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According to Buxton, the desktop metaphor has placed interface designers in a dilemma:⁸²

The best ideas are the most dangerous, because they take hold and are the hardest to change. Hence, the Macintosh is dangerous to the progress of user interfaces precisely because it was so well done! Designers seem to be viewing it as a measure of success rather than as a point of departure. Consequently, it runs the risk of becoming the COBOL of the 90s. (Buxton 407; see also Raskin Down with GUIs!)

As a consequence, some interface designers have started to search for new approaches. Gentner and Nielsen, for example, propagate the Anti-Mac Interface which violates the design principles discussed in section 3.3. According to them, current interfaces have been designed for novice users, but future users will grow up in a computerized world which makes it easier to become computer literate. For example, a user should not always be required to be in control. Some actions are boring and repetitive, for example periodically saving a document while editing it. Therefore, this should be done automatically by the system (which is already the case in some systems).
A similar point is made by Raskin, one of the Macintosh designers, who argues that the problem does not begin with the interface itself but with the operating system. According to him, it does nothing for you, wastes your time, is unnecessary and should be regarded as a barrier between the user and his tasks. Thus, Raskin demands an interface which recognizes the user's task and provides the needed application automatically. Instead of applications, Raskin suggests that "command sets" should be supplied which should be interoperable with all other command sets. His notion has become true to some degree regarding the increasing use of plugins, be it for imaging software or World Wide Web browsers. Some web applications enable browsers to download plugins such as the Macromedia Flash Plugin automatically when needed; thus, the user does not have to cope with the installation details anymore.
While the authors above deal with software, Kuri discusses hardware and software as a whole (Kuri Soft Machine 154-159; see also PC-Hersteller: Neue Konzepte sind gefragt and Kuri and Windeck Zwergenaufstand). In his opinion, there are two trends which have begun to dominate the computer market:

• industrial design, which means that future computers will come in a design following the functions of a computer (for which Apple's iMac is an example according to Kuri)
• specialization in particular tasks

Regarding the last point, Kuri points out that it is not necessary to include all available features in a standard computer:

Der Videorekorder verspricht nicht, dass man nie wieder abwaschen muß. Genau das aber macht der PC: 'Ich kann alles!' schreit diese Büchse, die rappelnd und säuselnd unter dem Schreibtisch steht. Da er alles kann, kann er für viele Anwender gar nichts - bis man kapiert hat, wie man eine Aufgabe damit erfüllen kann, ist man selbst zum Rechnerschrauber geworden. (158)

Thus, the computer might be seperated into several different devices. PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) are one example of these special devices, Cyrix's WEBPAD another. While these device have become more complex with respect to their technology, they are easier to use since users only have to deal with a few features. At the same time, computers as we know them today will dissappear. As a result, human-computer interaction as it was described in this paper will presumably look totally different in the future.

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