TeleAdvice.com

[Dan Carpenter]

The Difference Between Resistive and Capacitive

Apple created the touch screen phenomenon when it introduced the iPhone in 2007. Since then every manufacturer has released their own version of the touch screen phone. The popularity of touch screen is because it is more of a natural user interface. Yet, touch screen devices are actually separated out into two categories:

Resistive is when the touch screen is activated by physical force. These phones often require the use of a stylus since many off the icons are so small.

Capacitive is when the touch screen is activated by a finger’s electrical charge. (iPhone).

Although capacitive screens have gotten a lot of attention, resistive screens remain the dominant player globally. This is due primarily because of the cost difference between the two screen types. Capacitive screens are significantly more expensive to produce than resistive screen sets. A secondary reason would be backward-compatibility within the phone’s operating system. Applications written for many OSs including Symbian and Windows Mobile don’t lend themselves to capacitive navigation, since they were designed for five-way navigation, keypad or stylus touch input. For example, what holds back HTC (which makes a lot of Windows Mobile based phones) from building capacitive touch-screen handsets is Windows Mobile itself. The OS was not designed to be navigated through capacitive methods. WinMo, even though it allows users to manipulate their home screens, the legacy applications still restricts it.

Now there is Swype.

Swype is much more than tapping on a digital qwerty keypad. The technology works with continuous motion across the soft keys. Users never lift their finger from the software keyboard, quickly tracing it between the letters they need. When a user lifts their finger, the word is finished. Even if the path is imprecise, the software’s built in Genius Texting technology corrects the word with more than 80% accuracy. Users can double tap a word to fix it and pull up a list of suggestions from a dictionary. There are gestures above the keypad for all the actions users can do, including capitalization and special characters, as well as online help and hints.

Swype's goal is to make the technology ubiquitous. Swype will debut with the Samsung Omnia II from Verizon. It is also planned for 1Q2010 on the new Andriod and possibly Symbian devices, as well as operating systems like Ovi and Windows Mobile. It may even be an alternative keyboard application on some App Stores. But Swype is not limited to smartphones. Samsung is interested in the technology for their in-car navigation devices and TVs.