Touch: the Most Evil Technology in Modern Computing

Here's an interesting opinion piece from the ZDNet iGeneration Blog. Zack Whittaker thinks touch screens are bad for a variety of reasons. If you've seen some of the leaked road maps and rumors for the future smartphone releases of 2009, you'll see that practically everything is touch-screen based. Windows Mobile Pro phones have been touch-screen based since the turn of the century. Most people were clamoring for a more hardware-button friendly user interface for Windows Mobile 2003, mainly because hardware buttons are easier to use than screen-based buttons. Microsoft responded with Windows Mobile 5.0 which brought hardware-key menu access, keyboard mnemonics, and full hardware button navigation capabilities. Unfortunately, a couple years later, Apple made a touch screen interface for their iPhone that made everyone think it was the second coming.

As Zack says, "Computing, for me, has taken a step backwards. I don’t know why anyone would want to interact with a screen with their hands."