Engadget is reporting that multi-touch software drivers will be available sometime in the future for the new Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC.
I’m very much looking forward to the day that multi-touch hits the streets, but what concerns me here is that Microsoft doesn’t appear to be in the middle of this new feature. It should be. As developers, there should be a standard coming forth and I’d expect to be seeing it now or at least hints about it.
This makes me wonder, is the Tablet PC SDK a dead branch? With Microsoft Surface going its own way and now it looks like Dell taking the initiative with multi-touch for its Tablets, I’m beginning to wonder. This would be extremely unfortunate. It seems to me that we’re only beginning to get to the core of what Tablet technology can provide. I’d expect to see the SDK continue to grow.
There are hints of growth in terms of shape recognition and the like, but it doesn’t go far enough in my book. I’d expect to see multi-touch support and multi-touch gesture standards. I’d expect to be able to provide my own reco training sets (and tools for doing so) for shapes or my own goofy language or whatever. I’d expect to see math reco. I’d expect to see more cross-platform support of ink–such as why aren’t ink drawings available in Messenger on the Mac?
Maybe this is all part of the consolidation of the technology. In order to move forward, Tablet technologies have to shrink a bit. We have to shed some excess stuff, re-access what’s important, and rebuild. Maybe the time is ripe for this–or at least the first signs of a do-over are whispering in the wind.
