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November 12th, 2008, 20:21 GMT · By Marius Oiaga

Ultimately, Touch Will Make the Killer Windows 7 Applications

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Undoubtedly it is the ecosystem of third-party software solutions that make Windows the platform that it is today, sharing the operating system's success. And one measure of the success that was a business strategy based on Windows as a platform is the fact that Microsoft has gone beyond the PC to the server, mobile devices and even the Cloud with its operating system. However, what the Windows client has been missing for quite a few releases are Killer applications. In this context, Windows 7 has the greatest chance out of its precursors to act as the platform for a new breed of killer apps based on its touch capabilities.

“With Windows 7, users can directly manipulate their computer environment through multitouch for the first time. This fundamental shift in the end-user experience is similar to that which occurred with the introduction of the mouse. Users spontaneously report that they perceive touch features as an evolution toward a more 'intuitive' way of computing. They expect that touch features will make their daily PC activities easier, faster, and more convenient,” Microsoft revealed.

Early in the life of Windows, Microsoft made a bet on the graphical user interface. Now the Redmond giant is making another by integrating touch computing capabilities by default into Windows 7. Still, the successor of Windows Vista has little chance of making an impact with just hardware support. This situation changes dramatically when applications come into play. Taking advantage of Windows 7's Natural User Interface and touch and gesture based interaction model will mean a greater chance for developers to build a killer application.

“The challenge to manufacturers, developers, and designers is to create both natural and intuitive touch elements in their applications. Touch is at its most artful when there are elements of both. The question is then, what is natural and what is intuitive? Consider 'natural' input to be an onscreen touch action that has a real world equivalent. That is to say manipulating a screen object is identical to what you would do with an object in the physical world,” the software giant added.

Microsoft has had no killer applications with Windows 2000, nor with Windows XP, and certainly not with Windows Vista. And perhaps the Windows 7 touch killer applications will themselves emerge as such in hindsight, and not be NUI revelations. However, Windows 7 is ready to share some of the immense success of other NUI-enabled products such as the iPhone or the Wii console.

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Windows 7

NUI

touch

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