> It's fascinating how the GUI's haven't changed much since.
I think you mean WIMP GUIs haven't changed much (and indeed, the WIMP interfaces of the classic Mac, Windows, current Mac, Apollo, Sun all felt very much like the Smalltalk GUI to me).
But I think the tile+touch interface pioneered on the iPhone is indeed a new GUI paradigm which shrugged off the baby-boomer "desktop" metaphor.
These shifts require a change in hardware, as any interface that gets traction with technology T forms a local maximum, which makes it inherently conservative. That suggests that the phone interface is unlikely to change.
What are the elements of the next generation? Looking at the horizon, some subset of voice and AR+gesture, and likely shared experience (note: I don't believe VR offers any affordances for mass UI). So far I have seen nothing viable (including some efforts I've participated in) with these technologies though.
Meanwhile I find those multi-column views infuriatingly wasteful. I KNOW I'm in folder A/B/C because I literally just clicked them. I prefer being able to use a smaller explorer window that shows more info. One key to this is a mouse with a fourth and fifth button, which windows intuitively maps to "forward" and "back", and mac unhelpfully maps to "nothing" and "expose" and doesn't seem to have useful alternatives built in.
Having back and forward buttons on my thumb, with Window's "Folders come first" list sorting makes folder spelunking much simpler for me
I think you mean WIMP GUIs haven't changed much (and indeed, the WIMP interfaces of the classic Mac, Windows, current Mac, Apollo, Sun all felt very much like the Smalltalk GUI to me).
But I think the tile+touch interface pioneered on the iPhone is indeed a new GUI paradigm which shrugged off the baby-boomer "desktop" metaphor.
These shifts require a change in hardware, as any interface that gets traction with technology T forms a local maximum, which makes it inherently conservative. That suggests that the phone interface is unlikely to change.
What are the elements of the next generation? Looking at the horizon, some subset of voice and AR+gesture, and likely shared experience (note: I don't believe VR offers any affordances for mass UI). So far I have seen nothing viable (including some efforts I've participated in) with these technologies though.