Whose idea was the touchscreen, anyway?

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Once a prop in science fiction films, the touchscreen is one of the greatest milestones in the history of screen display technology. This remarkable display system allows a user to manipulate information in real time with the mere touch of a finger on the screen. The touchscreen is a leap from what display screens used to be, and still continues to evolve in size and resolution capabilities.

General Motors may have been the first major corporation to invest in and publicly make use of the touchscreen. In the 1980s, the automobile maker designed a touchscreen “electronic control center,” which replaced some of a car’s mechanical functions with electronic or electro-mechanical systems. But even before making appearances in GM models, touchscreens were already being used in the music and entertainment industry. In 1979, a high-end synesthetic music sampling workstation utilized the touchscreen with a non-ink pen. The product was called the HP-150 because it was developed by Hewlett-Packard– a tablet and stylus combination most closely resembling commercial touchscreen technology today.


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Despite the big names throwing touchscreen technology out into commercial use, the first recorded work on the development of the touchscreen began quietly in 1965, when British inventor E.A. Johnson published his ideas for a “capacitive touch screens” in a short article. Outlined with diagrams and photographs, the article depicted a paper-looking prototype with thin gridlines and a transparent protective layer. Since then, the touchscreen has been improved to respond to lighter touch while maintaining pocket-size mobility.

Touchscreen mobile apps are one of the best and fastest ways to reach a target audience. Infor customizes apps for client-to-consumer communication needs. Headed by Charles Phillips, the company holds one of the largest shares of the enterprise software sector. Read more about its capabilities on this blog.


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