Touchscreen Devices

One trend in consumer electronics is to replace buttons, and to some extent keyboards, with touch-sensitive screens that are controlled by your finger motions rather than a cursor or pointing device. These touchscreen devices are exemplified by the popularity of the Apple iTouch and iPhone but there are many other touchscreen devices. Apple released a large touchscreen device called the Apple iPad on April 3 in the US only and sold two million units in less than two months.http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/05/31/cnet.two.million.ipads/index.html?hpt=Sbin The latest trends, news, blog posts, and tweets about all devices with a touchscreen are updated here. For example, see what magic the iPad can do with the help of a magician.

The number of touchscreen mobile phone users has grown 159% (year ending August 2009) more than doubling the growth of smartphones. http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-touchscreen-devices-iphone-drives-159-growth-10960/ The Apple iPhone has 1/3 of subscribers in US (quarter ending August 2009). The other devices are in single digit percentages (LG Dare, LG Voyager, Blackberry Storm, Palm Treo, Samsung Instinct, T-Mobile G1, HTC Touch, Samsung Glyde, LG Xenon.http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/top-10-touchscreen-devices-iphone-drives-159-growth-10960/

In addition to phones, touchscreen devices can be used as a personal television (larger screen), personal media player, all-in-one PC, tablet PC, digital coffee table, car receiver, and remote controls. The Top 10 Touch-Screen Devices according to Digital Trends (June 2009) that includes more than phones are the Archos 7, Apple iPhone 3G S, HP TouchSmart IQ804 Desktop, T-Mobile G1, Dell Latitude XT2 Multi-touch Tablet, Microsoft Surface, Pioneer Avic-Z110BT, Logitech Harmony 1100 Advanced Universal Remote, Palm Pre, Nikon Coolpix S60.http://www.digitaltrends.com/guides/top-10-touch-screen-devices/

The newest touchscreen device available in early 2010 is the Apple iPad with a 9.7 inch in-plane switching (IPS) display with full capacitive multi-touch. Some hybrid laptop/tablet computers are beginning to appear including the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 and Freescale Tablet. Sony is expected to provide an iPad competitor - part phone/tablet/Playstation.http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/30/sony-ipad-consumers-will-graduate-to-the-psp/ It was revealed in April that Google expects to release its own Android e-reader tablet.http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/nyt-google-android-tablet-imminent/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29 Asus announced the Eee Pad at Computex due in early 2011.http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/top-stories/471235/asus-unveils-ipad-killer-the-eee-pad?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Apple announced a tablet computer, the Apple iPad at an invitation only event on January 27, 2010. The Apple announcement serves as additional momentum to the touchscreen devices market. The touchscreen modules alone are estimated to be a US$9 billion market in 2015.http://www.displaysearch.com/cps/rde/xchg/displaysearch/hs.xsl/090520_touch_screen_module_revenues_forecast_to_reach_9b_by_2015.asp The iPad WiFi was released on April 3 and over a million units were sold in four weeks. Many iPad buyers see the iPad as a notebook replacement.http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/06/sales_of_apple_ipad_expected_to_cannibalize_notebooks_ipod_touch.html

In early 2009, Nokia embraced touchscreen mobile phones with the introduction of the high-end touch-enabled Nokia N97, Nokia 5230 and Nokia 5800. http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/smartphones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216500172&cid=RSSfeed_TechWeb http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20090826/nokia-5230-affordable-nokia-touchscreen-phone/ Nokia sees the virtual keyboard as the future (see concept video).http://mashable.com/2009/11/11/nokia-vision-future/ HP plans to target the commercial touchscreen market. http://www.vissumo.com/blog/?p=290 The HP Slate was announced in March 2010 showing a Windows 7 OS capacitive screen device with Flash support.http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/hp-slate-strikes-at-the-ipad/

The middle screen-size space (smaller than a netbook larger than iPhone) was big during the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show as expected.http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/04/consumer.electronics.show.preview/index.html These products have been labeled Tablet 2.0 as they are entertainment-centric rather than the extension of a laptop of the Tablet 1.0 generation.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34693605/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/ Touchscreen devices were center stage at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show with over a dozen eReaders displayed. Smartphones and netbooks were also big. Some of the products introduced were the Asus Eee Keyboard, Dell Mini 3, Dell Mini 5, MSI Android Tablet, Sony Dash, Spring Design Alex Reader, HP Touchsmart TM2, Freescale Tablet, Home Energy Manager, and the Light Blue Optics Touch Light projection system. While not exactly in the tablet space, the Parrot iPhone Helicopter looks like a lot of fun!

One of the largest markets may be technology spending in education (US only) that could reach $61.9 billion in 2013 which is a 30% increase from 2008 spending according to market research from Compass Intelligence.http://www.compassintelligence.com/Media/CompassGuidePost/tabid/74/EntryID/49/Default.aspx

Textbook eReaders will be able to utilize the large screen space available with newer tablets such as the Apple iPad. Some of the textbook ereaders available include Coursesmart, ScrollMotion and startup Inklinghttp://venturebeat.com/2010/01/27/inkling-ipad/ a highly interactive ereader for Apple iPad.

The smartbook market is expected to reach 163 million smartbooks in 2015.http://www.liliputing.com/2010/02/abi-163-million-smartbook-shipments-in-2015.html A smartbook is considered to be a low-power device running a mobile OS like Android and always on with a wireless connection.

The features and functions of these touchscreen devices vary based on their intended purposes. They do share some common features.

A touchscreen device requires a touch sensor, controller, and software drivers.http://www.touchscreens.com/intro-anatomy.html The touchscreen acts as an input device (e.g., pointing and buttons) for the entire touchscreen device. A no mouse system such as the iPad Cocoa Touch is subtlely but radically different from a tablet computer approach to an input device (e.g., mouse or stylus).http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/27/inside_apples_ipad_iphone_os_vs_mac_os_x.html

Resistive technology introduced in the 1990's (e.g., Palm Pilot) has lost favor to the projected capacitive technology introduced on the iPhone. http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/beneath-surface-state-touchscreen-market/2009-06-11 Multi-touch capability is the biggest advantage of the solid-state projected capacitive technology.

Keep in mind that all products are on a particular refresh cycle (once or twice a year). There are times that it is best to wait for the release of an updated version (usually for same price). For example, the only Apple products (as of December 2009) recommended to buy are the iPod Nano and MacBook.http://gizmodo.com/5432507/when-to-buy-apple-products Wait for the updated releases of the others in 2010. Note the MacBook was just updated with a multi-touch screen.

Touchscreen devices, especially tablet computers, that were announced (or leaked) but never released.

HP Slate (at least in its present form)http://www.straightupsearch.com/archives/2010/05/oneupweb-apple-ipad-vs-hp-slate.html

Microsoft Courierhttp://besttabletreview.com/microsoft-kills-the-messenger-courier-tablet-is-dead/ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/04/30/businessinsider-microsoft-tablets-2010-4.DTL