Originally posted by Franc its because everyone is used to touchscreens nowadays. I prefer the pentax ui and wheels. there's less to go kaput!
Originally posted by LoneWolf If they did introduce a touch screen, it would just be an additional user interface, more than likely taking over some of the controls from the Function screen and shortcut body buttons....unfortunately.
My sentiments exactly. Recently one of the two expensive photocopiers at work broke down ... yeah, you guessed it, because of a failing touch screen! Even when they do work, it takes some practice to tap exactly the right places, and the constant smearing remains a nuissance.
Yet, for a camera brand to survive, you need to sell cameras, and not only to those geeks and no-bullshit photographers who dig them. Much as I cringed when I took a KS-1 in my hands at Photokina last autumn - I had to be careful not to drop it because I missed the deep grip of my K-3, nor did I like the loud shutter sound - I did get the impression that it generated a fair amount of curiosity among young female visitors. Maybe having two product lines - the more traditional, serious-looking, trusty-tool K line and the fresher-looking KS line to appeal to a new generation of buyers - actually makes sense ...
Frustratingly, Pentax always seems to get the rap, being depicted as dinosaur when offering traditional DSLRs and ridiculed when trying to be more colourful and flashy ...
Originally posted by RobA_Oz Functionally, I agree there is nothing major about the UI that needs "fixing". That's not to say that it can't be improved, and every digital Pentax I've owned has had a similar, but slightly different, UI. Obviously, as features are added there will be changes.
Nonetheless, even blind Freddy can see that the styling of the UI is very basic - even the choice of font and background colouring reminds me of MS-DOS. I'm sure there are people here who are sentimentally attached to that style, but having spent a substantial part of my career battling the idiosyncrasies of that OS, I don't really want to be reminded of it every time I look at my camera menus.
So, is the styling functional? Yes, of course it is. Is it optimised for reading in all sorts of lighting conditions, not to mention user sight-ability? Probably not. Is it appealing to first-time users? Probably not. Can it be readily amended, preferably to suit the user's requirements and/or taste? Probably, and if so, why wouldn't you? It's easy for border-line Aspies like me to dismiss such a change as frivolous, but tell me why things like colour and styling are the main attributes that sell motorcars, within price brackets.
Makes a lot of sense to me. So, form follows function should remain the focus for future iterations, and openness to meaningful improvements, rather than minimalism as an end in itself?