Touch screens. Evolution and Importance

Touch screen hasn't always been a high precision technology. From 1983 when touch screens first were made available to the public and up to 1987, they had a pretty bad reputation.

The matter concerned the fact that they were imprecise. Most users stated that touch screens selections were hard to activate by a finger larger than the average one. This dilemma is actually an existing problem even today. This is because people always look for compact and light devices and at the same time they want a large touch screen to fit their palm.

Evolution Steps

First-touch strategy. Later, the "first touch" or "land-on" strategy of operation was invented. The action was performed as soon as the finger came over it. It still didn't rescue users of constant parallax or calibration errors. Wrong targets were permanently chosen thus greatly frustrating the users.

Lift-Off strategy. The next step in improving the touch screen technology was an alternative technique for selection. The lift-off strategy showed up a cursor slightly above the finger to point to the target. Once the cursor was over a target it was highlighted. To select the target was enough to lift-off their finger. This was a breakthrough because the cursor position mattered for the selection, not the finger itself.

High-Precision touchscreen. The next giant leap was reducing the sensitivity of cursor. It was balanced so that the cursor stayed put when the finger didn't move. This was possible due to using the time-dependent averaging technology. High-precision touch screen gives the possibility to do everything that can be done with the mouse.

The touch-screen madness is launched!

Currently the touch screen capability is very popular among the cell phone manufacturers. Companies such as Apple, LG, Samsung, etc. integrate touch-screen user interfaces. And most of the smartphones to come can't be taken seriously unless they are equipped with a touch screen.

Apple's iPhone, for example, is designed to use a new technology called multi-touch. It involves the screen recognizing of more than one point of contact at a time. This enables a greater range of commands. Besides there is a fine possibility to use virtual QWERTY keyboard. It is showed up on the screen whenever it is necessary. This should provide greater comfort when typing.

Manufacturers such as Japanese DoCoMo have launched a new touch screen cell phone (D800iDS), which reminds of the Nintendo DS.

Samsung is also participating in the touch screen race. Their new W559 is the first screen to offer tactile feedback. The VibeTonz system allows to feel the buttons on the screen more like mechanical ones.

So the future belongs to touch screens and especially to touch screens cell phones! We are already waiting for prototypes like Nokia Aeon. At the moment it seams to be the best-looking smartphone.