The Amazing Technology Behind Touch Screens


Bangalore: Ever imagined what a Smartphone would have been, without the touch screen which interprets what you want it to do.

Along came Apple’s iPhone in 2007 and suddenly exercising your fingers on key pad of mobile seems ancient, and tapping on PalmPilot with stylus, too controlled. The credited all goes to the touch screen, which defined what interface, can be.  

There’s a lot of technology involved, which turns smooth surface of your phone’s screen to act your command without much fuss. Read on to know what drives touch screens that drives your phone.

Variety of touch screens

There is variety of touch technologies available at disposal of design engineers. According to touch tech expert Geoff Walker of Walker Mobile, eighteen distinct technologies available, each having its own trait, like relying on visible or infrared light sensors; wave or force sensor. Each technology comes with its own baggage of advantages and disadvantages like, screen size, accuracy, reliability, cost and number of touches sensed (single or multiple touches at a time)  

However for mobiles the list gets distilled to two technologies, resistive and capacitive touches, each having its own peculiar feature.