitely software).

All of those complaints have applied to one degree or another to stupid tableside ordering apps that are running on an iPad or my own phone too, so I don’t think the hardware was ever to blame.