On WM phones with capacitive screens

May 14, 2009 10:02 GMT  ·  By

As many of you might already know, Microsoft's Surface is one product that has not been developed for consumers, yet it seems that the Redmond company is determined to make some of the Surface applications available on a few other products it has in the works, including the upcoming Windows 7 for personal computers, as well as future iterations of its Windows Mobile platform.

As the company announced recently the availability of Microsoft Surface SP 1, General Manager Brad Carpenter said a few words on the product, its features and capabilities, including the multi-touch functionality and gestures it supports. And there are a lot of impressive things that have been added to the product's interface, which has been nicknamed “No touch left behind.”

The one thing that holds our interest is whether the gestures that are now available on Surface will come to mobile phones featuring the company's Windows Mobile platform, and it seems that the wait for such features will not be in vain after all. The development team is working on the creation of consistent gestures, Carpenter says, and they might become available in the future not only on Surface, but on Windows or on Windows Mobile as well.

“There's lots of interest around multi-touch and NUI [Natural User interface] inside Microsoft and that's great, but making sure we have consistency is important. We are at the stage where we are internally driving to an agreement about what is the right set of gestures, but we have to think about this across devices,” he says.

Currently, a hardware solution that will offer support for all ten fingers is in the works, though it will only work on Surface for the time being, as both Windows Mobile and Windows will need a lot of development until reaching the same state of advancement. In the meantime, Windows Mobile handsets featuring touchscreen capabilities will only offer support for single-figure gestures. According to Carpenter, future mobile phones that will include capacitive screens should be able to change that.