Touchscreen technology enters the mainstream
As I said in my recent blog entry on emerging input technologies, touchscreen devices are all the rage at the moment. Since the launch of the Apple iPhone nearly two years ago, all of the major mobile phone manufacturers have been racing to get out their own competitors, each claiming a shinier, more “intuitive” interface than the others. Already, Samsung have released the Instinct, and HTC’s Touch devices have been around for some time. However, touchscreens have really hit the mainstream this month, with Nokia, RIM (creators of the Blackberry) and even Google all announcing their own touch-based phones.
The benefit of a touch screen is that it allows the user interface to adapt to the current application that is in use – rather than forcing the user to remember which key on a keypad triggers different functions. As mobile phones have become increasingly feature-packed, users have struggled to keep up. Many features sit unused behind a series of complicated menus. Touchscreens have the potential to change that (although it is still possible to design a terrible user interface for a touchscreen device).
Although clearly influenced by the iPhone, all of the major devices announced in the last month are targeted at slightly different users – and all make use of the technology in subtly different ways. Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic is a relatively low-cost phone aimed squarely at the mass-market. It uses a touchscreen technology which only allows a single finger press to be detected at a time (as opposed to the multiple gestures that can be detected by the iPhone). The user interface is an updated version of Nokia’s well-established S60 platform, rather than a revolutionary update. As the name suggests, the phone may be targeted more at competing with the iTunes music store (users of the 5800 can download as much music as they want for 12 months), rather than competing with the more expensive iPhone directly.
The T-Mobile G1, based on the Android software platform developed by Google, is aimed squarely at young, tech-savvy users of social networking sites such as Facebook (and, naturally, Google’s own services). It also includes a touch-screen that doesn’t support multi-touch, but it does include some neat gesture-based controls (such as dragging down a status bar to see your latest messages). Interestingly, though, Google (or manufacturer HTC) didn’t feel that the touchscreen was up to supporting the heavy amounts of text input needed for services such as e-mail or instant messaging. A major complaint about touchscreens is that they provide no tactile feedback when pressing a key. The G1 gets around this problem simply by including a full slide-out keyboard.
RIM’s Blackberry devices are also built around messaging, allowing easy access to corporate e-mail. It could therefore be seen as a gamble to remove the device’s trademark keyboard for the new Blackberry Storm. RIM, though, have taken a different approach to Google. The keyboard is displayed on the touchscreen, but users must physically press down the screen until it “clicks” to press a button – simulating the feel of a real keyboard. In actual fact, the whole screen moves rather than just the individual button, but the effect is similar. It will be interesting to see what the Blackberry’s hoards of users make of the change.
The touchscreen revolution is here to stay. Although some of the new interfaces they enable will just be gimmicks, after years of struggling with tiny keypads the new wave of innovation that they have unleashed can only be a good thing for users.
