Apple Losing Touchscreen War 392
An anonymous reader writes "While Apple's iPhone may be the first device most people call to mind when they think of a touch interface mobile, the 3G device is still lagging behind in the touchscreen shifting stakes — it's getting a sound thrashing from Moto and Samsung, who've cornered the Asian market where touchscreens are popular for their ability to let users input Asian languages without all that fiddly Qwerty nonsense."
one day all screens will have touch/stylus input (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully before that day comes, Apple will start making tablets again --- I really need a replacement for my Newton MessagePad and my Fujitsu Stylistic is just too big to travel w/ me constantly as the MP did (and my Sony PRS-505 ebook reader does --- something that size, w/ pen input would be perfect).
William
Right Question.... Wrong Answer. (Score:5, Interesting)
1. What are the touch screen statistics in the United States? What share does Apple hold domestically?
2. Is there some reason why Apple is not competing in the international market? Is Apple having their lunch eaten by companies that are "household names" in Asia, or is the product inferrior? What is Apple's penetration in those markets over the past year?
3. How do these numbers change if were to include things like Black Berrys and other "smart" phone without touch screens?
4. Why are 80 percent of touch screen phones marketed in Asia? Why aren't the touch screens being created for the Asian market showing up here? I find it hard to believe that ease of displaying Asian fonts is the only reason. Is there some lack of American infrastructure? Lack of interest from American consumers?
As someone who loves bleeding edge technology, I'm frustrated by the lack of options in the US and find the whole international marketing strategy wonderfully interesting. But this article is a slow boat of fail because it lacks any analysis or insight.
Models? (Score:3, Interesting)
If Motorola and Samsung have the market sewn up, essentially, what are they doing it with? This is the first time I had even heard Motorola *had* a touch screen phone.
Also, why aren't they sold in the US, then? I read about Motorola wanting to spin off their phone division, all the problems they've had, then I'm told they have these phones that I might be interested in (I don't have AT&T so no iPhone for me) but don't seem to be available.
Take my Samsung Glyde, please! (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife and I are excruciatingly unhappy owners of Samsung Glydes. The touch screens are nothing short of possessed.
* The screens randomly accept commands, often registering touches inches away from the actual contact
* The screens often refuse to acknowledge any contact whatsoever
* Worst of all, they're prone to poltergeist behaviors. While placed on a conference table in a meeting, for example, mine started self-executing commands. After much laughter, the assistant director of a government agency who happened to be in the room received a call from my phone (much to the delight of the attendees).
While that example was humorous, the phone has executed deletes of several important contacts, downloaded software, and refused to accept commands to answer important incoming phone calls.
Several trips to Verizon, including software updates and replacements, have failed to resolve the issues.
Perhaps Moto is a threat to Apple, but claiming that Samsung's touch screens are a threat is an absurd claim at best.
Nobody else has FingerWorks IP, though. (Score:5, Interesting)
Anybody can build a touch screen that lets you poke at big static buttons, or lets you try to fatfinger a virtual keyboard. Only Apple has the FingerWorks patents to do high-quality, high-usability multitouch gestures [fingerworks.com].
Disclaimer: I've been using a FingerWorks TouchStream keyboard for more than five years, so I'm a big fan of the technology. I've also been a Mac user since 1985 or so. But when Apple bought FingerWorks, they completely shut down all sales and support, leaving the existing user base swinging in the breeze, so I'm a bit... conflicted.
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be perfect for college students taking notes and reading e-textbooks and a myriad of other applications.
Somewhat offtopic, and forgive me for being ignorant, by why havent tablets caught on? I'd buy one in a heartbeat if it Just Worked(tm). Most of the "tablets" out there are just laptops with flippable screens == too much complexity and too many fragile moving parts.
I usually can't stand Macs but if Apple were the first to do a simple, elegant, full-screened "iClipboard", I'd be all over it.
Forget the iPhone, it's UI is way too goddamned slow for a mobile device.
Re:Unleash the Fanbois! (Score:0, Interesting)
By the will of Steve, we will!
Just remember that these ANALysts are referring to simple touchscreens as well as the iPhone's multitouch display.
Just because Apple hasn't shipped as many touch displays doesn't mean they're falling behind, they prefer the higher end touchscreens which command a premium.
Once you've tried the multitouch iPhone you'll understand the difference between the JebusPhone and every other device.
Re:Not yet available in LARGE parts of Asia (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yeah, to add to my parent post. Not only do people really really want it, they're willing to do so without support for Vietnamese! So all TEXTING, note taking, calendar entries, address book entries, e-mailing must be done IN ENGLISH. Not only is there no language support for Vietnamese currently in the iPhone but there is no country support (like in the address field; "Vietnam" isn't even one of the countries listed). I keep showing people this and they keep wanting to buy mine off me. How embarrassing really.
Re:If touchscreens are so all-fired popular ... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the things that Apple engineers excel at is tuning obscure user interface parameters to enhance usability, but not in a way you can easily ... er ... put your finger on.
