Bret Victor released a really excellent article about what is missing in the user interfaces of current technology, and what we should consider when crafting visions for the future. Compelling and easy to understand.
I call [iPad] technology Pictures Under Glass. Pictures Under Glass sacrifice all the tactile richness of working with our hands, offering instead a hokey visual facade….
We live in a three-dimensional world. Our hands are designed for moving and rotating objects in three dimensions, for picking up objects and placing them over, under, beside, and inside each other….
To me, claiming that Pictures Under Glass is the future of interaction is like claiming that black-and-white is the future of photography. It’s obviously a transitional technology. And the sooner we transition, the better.
Read the whole article, which has great pictures as well.