I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them - George Bush
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Touchscreen devices set for boom times
ACCORDING TO a study by analysts Gartner the number of touchscreen devices flogged this year will be almost double those sold in 2009.
Gartner said that although a whopping 184.3 million units were sold in 2009, punters will increase this by 98 percent this year, taking the number of grubby screened gew gaws out there up to 362.7 million units.
Far be it for us to remind anyone that the Apple Ipad is due out this year, but we are pretty sure it will contribute to these sales. Yet it will possibly be mobile handsets that sell the most. In fact Gartner said that within three years mobile devices would account for 58 per cent of all touchscreen sales.
"Touchscreens are no longer the preserve of high-end devices and are now being included in many midrange phones as more companies have been driving the consumer market for affordable touchscreen phones," said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. "As phone capabilities increase, consumers are becoming much more aware of the benefits of touch interfaces, and vendors are responding."
According to Cozza it was the Iphone that opened the doors to touchscreens and the recent Mobile World Congress really showed how many vendors were putting themselves behind the technology.
"As we saw at Mobile World Congress 2010 touch interface technology will continue to be one of the key areas of innovation during 2010," said Ms Cozza. "Vendor and industry focus on touch UI will bring increasing sophistication and spur adoption of touch UI in other consumer electronics devices."
Non-touch screen devices will still exist, of course, thanks to their low cost, but manufacturers will strive to create compelling reasons for people to use the alternative, according to CK Lu, a research analyst at Gartner.
"Consumers won't buy a mobile device purely for the touch UI," said Lu, "Touch technology is just an enabler, and ultimately, it is a compelling user experience - which includes good UI design, applications and services - that will make or break a product."
We'd have thought it was disgruntled users who broke products. Probably that too. µ
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wait a minute, i am confused here steve. werent you onstage a month or so back telling us how magical and revolutionary it was? so what is it?
Honestly, I'm still not convinced...
Obviously there are some places where touch screen is useful, like hospitals and restaurant point of sale devices. The ability to clean the surface with a wipe of a cloth is a big bonus.
However on mobile devices with a little screen I find it more of a frustration that a benefit. The screen it too small, and fingers are too large! Unless the icon you are aiming for is 10% of the screen size, you can't see the target because your finger is in the way!
This gets even worse when you're trying to select text. Have you tried selecting text on an iPhone? You can't see what you're doing, and thanks to the wonderful, everything must have it, hyped up capacitive touch screen, you can't even use the edge of your finger nail to afford a better view!
I use two phones. One is touch screen, one isn't. Guess which one frustrates me the most with it's user interface?