I had the very first Apple "BlackBird" laptop -- a true landmark machine. It had a touchpad in an era when laptops came with trackballs -- basically inverted mice. It worked flawlessly and intuitively. It was years before I ever found a Windows laptop whose touchpad wasn't irritating by comparison. Apple somehow managed to make the touchpad accurate, and most of all responsive without being squirrelly.
I have an iPod touch for watching video podcasts. It has an onscreen QWERTY keyboard that I expected to be horrible, but is actually OK. You wouldn't want to type on it, but it's fine for even reasonably complex URLs. I have large fingers and contrary to expectations I don't find myself hitting the wrong key all the time, although it does happen.
I still prefer the classic Graffiti on the Palm, but the iPod QWERTY keyboard is acceptable; better than any hardware keyboard I've used on a smartphone.
Speaking of Palm, the Chinese version of Graffiti is, I am told, extremely good. I know a person who's been using her Palm for years to compose emails back home to her parents in Taiwan because she finds it preferable to a keyboard.
Touch screen problems (Score:3, Interesting)
A while ago I decided it was time to replace my trusty old Harmony remote, as some of the buttons don't work very well, etc.
I decided to get the then-brand-new Harmony One, which features a touch-screen where the older Harmony remotes have six or eight buttons around an LCD.
I returned it a week later. I just couldn't handle not having a tactile response. I don't want to have to LOOK at the remote in order to use it, and there's just no way to feel your way around with a touch screen.
I do have an iPod Touch, and that's a major problem I have with it. Try using an iPod Touch while it's in your pocket while listening to music. Yeah, you can find the On button, but it takes a lot of practice to actually sue the slider without looking, and then just try skipping a track. Heck, it's easy to mis-press the thing when you're looking right at it.
I love the form-factor of an iPod Touch/iPhone as an information-display device, and the eye-candy is beautiful, but I'd prefer tactile over touch-screen anytime.
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:5, Interesting)
They have caught on in niche markets. Last two times I went for surgery at a relatively brand new place all the nurses had tablets. Those 100 forms you had to fill out authorizing surgery were all digital. You could read through them and sign at the bottom.
All the XRay machines at their office are digital. Everything gets dumped into a central server. When I went into the consult rooms the doctors walked in with tablets and reviewed the xrays right there, no more having to hand off the big negatives.
Doctors wrote prescriptions on the pad and they printed off out front.
But as others have pointed out, I wouldn't have wanted to post this note on slashdot using a stylus.
Re:Apple is a niche player? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does anyone know of a Windows Mobile device that matches the iPhone in web surfing? I'd love to hear about it.
There isn't any, opera on WM is pretty good, WebKit on S60 is pretty good, but none is as usable as Safari on iPhone.
I do software development for mobile phones for a living, we have hundreds of different phones for testing purposes. None of them comes even close to the iPhone.
As for Moto and Samsung, they make really, really crappy devices. Motorola devices are just underpowered, and most API's aren't accesible by 3rd party developers. Samsung devices are full of bugs, one even weirder than another. For example: on certain Samsung devices only odd attempts at opening a socket connection work (1st try succeeds, 2nd fails, 3rd succeeds), on some the bluetooth stack is broken (you can do a scan, you can connect, but you cannot detect a disconnect, your read will block forever without an exception). The list goes on and on and on.
Also, not one of Samsungs devices seems to be running the same software as any other model, some bugs appear on several devices, but every single device has it's own combination of bugs and strange behaviour.
Apple's phone and SDK may not be perfect, but it's way better than anything on any other platform, including .NET compact framework.
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:4, Interesting)
The Nokia internet tablets are promising, but not beefy enough on memory. Give me a model with 512 megs of memory instead of 128, and then I'll take it seriously.
I am keeping my eyes on them regardless, since Nokia bought out Trolltech/QT and KDE 4 packages are now available for them.
Re:Apple is a niche player? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you're always in a Wi-Fi environment
That's a big if. One of the biggest reasons that I carry a phone is for roadside emergencies.
Re:It was HP, not Apple (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the troll scoring on the op is out of line, since this is a relative comment that should remind people that the iphone didn't start it...
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:5, Interesting)
My biggest issue with writing on touch screens is the lack of friction/traction. Since a stylus on touch screen is real smooth, I have a harder time controlling my writing as opposed to when I use a pen or pencil on a piece of paper.
Re:Take my Samsung Glyde, please! (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps you just need a good exorcist.
Fun (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, the iPhone hasn't even been released in China, but is still a huge status symbol, and the upper-end electronics areas will prominently show iPhones for sale. When it does get released in China, it's sure to have Chinese-language writing support.
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:one day all screens will have touch/stylus inpu (Score:3, Interesting)
And it wasn't the fancy phones. I bought the cheapest one at 100USD from au by KDDI and had that feature. Also, mine doesn't have predictive input for romajii (roman characters), and I have no idea if the fancier ones do.
The point is, it was very easy for my friends (as they told me) to input text very quickly.