iPhone News Updated

Touchscreen Smartphones Are Leading the Market

Touchscreens on Apple, Inc.’s iPhone and Research in Motion’s Blackberry Storm have captured the attention of the mobile-phone market. Analysts expect touchscreens will spread to more smartphones. RIM’s Blackberry Storm has expanded the market with a clickable interface that still allows gestures like Apple’s iPhone.

When Sam Hurst, a professor at the University of Kentucky, developed touchscreen technology nearly four decades ago, he probably had no idea his innovation would be the basis for a popular consumer interface and change the way humans and machines interact.

We have come a long way since Hurst’s touch technology, which is now used in several products, including smartphones.

Apple’S iPhone and its finger-tapping touchscreen and Research In Motion’s Blackberry Storm with a clickable touchscreen have captured the market’s attention. And analysts predict the technology will pop up on more smartphones.

Apple’s iPhone interface is different than other touchscreen smartphones that use a stylus. Many features of the multi-touch interface require users to touch multiple points on the screen at the same time.

For example, a user can zoom into pictures by putting a thumb and a finger on the screen and spreading them apart. Then the user can zoom out by bringing the thumb and finger back together.

Causing its Own Thunder

The BlackBerry Storm gives a different touchscreen experience than that of Nokia’s XpressMusic consumer-focused smartphone and Apple’s iPhone.

The Storm, available later this year, comes with a touchscreen that clicks when depressed very lightly and released. That gentle click is similar to the feeling of a keyboard or a mouse.

The Storm also supports slides, multi-touch taps, and other touchscreen gestures, giving users the ability to highlight, scroll and zoom, according to RIM.

“The BlackBerry Storm is a revolutionary touchscreen smartphone that meets both the communications and multimedia needs of customers and solves the long-standing problem associated with typing on traditional touchscreens,” said Mike Lazaridis, RIM’s president.

RIM’s Storm will be offered to Verizon Wireless customers in the United States and Vodafone customers in Asia, Europe, India and Australia.

Need for Touch

While worldwide sales of smartphones continue to increase with 32.2 million units sold in the second quarter, up 15.7 percent from the same quarter in 2007, the wider availability of new touchscreen smartphones and the introduction of the iPhone 3G will result in stronger growth in the third quarter, according to Gartner.

And even as overall handset sales and revenues declined in the U.S., smartphone revenue increased 71 percent, reaching nearly $1.7 billion, according to NPD Group.

This is exactly what Research in Motion needed to continue its strong growth, according to Gartner. RIM’s smartphone sales were up 126 percent year-over-year and the company’s market share nearly doubled compared with the second quarter of 2007. NPD’s consumer sales ranking put RIM on top and Apple in second.

Releasing the Storm, which offers a different user experience, was necessary for RIM to keep pace with the competition at the consumer level, added Gartner.

Source: http://www.toptechnews.com

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