Get used to new-fangled touch screen phones popping up like chic geeks at an LG Prada giveaway, thanks to the iPhone. HTC entered the game officially on June 5, 2007 with their showing of the HTC Touch. This is a Windows Mobile Professional (aka WM6 Pocket PC Phone) with a screen that's not only stylus-friendly like all PPCs, but finger sensitive. The screen requires a firmer touch than prior Windows Mobile devices, so if you get one, don't be shy-- press firmly for best results.
The Touch uses a difference kind of touch screen to achieve finger-friendliness, especially gesture-awareness. It's not a multi-touch display like the upcoming iPhone and you can use a stylus, again unlike the iPhone which needs a human touch to work correctly.
In conjunction with the finger-friendly screen hardware, HTC has created software that's easy to operate by finger, using tap and gestures. HTC has created a special home screen and an application that provide large, touchable targets; and in fact HTC has written their own touch screen driver. Here's the challenge, HTC can't re-write the entire Windows Mobile operating system to make it finger-friendly and gesture-aware. We'd have to leave that up to the folks in Redmond who author the OS. So you won't see a major transformation of the Windows Mobile 6 we've come to know and (err, love?). The Programs and Settings groups look and work the same. So do IE, email, contacts, calendar and solitaire. You'll face the same stylus-sized scroll bars and tiny 'x" close box up top.
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