A Turning Point for Touch Screens, Says the NYT

The New York Times has a story up on the suddenly brisk market for touch screens and the devices which can make use of them, which it says "has grown quietly for years, both in commercial applications and in consumer devices." Besides the obvious (the iPhone, and Apple's use of multi-touch generally), the article also mentions the recent inclusion of Israeli company N-Trig's version of multi-touch technology in a Dell notebook computer, and some of the other places you can expect to see touchscreens instead of display-only ones in the near future — if the price drops quickly enough.

If sci fi movies are anything to go by..

Forget the optimus, what about a touch screen keyboard? Sure, there's no feedback (yet) but the user could change the input style at will, using it as a mouse/tablet/music mixing device etc.

Re:If sci fi movies are anything to go by..

art lebedev actually has a concept of one, the optimus tactus. Check it out - http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus-tactus/

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I wouldn't want it. It's nice to have the tactile feedback. Heck, I sometimes even miss the audible feedback from typing on a Model M keyboard.

Re:If sci fi movies are anything to go by..

Feedback is really important, but maybe it can be faked.

Of course feedback can be faked ... ask any woman.

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There's the Optimus Tactus [artlebedev.com] concept, which is exactly that: a programmable surface that can be any keyboard (or even input device) you want.

In my opinion the real breakthrough for that class of device is going to come when they get haptic feedback to work with multitouch screens. Haptic feedback is when you literally "feel" the virtual buttons. There are some promising advances there.

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... and yet people say the iPhone sucks without even knowing what it can do.

I'm surprised that consumers want them...

I was the design manager on Logitech's Harmony One remote and I fought for a touch screen for the programmable controls - in the past these were physical buttons beside the different controls on the remote. Implementing physical buttons close to an LCD are very difficult to implement correctly. I thought the touch panel would improve the quality of the product and give it much cleaner look to the overall product.

I was half right - it is a gorgeous remote but the touch panel just doesn't match the rest of the remote and the time taken in the mechanical design to product an interface that you don't have to look down at to use. Coupled with the cost of the capacitive touch panel (about 10x what it would cost for poly dome and plastic/elastomer buttons) it really isn't worth it.

I'm very unimpressed with the touch panel for typing on the iPhone and iPod touch so I'm going to be watching to see how companies design their user interfaces to give users as positive an interface as they would have with buttons.

If it's not done well, then I would expect a backlash against touch panels by consumers.

myke

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I have a Razr (original model) and find it annoying that it's far too easy to unintentionally change settings when picking the thing out of its holster. More than once I've accidentally turned off the ringer or enabled speakerphone - grrr.

The Samsung Instinct looks interesting and has a vibration feature to acknowledge button-presses, but that's got to be hard on the battery life.

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Totally agree.

I did one universe touch screen remote control as a school project. It's done by laying a Palm touchscreen on top of a Dot Matrix LCD. Although it looks cool and earn me a A+, but practically it inherits the same problem exactly like what you have describe - touch feedback.

I hope some day someone could invent an touch interface with dynamic texture for touch, just like the dot on the F and J key. I imagine it could be done by micro-heater (like those used in inkjet) which heat up a small bubbl

Re:I'm surprised that consumers want them...

I'm very unimpressed with the touch panel for typing on the iPhone and iPod touch

Hmm, do you type on one of those regularly?

Yes, the physical typing experience on iPhone is pretty poor, but I find that the auto correction software pretty much makes up for it. I can type just about as fast on iPhone as on another small keyboard with physical buttons, and even though I make horrible typing errors it fixes them on the fly perfectly almost every time. You just have to trust it, just like it says in the video. On the other hand I do sometimes type in another language which is not supported by iphone (Serbian) and the result is a mess. But as long as you are typing regular text (not a lot of names or code or something) in a supported language, the software can go a long way to make use of it on a daily basis fairly bearable. On the other hand, there are considerable advantages in size, weight, flexibility etc in having the keyboard on the screen as needed so perhaps it's worth getting used to it.

Re:I'm surprised that consumers want them...

And whenever there is a touch panel it will also be clogged by the dirty fingers people have.

Just take a look at some people's keyboards where a large amount of brownish residue of unknown origin is accumulated.

