The inevitable touchscreen trend

You must’ve heard it; Microsoft is going all out on multi-touch features with its Windows 7. Because whenever the giant software is talking big on its flagship product: Windows OS, every major tech news blogs and websites will cover it crazy like big sales during a huge fall bazaar.

It was Microsoft’s dynamic duo: Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer who revealed Windows 7 at D6 event on Tuesday. Rafe Needleman (Webware) shares with us on what it all about: “We saw a demo of a Surface-like app for organizing photos, and what appeared to be the Windows 1.0 Paint app, except that you can now draw with all your fingers at once. Also, a digital globe app, where the two-handed interface makes good sense. And a piano app, on which, thanks to multitouch, you can now play chords.”

And as any other CEOs’ big talks to promote their company’s product, the early ‘promo’ was all like putting a cherry on top of ice caked vanilla coated with sugar layers just the way public will love it. Why? Because it’s all are not too far away than another sad attempt from Microsoft to topple off Apple’s cool Mac OS X’s user interface, rather than providing Windows consumers with new and unseen before features, Microsoft is playing catch and run with Apple. Like for an instance, they should have address more important issue of the Vista’s annoying UAC (User Account Control) feature, there’s got to be a better way to enhance security than that.

Okay, maybe I’m talking way ahead here. Since probably Microsoft still has something else under its sleeves when Windows 7 is shipping to consumers in late 2009 next year, and I truly hope the upcoming Windows Mobile 7 will also has more than just eye-candy ‘iPhone-alike’ user interface. In the mean time, witness and weigh it yourself the video demo below of Windows 7 multi-touch features.


Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7

On the other side of our small mobile world, Stephen Shankland (CNet News Blog) has witnessed that Steve Horowitz, Android's engineering director, used flicking gestures to sweep from the phone's home screen to another during a speech on Wednesday at the Google I/O conference. But the best of all is Android’s touchscreen built-in feature called Compass which together with handset’s accelerometer, can interact with Google Maps Street View panoramas. There are other demonstrations such as the accidentally shown Market app icon on the unidentified handset that runs on Qualcomm’s 528MHz CPU, Synaptics capacitive touch screen, HSDPA 3.6Mbps, 128MB of RAM and 256 of flash memory. And so far, the best game it can play right now is Pac-Man game. ;-p ~LOL~

But the important question for Android is: how it will compete with iPhone’s and the upcoming Windows Mobile 7’s multi-touch feature? Because the current Android doesn’t support it yet, “However, Android could accommodate that technology if handset makers use multitouch-capable screens”, said Andy Rubin, the Android project leader, in a press meeting after the speech. Rubin added: “Android can use a touch screen, but doesn't need one. Steve could have given that entire demo driven by a trackball."

Watch the Android’s touchscreen video demo below and see whether or not it can move your interest to have an Android-based handsets tomorrow, or head on to the AndroidCommunity to get more videos alike.

In a smaller exclusive world of iPhone, Jonny Evans (Macworld UK) has found out that Apple's iPhone has spurred huge growth in touchscreen display shipments as competitors and consumers turn to similar technologies, new iSuppli research claims. The researchers claim shipments of touchscreens will double by 2012, and notes that new touchscreen technologies and manufacturers are entering the market, with 60 companies plan to show off their touchscreen sensor, module or system technology during the 2008 Society for Information Display (SID) International Symposium, Seminar and Exhibition.

Apple's highly successful iPhone has kick-started sales of touchscreens using projected capacitive technology, which is more durable and has better transmittance than the more commonly-used resistive technology. New touchscreen technologies are also being commercialized and 12 types of touchscreen technologies now have commenced mass production.

Yeah, we must except this new trend that eventually will tumble down bigger in time like a big ball of snow riding down the snowy hill in winter. But those Windows fanboys, those loveable Android cyborgs and those iPhone diehard-users should never forget; it was Palm who pioneered the first usage of touchscreen in its early PDA devices.

[blogged with my Treo 750v]