Our "touchscreen" future

[nsane.forums]

"If you're aware there's a computer there, we've failed."

Understatement of the century: touchscreen technology evolved at a rapid pace in the past decade. In the days of Y2K, Palm Pilots were a big deal. Five years ago? The iPhone debuted and the corresponding touchscreen explosion hasn't slowed up since. Today we're at a point where we think we understand how all the innovations in touch technology can fit into our future. But based on these last few years, good luck. Did anyone see the tablet-craze coming?

The locomotive of technological innovation has yet to be derailed, but it’s come to a point where we must find particular uses and integrations for all of these advancements. Looking at how companies like Microsoft and Samsung are approaching the future of touchscreen technology may be the surest clues we can get. Talking with visionaries like Bill Buxton, one of the pioneers of touchscreen technology who now works as one of the principle researchers Microsoft Research, doesn't hurt either. It may be impossible to accurately gauge the future of touch, but that won't stop Ars from trying.

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[MidnightDistortions]

I don't see how touch will eliminate the need for a keyboard (and maybe the mouse). With MS's state of mind it seems they want to get a jump start into the touch environment figuring it might jump start the economy or something. Meanwhile users are arguing over the UI of Win 8. Despite having an onscreen keyboard allowing you to touch type it's still miles away from using a keyboard. Apple seems like they don't want to push the PC/desktop world into touch yet and we are not ready for it. There are still plenty of people out there who are either struggling how to use a PC or haven't used one before. You can push the tech out but it doesn't mean that it'll replace keyboards quite yet. There are PC users that still use dial up and older PCs running Win 95/98. There's a much bigger trend with XP. Anyway i hear of alternative energies and yet we still use coal, oil and nuclear. I don't see many people going out buying touch screen refrigerators & have a touch screen in cars yet. The economy is slow right now, so i can't see a change anytime soon. The tablet/phone trend will eventually taper off, there's still plenty of people out there that haven't gotten one (like me) so in maybe like 5 years we might see a slight decline in those sales, depending on the market.

[nIGHT]

Touch screen is just part of a wide selection of tools to make us hopefully comfortable to operate on the medium we used,

be it a desktop,laptop,tablet,or a smartphone.

In the old dos days a simple three button mouse and a keyboard is enough but today a wide selection of mouse is offered to us.

There are wireless, bluetooth, gaming mouse which has 6 buttons that I currently find it very useful, a handheld mouse and even a penlike mouse.

Touchscreen on smartphones and tablet-form factors are quite having sense than a touchscreen on laptop.

Common sense, preference and usability must be considered when implementing these kind of stuff.

Manufacturers, be it hardware or software, to be on the safe side, must offer any of these option to use and not limit them to what they think is adequate, which happens to be not that so adequate option and not that comfortable to the end users.

[dcs18]

Make no mistake - I'm a KeyBoard Fan. However, in my group - I'm the only one left with a mobile that uses a KeyPad (all of my my friends have long since migrated to TouchScreen.)

Similarly, I'm beginning to find a lot of my Customers who got their systems formatted into Windows 8, come back to me requesting for the Modern UI to be enabled. They want to retain the Start Menu, no doubt - at the same time they no longer want Metro to be disabled as is personally my preferred choice.

A couple of those Clients have opted for a TouchScreen.

[MidnightDistortions]

I have an android phone that uses the touch pad interface. It's good but i tend to hit the wrong key. I sometimes will do that with a physical keyboard but it's minimal due to it's proper size. My guess is though that most people that have already migrated to touch screens and don't use the keyboard tend to type really short or they use so many abbreviations. When i was in school i took a typing class and it helped my speed out when i type. Some users will take too long and end up taking forever to write two sentences. I have a friend who doesn't even use two hands to type lol. I generally do unless i'm eating or something that keeps one of my hands occupied :lol:

[DKT27]

I have an android phone that uses the touch pad interface. It's good but i tend to hit the wrong key. I sometimes will do that with a physical keyboard but it's minimal due to it's proper size. My guess is though that most people that have already migrated to touch screens and don't use the keyboard tend to type really short or they use so many abbreviations. When i was in school i took a typing class and it helped my speed out when i type. Some users will take too long and end up taking forever to write two sentences. I have a friend who doesn't even use two hands to type lol. I generally do unless i'm eating or something that keeps one of my hands occupied :lol:

3rd party keyboard apps do help. :)

[dMog]

touch screen IS the future...but what about the here and now.... for the note book crowd that did not opt for the touch screen,.,,or the new tower computer/ monitor buyers that did likewise... i have touch on my ipad and ipod (no iphone here)and love that touch feature... but what was i forced to NOT have the start orb(unless i got

not to mention voice will be big part of the future too(siri) and that new Google app recently released is pretty cool..this does have some drawbacks but it also relatively new technology and will improve