Many remotes also have an accumulation of some residue that you probably don't want to examine further, and by having a touch display you will get that residue even more visible.

Exciting news, but

what's always bothered me about touchscreen technology is the screen getting dirty. It annoys me when my non-touch monitor gets smudges as it is. I freely admit, however, that I have very little direct experience with touchscreens and perhaps these new ones (iPhone, etc) have some nifty way of dealing with that.

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The iPhone's screen looks horrible after using it for a few moments - I bought a matte screen protector that reduces glare and also smudging. Now It's hardly noticeable.

Customers shouldn't have to rely on a third party addition for this though.

A little too much

Over the years I think I've touched my screen a little too much.

Seriously, regarding LCD reliability- has anyone studied it after thousands of touches, some low pressure, some higher pressure? When I touch my LCD screen, it turns dark around my finger. Doesn't look good to me.

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That happens on my laptop, but it doesn't on my iPhone, which has a rigid glass screen that protects the LCD part from fingertip pressure. Unfortunately, not from fingerprints or smudges, though.

How will this effect porn?

Touch screens should re-vitalize computer based porn. Think of the possibilities.

The DS?

I imagine that the first prolonged, day-to-day experience with a touchscreen for a lot of people would be the Nintendo DS. It's got a user base a lot larger, and demographically wider, than that of the iPhone. This isn't to knock Apple's tech and design achievements with that device and their trackpads, but I think the DS was probably pivotal in getting the general public used to operating devices with purely virtual buttons.

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I guess I'm stuck in my mindset. I can still only see the touch screen as a valid method of data input in a few limited capacities. I see it as a nice addition to the POS systems, gaming systems, phones, and maybe some other small consumer gadgets.

I can't envision me, personally, wanting to code using the screen. I can see me wanting to navigate a GPS unit or a building directory with one.

Not a single mention of the DS...

More innovative than the iPhone and yet they didn't even mention it in the article...

pr0n

And now pornography has a whole new platform to work with. awesome.

What Apple should do.

Right, so here's my incredibly important opinion that you must agree with. Apple implemented this nifty multi-touch thing on the iPhone (and consequently on the iPod Touch). What they need to do now is extend this multi-touch thing to the computers as well. Heck, if I can see some darn thing on the screen and I want to drag it around or whatever, why shouldn't I be able to just reach out and do that? There should still be a keyboard and a rat for now. Mouse pads should also incorporate multi-touch. I think the keys on the keyboard should all have tiny displays embedded in them that can display any character. Thus, when you switch languages, the keyboard mapping will change and the keys themselves will show what character they'll type. Push Ctrl, Alt, Fn, Open-Apple, Shift, or whatever, and the keys will immediately change to reflect the characters that will be typed. Thus, lowercase letters will be displayed until Shift is held down, at which point they'll change to uppercase and the number keys will change to the symbols on those same keys. Hit Caps Lock and the appropriate behavior will take place. No more people getting confused why their password isn't being accepted or pushing all kinds of wrong keys looking for that dang ñ key when you're typing in Spanish or whatever. Simple. So, where were we? Oh yeah. Take these computers to the next level. Multi-touch on all computer displays and mouse pads. Keyboards where individual keys display what they will do. And while we're at it, how about a non-broken X implementation like there used to be in Tiger?!?

Point Of Sale systems

Anyone doing outsourced IT work will tell you that Elo brand touch screens are very much alive in the POS (point of sale) market. This article is way out of touch with reality. Where's the "BS" tag when we need it?

what about the grease factor?

Human fingers are greasy. Show me a touchscreen that can repel all human grease and then I'll be interested.

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I think they need to figure out that NOBODY LIKES TOUCHSCREENS!

Yeah? I think you need to figure out that NOT EVERYONE IS YOU!

Re:bad idea

I think you are right, but for the wrong reasons. The same things applies to voice recognition, it will never replace keyboards in the office.
How fatiguing and tedious would it be to talk to your computer all day? Imagine how noisy the office would be.
Likewise, how about using a touchscreen all day? Your arm would feel like it was ready to fall off. Like it or not, a mouse takes little physical effort and lends itself to the sitting position.