If you add all of that up you begin to see that touch and speech will become the predominant ways we interact with devices in the future. To do this, however, there is a tremendous amount of technological innovation still needed. Innovations in hardware and software, specifically, are still needed to bring touch computing to its full potential.
Next Generation Software
Over the past 30 years the software industry has written software for devices with a mouse and keyboard; imagine what the next 30 years will bring for touch computing platforms.
Also, think about the reach of the PC as we know it today. Industries were created, transformed, and many are still transforming.
Touch computing and the next-generation software that gets created will even further transform industries like health, education, entertainment, media, agriculture, government, business and more.
We are already seeing iPads being used by doctors, educators, students and field researchers in amazing ways, all made possible by touch computing.
The point can be made that the PC as we know it today can technically do all the things a tablet can do. Although true, the tablet is a better suited form factor for touch computing because of its design and portability.
We will see a range of form factor innovations around tablets, too—for example, designs like the Asus Transformer, which has a tablet dock with a keyboard. We are seeing designs of tablets with slide out keyboards, similar to mobile phones with slide out or flip out keyboards.
(MORE: Asus Eee Pad Transformer: $399, April 26 Launch)
For those still skeptical, touch computing is coming to traditional PCs as well via the trackpad.
Apple has been integrating multi-touch gestures into the Mac operating system for several years now and with its next release—OS X Lion—there will be even more. New and exciting software for the Mac operating system that utilizes touch computing is just around the corner.
(MORE: Your Mouse Is Doomed)
For the Windows consumers, Synaptics, a leading provider of trackpad technology, is developing new innovations aimed at bringing mutli-touch and touch computing gestures to the traditional PC.
These innovations and more are what will lead touch computing to be used on a range of different devices—which will lead to a wider range of consumer choice in form factors built around touch computing.
What’s encouraging to me as a life long student of the technology industry is that we are only half way through our computing journey. The last 30 years brought some of the most amazing innovations ever created. However the next 30 years worth of innovations will truly change the world.
Ben Bajarin is the Director of Consumer Technology Analysis and Research at Creative Strategies, Inc, a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm located in Silicon Valley.