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I love tech media trends. The iPhone hype crested for
several months before giving way to the inevitable iPhone-hype backlash. Now,
with the anticipated retail launch on June 29, a second wave of hype is rolling
in, promising to be even more ridiculous than the first.
Now personally, I prefer specificity in my hype. In regard
to the iPhone, it's Apple's usual excellence in user interface design that is
truly hype-worthy. Particularly, the innovative touch-screen technology that
responds accurately to remarkably subtle finger movements. Perhaps you hunger
for knowledge regarding the actual technology involved. Consider me your
learned yeoman purser.
 The iPhone touch screen uses a system called "projected
capacitive" technology, and won't that sound impressive when you casually
drop it into conversation? It's essentially a grid of very fine wires
sandwiched between two layers of glass. It registers your touch when the
electrical field among the wires is broken. What's more, projected capacitive
screen don't technically need to be touched at all -- they can detect the
proximity of your finger from about 2 millimeters away. Thus, you can use
feather-light strokes to navigate them. Previous touch screen interfaces (interfacii?)
required more brute force, relatively speaking, thereby requiring use of a
stylus or -- in a pinch -- your fingernail.
Observers expect that this new-generation tactile technology
will make touch-screen the interface of record for all gadgets into the
foreseeable future. And a big part of that, or course, will be because Apple's
iPhone will popularize the technology worldwide. According to a recent AP
report, shipments of this advanced strain of touch screens are projected to
jump from fewer than 200,000 units in 2006 to more than 21 million units by
2012, with the bulk of the components going to mobile phones.
Touching, nicht wahr?
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