Comment: Bring on the touchscreen iMac

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 6 Sep 2007 at 10:22

So now we have the touchscreen iPhone and its bastard child - the iPod touch. How long before Apple goes the whole hog and introduces a touchscreen iMac?

Steve Jobs has been sniffy about touchscreens and tablets in the past, but having witnessed the unremittingly positive reaction to the iPhone's fingertip controls, he must surely be tempted to bring touch technology to the PC.

There's undoubtedly a gap in the market. Microsoft's ham-fisted Tablet PC is about as popular as asbestos duvets with consumers. Unlike Apple, Microsoft didn't fundamentally redesign the Windows interface for touch controls; it simply replaced the mouse with a stylus and hoped for the best. The result? Users end up tapping at the screen like a demented woodpecker to simply hit the Start button.

HP hinted at the potential for touchscreen Windows PCs with its Touchsmart PC earlier this year, but that was only after the company plastered its own interface layer over Windows. The phrase papering over the cracks springs to mind.

Apple's Mac OS X and its own-brand applications are far better suited to fingertip operation. The Dock is cut out for touch operation, with its large icons and ability to effortlessly scroll through the available applications. And how easy would it be to run your finger through your iTunes music collection using the CoverFlow interface, where choosing a new track requires nothing more than poking your finger at the album cover? Similarly, cropping photos by dragging a finger from either corner is beautifully implemented on the iPhone and could easily transfer to the PC.

As Jon Honeyball suggests in this month's PC Pro, I suspect Apple is more likely to produce an A4-sized tablet than a full-blown touchscreen iMac. A Wi-Fi enabled device with which you can sit on the sofa and surf the web, poke out a short email from the onscreen keyboard, and watch video streamed from iTunes. It could even have a picture frame-like stand on the back, so that you can prop it up in the kitchen or bedroom and watch the video whilst you're cooking or getting changed.

Having cracked fingertip controls on mobile devices - with all the difficulties and restrictions imposed by a 3.5in screen - it seems almost inconceivable that Apple couldn't pull it off on a device with 10 or 12in to play with.

It might even be the reason that Apple has kept Tiger caged for longer than expected: was the iPhone simply an excuse to give the company more time to perfect a PC touch interface? My money's on a touching announcement at Mac World in January.