HP Opens Up TouchSmart To Third-Party Developers

TheTieGuy writes "HP recently released their TouchSmart Application Development Guidelines to third party developers, allowing anyone to port and create touch-friendly applications that integrate and run within the TouchSmart Software suite on their popular TouchSmart PC. As part of the release, HP has gotten behind Capable Networks' Touchsmart Community website and forum to distribute the guidelines to developers while providing an environment for TouchSmart developers to interact. Also on the site is a download hub that allows TouchSmart developers to upload and share their creations with TouchSmart owners in a central location. To kick off the new development initiative, the TouchSmart Community is running a promotion that will send one developer (travel expenses paid) to demo their software in the HP booth at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, along with a free TouchSmart PC, HP MediaSmart Server, and a month of promotion in the community."

TouchSmart

[Tubal-Cain]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

Re:

[Mozk]

I think they were going for something similar to the One Laptop per Child project, but instead it was three TouchSmarts per sentence. A laudable goal in all respects. They even threw in a "touch-friendly".

Unfortunately they only reached 2.25 TouchSmarts per sentence.

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[Tubal-Cain]

Meh, it's not my project. I have that in my sig because there are some people who (whom?) philosophically prefer Iceweasel but are required to use Windows periodically (work).

Agreed

[CdBee]

Building apps to run well in a touchscreen environment is probably a good idea - but will an app that plays well with an HP Touchsmart also run on say, XP Tablet Edition?

If this is a programming environment that relies on HPs proprietary libraries being present it hardly seems a compelling prospect

Yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

With windows 7 coming up fast, what's the point? It's going to be Microsoft's touch operations standards versus HP machine specific, proprietary standards. Were I a betting man, I'd gamble that no useful applications will be out before Windows 7 hits the market.

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[master5o1]

No, there will be useful applications (relatively), but they will need to be rewritten for Windows 7.

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[arachnoprobe]

Already there, called a MACINTOSH. ;)

HP software scares me

[El Royo]

I cringe at the thought of HP software guidelines. I can hardly think of worse software in general use than the stuff HP comes up with. Inconsistent interfaces that don't conform to the operating system standards, strange behaviors and defaults and who knows what else. They make good printers but I just hate to use the software included with them.

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[Hes Nikke]

you should see the UI on their high end equipment [hp.com]. When you're using it every day, you get used to it, but it's definitely not like any other program i've used before.

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[Fumus]

This is just an example for the scanner/printer I have, but are you aware that HP does come with bare-bones driver-only packages?
Like this? [hp.com]

I absolutely hated the scanning interface, but then I installed this and use Irfanview to invoke the other non-twain interface which is quite decent compared to the other one.

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[peragrin]

I actually played with a touchsmart for while because it is a good idea. my only gripe was the high pressure you have to apply to the surface to get it to register a contact. touch and drag works only if you jab the screen with your finger first.

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[Anonymous Coward]

They make good printers but I just hate to use the software included with them.

I was recently tasked with setting up dozens of HP printers for display in a retail chain. The software is so poor and non-modular, installing multiple networked HP Photosmart or HP Officejet printers on ANY PC causes their software to freeze and crash. Modularity often goes hand-in-hand with adhering to standards. HP's software design philosophy for consumer products is, "If the software looks nice and showcases product branding, it receives exemption from quality control". Why should we expect the Touch

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[tucuxi]

The only big drawback is "no software that takes advantage of it". From an interface standpoint, a large display with hands-on interaction can do miracles that are simply not possible with a single mouse pointer and a keyboard.

Explaining a computer-illiterate person how to use a mouse and when to left-click or right-click or double-click is much harder than saying 'all things on the screen can be grabbed like this or opened like that -- play around until you get the hang of it'. No, touchscreens are not

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[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While I agree that touchscreens, by taking advantage of mankind's atavistic finger-painting instincts, are easier for computer illiterates, I'm not sure that that is really very useful.

The world's supply of computer illiterates is either learning or dying at a fair clip and isn't really being replaced. Building hypothetical future interfaces for the benefit of the dregs of the past seems pointless. This especially so given that, in many cases, there is a tradeoff between building interfaces that are easy

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[tucuxi]

I was just making a point. I don't consider myself technologically illiterate, and would be very glad to have a whole-table, high-resolution, touch-and-pen enabled desktop; and why stop there - I want seamless computing all over my house, allowing me to interact with it with whatever is most convenient at the moment. For an on-fridge household-inventory management system, touch rocks.

Instead of dumb screens that you can only interact with through a pixel-at-a-time device that, by design, has to be on a d

I don't want touchscreen desktops

[Ma8thew]

Why on Earth would I want to spend hours with my arms extended to use a touchscreen? Five minutes would be painful enough. Besides that, there's the issue of fingerprints all over the screen. Touchscreens might have application on mobile devices, and kiosk style computers, but I don't see them replacing displays in mainstream use anytime soon.

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[teh_c0unt]

I agree with you. Touch screen technology does not seem very practical for desktop use but it does at least offer a new option for technology down the road. I don't know exactly what but maybe touch screen technology integrated with robotics? The possibilities are really endless, but yes desktop touch screen seems a little silly. Are the keyboard and mouse really holding anyone back?

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[vux984]

Why on Earth would I want to spend hours with my arms extended to use a touchscreen?

Why exactly would having a touch screen make you do that? Do you think your touchscreen equipped PC will not also have a keyboard and mouse?

Lets say you've got your nice touchscreen on a living room desk, your wireless keyboard and mouse are neatly stashed in a drawer. You've got company coming over so you tap the iTunes icon on the screen, and then tap a playlist, and walk away.

Company arrives, and a song comes on you don't

Linux Support

[JoeCommodore]

Gotta ask, does it run (on) Linux?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Since no one else asked yet...

[awpoopy]

Will it run Linux?