67% of you say "yes" to touchy-feely gadgets

Getting touched up - the latest Pocket-lint.co.uk Poll results

10 June 2007 11:24 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

In the latest Pocket-lint.co.uk reader Poll we asked you "With some gadgets now offering touch controls, not traditional buttons, is 'touch' going to be the new 'type'?"

67% of you are excited by the new touch developments and said "yes", while 33% of Pocket-lint.co.uk readers aren't convinced that touch only controls can replace the keypad.

Obviously our interest in this topic was spurned by not only the iPhone's imminent launch, but by the rash of gadgetry appearing on the market with touchy-feely functionality.

The iPhone has no keypad and with the exception of a solitary button on the front, will be navigated by touch, an interface that Steve Jobs has promised that once users learn to trust, they will "fly".

Beating Apple to market, and apparently two years in development, HTC's Touch is an iPhone-challenger boasting very similar touch credentials, while LG's Prada phone is without a keypad and LG recently launched the "Touch Me" MFFM37, MP3 player that has a touch sensitive LCD screen.

In the computer world, Microsoft announced the "Surface" table PC with no keyboard or mouse that has a 30-inch screen with touch sensitive controls.

So will the keypad-less gadgets of 2007 succeed where the tablet PC has failed?

The touch controlled devices we're seeing today are innovative, but they're certainly not ground breaking.

HP showed off a concept coffee table PC in 2005 that had very similar functionality to Microsoft's Surface, with users able to interact with the "Misto" table by grabbing images or content and moving them around just as you would if you were sorting papers on a table or desk.

Philips' "Entertaible" was touch controlled and designed for 21st century board games and social gaming.

So why does "touch" appeal to the 67% of you who are prepared to change the way in which you interact with your electronics?

Keyboards suggest productivity, work - the office. Touch is sexy, sensual and cool.

Today's first gen models may be slightly flawed, and more a novelty then the norm, but improvements will be made.

Looking to the future, Apple has patented a touch control design for the iPod, which shows Jobs and co see the touch interface having more potential than just the iPhone and inevitably, where Apple leads, others follow.

In fact, the only technology we could see toppling the touch led revolution is perhaps motion control that Nintendo's Wii uses with such success.

A Japanese mobile phone company is about to launch a handset that can recognises "shake", "rock" and "roll" movements.

These movement controls will initially be used in mobile phone games, but maybe in the future touch will be out and we'll be shaking our phones to answer a call?