December 12th, 2007
Windows 7 to get new touch features
It’s still early in the Windows 7 development process, but it sounds like new touch features already have made it onto the user-interface feature list.
Hilton Locke, who is with Microsoft’s Windows Shell team, in blogging about the newly introduced Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC, mentioned Windows 7’s planned touch support in a post this week:
“All I will say that if you are impressed by the ‘touch features’ in the iPhone, you’ll be blown away by what’s coming in Windows 7. Now if only we could convince more OEMs that Windows Touch Technology is going to drive their sales.”
Not being a Tablet PC fanatic, this touch UI revelation doesn’t do much for me. But it did get me thinking about a point made by a Mac-user friend of mine recently.
His theory: Neither Windows Vista nor Apple’s Leopard interfaces have met with universal user approval for the simple reason that Microsoft and Apple are trying too hard to emulate each other’s UI. Micorsoft tried too hard to appeal to users interested in a Mac-like experience, and Apple was too intent on making Leopard appealing to Windows switchers, my Mac-using chum posited. The result? Neither vendor made its core constituency happy.
What do you think? Is Microsoft erroneously trying too hard to make Windows more Mac-like? Or do the Redmondians have no choice on that front?
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