LOS ANGELES--In addition to getting to spend a few minutes playing around with Windows 7's new desktop, I had a chance to play around with its multitouch gestures.
The brief look came on a machine running a later build than the one Microsoft handed out to developers last week. More similar to the version that was shown onstage Tuesday, the machine I used had the new desktop featuring the Aero Peek and other features.
I thought it might help to show some of the features in a short video. (It was me holding a Flip video camera, so apologies for the jitters and less-than-ideal sound.)
Along with the gestures themselves, Microsoft has tweaked the desktop to support touch, doing things like spreading out menu lists to make the operating system easier to navigate with just a finger.
To scroll through a Word document, for example, users can run their finger anywhere in the Word window (not just in a narrow scroll bar). It has also added some visual cues, such as making a window bounce when one has reached the end or beginning of a document. That helps, because it can be a little hard at first to figure out which way to flick to head down a window.
The key question is going to be how much software developers take advantage of touch and how many computer makers include the necessary hardware in their laptops and displays.
In general, Microsoft has aimed with Windows 7 to provide features that don't require third-party support to light up. But touch is an exception. If you don't have a machine that supports touch, you get none of the benefit.
Many programs will have support for basic gestures, such as scrolling, but what will also be interesting is seeing programs that truly take advantage of the technology.
Microsoft's approach with Windows 7 also highlights a key difference with Apple. The Mac maker has focused, at least thus far, on expanding the touch abilities of the laptop trackpad. Microsoft, meanwhile, seems aimed at touch on the screen itself--though trackpad makers such as Synaptics have added support for gestures that XP and even Vista laptops can take advantage of if their makers' wish.
One Windows PC maker, Hewlett-Packard, has been branching out on its own, adding its own line of touch-screen computers ahead of Windows 7. It has updated its TouchSmart PC a couple of times and is also targeting the technology for laptops. Last week, HP also opened up its TouchSmart interface to developers.
When people get a chance to try out Microsoft's Surface touch-screen tabletop computer, they often wish they could take one home.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Monday that the company is trying to speed up that process after getting a lot of demand for a consumer version.
Mark Bolger, director of marketing for Microsoft's surface-computing effort, shows off the company's new touchscreen tabletop PC last May. The company is still working to ship the product.
(Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)When Microsoft announced its plans for Surface last spring, the stated plan was to bring the technology to consumers eventually, but the company warned that it could be five years before a version of the products would be on shelves at the local Best Buy.
But the company got a lot of pushback on that timing, Ballmer said.
"We're going to follow our nose," Ballmer said, indicating that Microsoft hopes to shorten the gap before a consumer version is available.
That said, at the moment, Microsoft still has its hands full trying to ship the first machines to its handful of early customers: folks in the hotel, casino and retail businesses. The tech giant had hoped to start having models up and running for those customers by the end of last year, but now is aiming to do so by spring.
From the moment I played with the iPhone and Microsoft's Surface tabletop computing technology, I have been waiting for pinch-zooming and other motions to make their way into mainstream PCs.
The wait is essentially over.
Although it's the MacBook Air that's been getting all the ink for adding such gestures, Synaptics announced at the Consumer Electronics show last week a version of its touchpad for Windows notebooks that will also support a range of gestures, including methods for continuous scrolling, zooming in and out, and trackball-like movement.
And that's just the start.
"There will be more gestures forthcoming," said Mark Vena, vice president of Synaptics' PC business unit.
Gesture touchpads do everything that ordinary touchpads do, of course. What they add is the ability, through software, to translate finger movement into on-screen motion. For instance, the touchpad on the MacBook Air translates a twist of the fingers in the rotation of a photo on-screen.
It will take a little time before Windows PCs with the new gesture-capable touchpads hit the market. Vena said that the first models should ship in late March or early April, though he wouldn't say which computer makers have signed up for the new version. Vena said the MacBook Air announcement is helping his business, particularly with computer makers that were on the fence about redesigning models to include the new touchpad.
"None of them have been dismissive of gestures," he said. "Some have been a little more, shall we say, deliberate."
Gestures have been slowly making their way onto PCs for a while, mainly via the notebook's trackpad. For some time, Mac and Windows laptop owners have been able to scroll up and down a page by swiping their fingers along the pad.
Microsoft included support for gestures in its earliest plans for Vista, but was primarily focused on using a pen, not touch.
Toshiba showed off PCs and laptops at the Ceatec trade show in October that could be operated by gestures. Flick your wrist to the right, the page goes forward. To the left, back. Also at Ceatec, Sharp showed off a gesture screen that takes commands from three fingers. Pioneer has a GPS car unit that can be operated with gestures: touch the hologram for parking and the GPS unit tells you where the nearest lot is located.
Vena gives a lot of credit to Apple for getting consumers excited about the concept.
"The iPhone has done a great job of educating the marketplace on the benefits of touch technology and what you are able to do with it," he said. "There's just a lot more (understanding) in the minds of consumers in terms of what gestures are capable of."
Adding such gestures should be a no-brainer. It's just a better experience, much like the graphical user interface was eminently more enjoyable for most people than a character-based system. Die-hard DOS fans might have a point that command-line interfaces can be more efficient for those who like memorizing commands, but most people prefer a more natural way of navigating through a computer.
Such is the case, I believe with gestures. Take zooming in and out of the screen. Apparently, there is a feature in Windows, using the control key and the scroll wheel, that enables zooming. I didn't know about it until Synaptics mentioned it Wednesday (although I'm sure my educated readers have been doing this for years). But any product that lets me pinch to zoom in and out leaves an indelible impression in my mind.
Whether it's Surface, the iPhone, or the new MacBook Air, they all make me want to do the most important gesture--reach for my wallet.
CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos contributed to this blog.
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