Comment 63 for bug 882274

> There is a reason people don't use Android on their desktop and laptop computers.

Absolutely. The fact is, for any of us who spend time thinking about the tradeoffs of command-line vs GUI interfaces, one fact is amazingly clear: Interfaces must be designed around their inputs, not the other way around. If inputs are sufficiently different (touchscreen vs mouse and keyboard), the interface will need to be different as a result.

Think about it this way. From a commend line I can provide the computer more information faster than I can from a GUI. However, the computer can give me more information faster from a GUI. The inputs and outputs are fundamentally different and so GUI's can never have the same degree of functionality readily available that a CLI can (imagine using a GUI to accomplish what the ftp command get foo.c ~/sources/foo/bar.c does), but many things (surfing the web) are much better in a GUI even given this tradeoff. I am convinced systems with keyboards and mice are fundamentally different from systems without them in similar ways.....

Wouldn't it be cool if we could have a very good, consistent interface across tablets, smart-phones, laptops, and desktops? Sure, but I think this is impossible for reasons of mathematics. From my perspective, Gnome 2.3 is the best desktop UI ever developed. Of course it would be awkward on touchscreens. Similarly Android and iOS are great touchscreen interfaces but would be horrible to use with a mouse. Apple knows this. Google knows this. Even Microsoft knows this. I have to wonder why Linux UI developers seem to have abandoned all the great work done so far to pursue such a pipe dream.

Watching the Windows 8 demos, I keep thinking that Microsoft has learned the right lessons from us, and we (btw, not just Ubuntu, but also GNOME) are learning the wrong lessons from them.