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I enjoy watching in-flight movies by using the seatback personal-entertainment system. However, I've noticed a registration error in about 25% of the touch screens. I always fly the same Canadian airline, so I'm wondering what the in-flight entertainment systems are like on other airlines.

Related to this, I wrote a blog post to suggest that touch-screens could auto-detect registration errors and then correct them on the fly.

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Delta doesn't use touchscreens, but rather the remote-control/wand style input device.

As an aside:

If the system is busy, those button presses have high latency and the feedback often confuses the passengers around me. They press the buttons multiple times hoping for results.

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When the touch-screen system was first introduced, the flight attendants would announce to passengers to be patient and allow the system time to respond. It's been a year, now, and they seldom announce that any more. Come to think of it, the sydtem's response time (latency) response seems to have improved. Some developer must have refactored the code. Yay! Air Canada used to have the hand-held "remote" controls. They were attached to the seat by a retractable string reminiscent of a pull-start lawn mower. I much prefer the touch-screen experience they have now! – JeromeR♦ Oct 12 at 19:13
I'm a UI developer, so I use those techy words. :) And I look forward to trying a touch screen on some future flight. – Brent Oct 12 at 22:08
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I've not experienced registration issues on BA however I have noticed the latency issues highlighted by Brent. I don't fly very frequently however but I definitely agree there is a lot of room for improvement.

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Latency is a new term for me. Thanks for the engineering jargon, guys. (I think.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency_(engineering) – JeromeR♦ Oct 12 at 19:15
Yep, the first line of that article pretty much sums up my interpretation of latency in a UI. With touch-screen apps, if the latency is unavoidable then it would actually be better to ignore the subsequent user interactions then take the next action AFTER the original has completed. Best approach of course is to do away with the delay or make use of a separate thread for canceling/overriding actions. – DannyT Oct 12 at 19:46

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