Touch PC Interfaces: Cool Idea, Totally Impractical for Personal Use

Since the iPod’s release in 2001, Microsoft’s consumer electronics have often lagged behind Apple’s with respect to technical innovation and style. In order to put a stop to this trend, Microsoft has invested a huge amount of capital into researching promising consumer electronics technologies.

At the All Things Digital Conference, Microsoft showed off the fruits of its renewed concentration on this space when it previewed an exciting new touch screen technology. This technology will be incorporated into PCs through Windows 7, which will utilize a multi-touch interface that allows users to stretch, move, or rotate objects with their fingers. Windows 7 is scheduled to be released in late-2009.

Microsoft hopes to leverage the success of Apple’s popular iPhone, which allows users to navigate between applications, surf the web, and so forth with a simple touch interface. As it noted in a recent press release, consumers have become used to, and excited by, the idea of touch screen interfaces, so the time is ripe for it to launch a touch interface for home computers.

While the concept of a touch screen, PC interface is appealing to many consumers; however, at least for now, this technology is of limited use for a number of reasons.

Most importantly, mice will be difficult to replace as the primary navigation tools on PCs, because they offer a number of obvious advantages relative to touch screens. For instance, you can move a cursor across your screen in milliseconds by moving your mouse a few inches. The constant lowering and raising of your arm, even to touch elements of a screen that lies flat on your desk seems impractical (think tendinitis is bad– imagine how sore you’d be after spending a twelve hour work day on a touch screen). Just think about how often you open a new window, move an object, or scroll down a page when you surf the web.

Moreover, in comparison to the precision of mice, your fingers are clumsy. Top CoD4 players can target an enemy head in the distance that is the size of a few pixels. That level of precision would be impossible with even the most advanced touch screen technology.

Anyway, my point is this: while a touch PC interface is an interesting concept, it definitely isn’t as life-changing as Microsoft would have you believe, at least with respect to home use. Apple’s iPhone touch screen is incredibly useful, because it is on a mobile phone. If you cannot use a mouse and keyboard, then a touch screen is a great option to have, but that is not the case when you are at your desk at home or in the office.