Here in Korea, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and other companies are racing to develop advanced touch-screen technologies in the wake of the Apple iPhone's debut. And they should be racing.
Back in December of last year, shortly after I had purchased my Apple iPhone 3GS, I wrote a post talking about capacitive versus resistive touch screens. The capacitive touch screens, led by the iPhone are the ones most prized by consumers because of their speed and responsiveness.
Not surprisingly, the market for touch-screen mobile phones is projected to expand rapidly over the next several years. A recent study by Displaybank (click to see a full size version of the accompanying graphic) suggests that one in four mobile phones will be touch-screen models by 2013. I expect that most of these will be capacitive. As the processor speed of these phones increases, along with improvements in the touch technology, they will give users a sense of wielding the power to instantly retrieve and manipulate vast amounts of information with simple taps, swipes and other gestures of the thumb and fingers. These are indeed handheld computers, empowered by GPS, digital compass, other sensors and most importantly, high speed internet access.