Windows 7 to get more touchy-feely
For those wondering when touch features such as those found on the Surface PC or iPhone would make it into mainstream PCs, the answer appears to be "whenever Microsoft gets around to releasing Windows 7." — A Microsoft blogger said this week …
Context & Ripple Effects
By late 2007, multi-touch has two high-profile showcases but neither sits on a conventional PC: Microsoft's [[a:none|Surface]] table and Apple's iPhone have defined what the interaction looks like, while mainstream Windows machines still assume mouse and keyboard. A post this week from a Microsoft blogger argues that gap closes only with the next full Windows release — the point being that touch on the desktop is gated by the OS, not by available screens.
The claim is explicitly unconfirmed — Microsoft has not committed to shipping Surface-style touch in Windows 7 — and pickup beyond CNET was limited to a single syndicated version, so this reads as directional signal from inside the company rather than an announced roadmap item.
First-order effects
- If the blogger's read holds, PC makers' desktop-touch ambitions stay parked until Windows 7 ships, because the OS layer — not touchscreen supply — is the bottleneck for making built-in touch usable at scale.
- Until then, Apple's iPhone and Microsoft's own Surface remain the reference points consumers actually associate with touch, keeping the showcase off mainstream PCs.
Second-order effects
- Laptop and display vendors get an incentive to spec touch-capable hardware ahead of the OS so they can ship touch-enabled PCs the day Windows 7 lands, rather than waiting a generation behind.
- Microsoft's Surface effort functions as a reference design for its own ecosystem, letting the company demonstrate the interaction model it wants OEMs to adopt without committing to volume hardware.
Third-order effects
- Touch moves from niche kiosk peripheral toward expected operating-system capability, which sets up the next Windows cycle as a contest over whether direct manipulation replaces or merely supplements the mouse-and-keyboard desktop.
- Because the enabling change sits in Windows rather than any single device, whoever controls the OS release cadence effectively controls how fast touch reaches the mass market — a structural shift in where interface innovation originates.
The trend: Personal-computer input is migrating from mouse and keyboard toward direct touch, with the pace set less by screen availability than by operating-system release cycles.