The excitement of touch…..

I have avoided commenting on the Apple iPad thus far. There is enough commentary floating around already and the obvious jokes are being made. The only thing I have to add is this…If nothing else, the iPad will get people excited about touch interfaces. We have already seen that happen in the mobile phone/PDA space. Now it is time for it to happen in the portable/laptop/desktop computing space. Apple’s iPad may or may not succeed, but it will help usher in touch interface popularity for everyday computing.

On that note, Windows 7 is touch enabled out of the box. We just need computer manufacturers to seriously and I mean SERIOUSLY invest in touch enabled hardware for the masses. There are a few machines out there that take advantage of this Windows 7 feature, but not enough in my opinion. We need to get PC manufacturers AND display manufacturers together in the same room with a few of the touch enabled Windows machines that are out there now and tell them they can’t come out until they refine and foolproof some good hardware and then send them out to make it. We need some great PC designers to make machines that don’t look like “Dad’s PC”. We need some fun, exciting, elegant touch enable PC’s on the market (more than we have now!).

Case in point….

I am delivering a couple of presentations today at a technology conference. One of those presentations is on Windows 7. Late last night I received and email from one of the other presenters asking if we would be showing off a Windows 7 touch enable machine. I can’t help but think that the Apple announcement influenced that email.

OEM’s…..get busy!

Cheers!