The Age of Touch Computing: A Complete Guide

Your Audi slides up to an ATM and—mhzzzz—your window rolls down. There's a gleaming LCD staring at you. What's your first thought? Just a few years ago, it would have been to press a keypad and start your transaction. Today, there's a paradigm shift: You touch the screen instead. The computing world hasn't caught up to the banking, grocery, and casino markets quite yet, but that's about to change.

In 2009, touch computing will go mainstream.

Since the idea first arose, in the eighties, several products over the years have attempted touch control. For example, Dell released the convertible Latitude XT notebook in early 2008, to a mixed response: It was often easier just to use a stylus. Philips has experimented with touch in devices like the Pronto, for controlling your home-theater system with just a finger push. Marketing kiosks, home security systems, airport check-in terminals—many devices support touch in some way.

The hardware comes in two flavors: resistive and capacitive. (See our interview with designer Sabrina Boler for a technical description of how these work.) Resistive screens such as those used in tablet PCs or older mobile phones have been around for a while. Capacitive screens, in which a thin, conductive layer over the screen senses your finger movement, are newer. (There's also a much older "active digitizer" touch screen that supports only a certain type of digital pen.) Multitouch hardware can read several inputs at the same time; there's also a concept called "dual touch" which reads only two inputs.

Among those traditional products, touch is hardly innovative. What's changing is the interface: In the next few years, more and more devices will be legitimately touch-enabled with gesture controls for browsing though photos, tossing objects around the screen, flicking to turn the page of a book, and even playing video games and watching movies. In fact, Gartner analyst Steve Prentice told the BBC recently that the mouse will be dead in three to five years.

The most obvious precursor to real touch computing is the Apple iPhone, a seminal device that's still selling like candy on Christmas and has no obvious competitor. Pinching the screen to zoom in, flicking two fingers to zoom out—these gestures are replacing awkward stylus clicks on Windows Mobile devices and baaad keaypaed antiics on BlackBerry phones. There's a better way, and millions of iPhone users have found it. The Samsung Instinct, Nokia N97, BlackBerry Storm, and T-Mobile G1 are all helping to usher in the age of mobile touch devices.