Teaching the World to Touch

Touch is not a new technology. It’s been around many years, but mostly as a labs-and future-of-technology showcase. Of course, the iPod/iPhone changed all that, and it’s fair to say that Apple and its many device-manufacturer followers have been teaching the world to touch for several years now. I got a good reminder of this about a year ago when I picked up a magazine and unconsciously spread my fingers over the print, attempting to make the type bigger; the iPhone had already trained me to use a computer UI to navigate the world of physical media (a creepy but enlightening moment). But what many people are discovering this month is that touch is a much more compelling modality when the form factor — the size, weight, and field of play of the device — is right. Many things that worked OK on the iPhone work even better on the iPad. If the iPhone was the first device to begin to teach the world to touch, the iPad may usher in a bigger wave of education. And if that happens, all the hype surrounding Apple’s magical device will be deserved. Because of if the world learns to touch, computing may in fact change forever.