While the coming generation might not droll over the
marvels of touch technology, users of CRT monitors and black and white LCD
screens on mobiles will most definitely appreciate it. Touchscreens enable you
to interact with a computer display by a mere touch of your finger or stylus,
replacing the need for mouse click or button press. In smartphones and tablets,
the mouse pointer is also hidden.
Would you be surprised if we told you that Apple
wasn’t the pioneer of the technology but only an innovator; and that the
research had begun almost 50 years ago? The first paper that was published on a
touch-capable screen dates back to 1965. But the technology was immature.
Between 1979 and 1985, they were used in a then high-end musical sampling and
synthesis workstation. The device worked with a ‘light pen’, comparable with a
stylus today. Development by Apple began in 1987 on a touch device which was
named Newton, and it was released in 1993. It was one of the first PDAs which
could use touch input. Today we have resistive and capacitive touchscreens,
with the latter being clearly more advanced.
Touchscreens enabled developers to design better
apps for mobiles and freed them from the restriction of the two option buttons
and 12 keys for input. Using touchscreens, one can use the entire display
screen real estate which would otherwise be eaten into by a keyboard. This
head-turning technology has great market value, and the result a huge adoption
rate for touch devices. All types of applications are being ported onto mobiles
and being made ready for touch input these days. Touchscreens have changed the
way we use computers and will continue to do in the future as well.
