Brock's Software Engineering Blog

I just got super excited for Windows 7!  When Windows 7 was first announced and the list of features included “Multi Touch” technology, I was somewhat skeptical given that I wasn’t sure there would be hardware to support it.  I thus assumed it might just be a start at MT support.  But recently I have been reading up on what’s new with .NET 4.0, and hidden in the feature list is a Multi Touch API as part of WPF.  I  worked with WPF quite a bit at my last job in Boston, and it is extremely powerful and flexible.  Adding Multi Touch support will only make it more so!

This got me wondering: is Multi Touch hardware starting to emerge in anticipation of Windows 7?  It turns out it is.  Take for example these offerings from HP and Dell.

Thus I ponder the following:

1. Will I be able to buy one of these HP or Dell All-In-Ones and start creating Multi Touch WPF applications out of the box?  Or am I going to need to interface with whacky low-level Windows APIs or vendor-specific SDKs?
2. Why is Apple and its community of followers totally quiet about the idea of a Multi Touch iMac?  Maybe Apple figures that Multi Touch only works with something you hold in your hand.  I could see my arm getting tired using a Multi Touch All-In-One all of the time.
3. Multi Touch applications for full-fledged Windows PCs could be the killer selling point and marketing appeal of Windows 7 that no one has seen coming yet.

Well I hope this all shakes out the way I want: to buy a Windows 7 All-In-One this fall and start writing Multi Touch applications in pure WPF.