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Despite the fact the Apple iPhone disrupt the industry with great user interface that relies on capacitive touchscreen and the fact that Google Android-powered T-Mobile G1 uses the same technology, it’s the resistive (rather than capacitive) touchscreens we’ll see in most devices being released in the future. According to ABI Research’s director Kevin Burden, the reality is that existing operating systems, legacy applications, and regional aspirations make the change to capacitive screens for many devices very challenging.
For instance many of the third-party applications written for Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms don’t lend themselves to capacitive navigation, with many of them [apps] being designed for five-way navigation, keypad, or stylus touch input. A change to capacitive screens would make it difficult to ensure continuity and backward compatibility.
In addition, cost is also a major issue as resistive screens are far less expensive than capacitive.
But the most important single factor supporting the continued use of resistive screens is the Asian market where devices with handwriting recognition input with a stylus are needed. A capacitive screen or QWERTY keyboard just won’t suffice in markets like China, given the nature of its alphabet.
“Capacitive screens will continue to make inroads into high-end models,” concludes Burden, “but with the overall market volume still primarily in midrange devices, the resistive screens in devices in this tier will continue to keep resistive technology far ahead of capacitive.”
More information about ABI Research’s study titled “Touch Screens in Mobile Devices” is available from their website.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
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